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The bus shuddered into the bus station in the pale light of early morning. The men got off first, followed by women and children, blinking and unsteady from the overnight journey on hard seats over pitted and rutted desert roads. We had left the town of Herat on the border of Iran and Afghanistan ten hours earlier and had finally reached Kandahar, the half-way stop en route to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
Smoke from charcoal fires drifted up and met the morning sunlight, mingling with the smell of coffee and cardoman. The men sat in small groups, slightly distant, not aloof, but distant from the women and children. In turbans, loose trousers, flowing shirts, the men smoked and talked quietly; their fierce, watchful eyes looked out from lined, leathery faces and above dark beards. But it is the women I remember most clearly; cheerful, laughing, eager to talk, vibrant and with an innate dignity and warmth. They offered to share what food they had, flat bread and goat cheese and yogurt with my sister and me. Some women wore the burka, the complete head to toe covering worn by many Afghani women, but others, tribal women and nomads, less constrained by the dictates of Islam, wore long dresses or skirts in reds, greens and blues and heavy tribal jewelry of hammered silver. They were proud, beautiful and splendid.
After an hour’s rest, we all climbed back onto the bus for the second half of this 24-hour journey to Kabul. I remember relentless, breathless heat and desert vistas, where land and sky meet in that thin line that defines space and distance. Brown, ochre, gray, the shifting hues played out across the flat plains and distant, darkened mountains, wrinkled and creviced like dried apples and figs. The landscape melted into small villages of mud-brick houses, low walls, and sun-dappled alleyways. We drove on through the shade-less glare of noon. With rivulets of sweat trickling down our faces and backs, my sister and I decided to try something we had read about in a women’s magazine to help combat the heat. My sister, Anita, pulled two cucumbers from her bag of provisions and cut them into slices. Leaning back, we carefully placed slices of cucumber on our cheeks, foreheads, and necks. Cool, so coolly moist, they provided a measure of relief from the dust and sand and unrelenting heat. The Afghanis stared at us in complete silence, in open-mouthed wonder, and astonishment. There was a moment of tense silence, and then, operating from instinct, we gingerly handed some fresh slices to a young boy whose curiosity got the better of him. Immediately everyone else wanted to try this novel and obviously intriguing activity. Women reached into baskets and bundles producing cucumbers by the dozen, and men sliced every cucumber that came their way. Soon with cucumber slices flying through the air like miniature green frisbees, we were once again in the midst of laughter, shared food, stories, friendship and were accepted and at one with our fellow travelers.
Once in Kabul, we were welcomed in that tradition of hospitality which is almost a sacred bond between guest and host. Hospitality, especially towards strangers, is a deeply held belief throughout the Middle East, and we certainly found that to be true. Of Kabul I remember the generous and genuine hospitality, the spice bazaar, the gardens, wide tree-lined streets, one main street, Chicken Street, where the hippies stayed, full of small hotels, restaurants, and shops which thrifty and ever inventive Afghanis ran, full of leather goods and kaftans, niche marketing for the hippie trade. A boy with a red box camera took my picture, and I took his in return to his complete and utter delight. Again, however, it was the women who left the lasting image; dressed in their burkas, they carried themselves with such dignity, and if the delicate fabric caught the breeze in a certain way, every movement was accentuated with billowy grace. Posture, hands, feet and quality of fabric told the stories of these women with eyes like silk.
That was the Afghanistan I visited over 20 years ago, just a year before the Soviet invasion. Traveling in Afghanistan in the late 70’s was in many ways to take a step back in time. There were, however, strange juxtapositions--teahouses with televisions, but the water was boiled over an open wood fire; donkey drawn water carts shared the main streets with Mercedes trucks, and still there were antique doors on some buildings with designs from the 13th century. It has always been a land of strange contrasts that shows the timelessness of jumbled history. The Soviets withdrew in 1989 after ten years of guerilla-type warfare, and they learned as had the British before them, that this harsh, ruggedly beautiful land and people cannot and will not be conquered. Several years of chaotic tribal and ethnic rivalry followed the Soviet withdrawal, so in 1997, when the Taliban took control of most of the country, it was with a kind of relief that many Afghans welcomed this new sense of order and stability.
The years from 1997 until the Taliban were defeated in 2002, were marked by ruthless violence as the Taliban imposed their own interpretation and brand of fundamentalist Islam onto Afghanistan, bringing terrible suffering, especially to the women. The people, long starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, the women downtrodden, uneducated, millions of widows and orphans, are slowly trying to rebuild their lives and their country. The US is still searching for Osama Bin Laden, and there are still pockets of Taliban influence, but the future perhaps looks a little brighter. In 2004, against all dire predictions, Afghanistan held the first presidential election in its bloodstained history. Ballot boxes were carried to inaccessible mountain villages and desert hamlets by donkey, and people waited for many hours to vote. The outcome of this momentous election, which got scant press in this country, partly because we were so wrapped up in our own political campaign, sent a clear message: if the loosely connected Afghan tribes can do majority rule and minority respect, so could the more literate Iraqis, numerous Egyptians, rich Saudis and Palestinians.
In the west, much of the media have demonized Islam, but I have to say that my brief encounter with the people and the religion of Afghanistan left deep and enduring memories. I remember the women I met, their beauty, strength, dignity and warmth. I remember the humor and great kindness of the men and the hospitality of both. People with so little, but they shared all they had. Islam is their strength, their life, and their guiding force, shaping their actions and deeds. There is hope for the future of that extraordinary country, and if you take nothing else away from this writing, take away that there is another side to Islam, a loving, and deeply spiritual aspect, and another face to Afghanistan than the training ground for Al Qaeda. |