It Doesn't Seem Possible

With Afghanistan in the news almost every day, I thought I should know more about the country. I had read Khaled Hosseini’s works of fiction set in that country and Greg Mortenson’s first book on setting up girls’ schools there. I wasn’t quite ready for something as serious as Taliban by Ahmed Rashid. But I did have Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between. This is his chronicle of his walk between Herat and Kabul in the winter of 2002, just after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. He had already walked across Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal. This was the missing piece. It wasn’t that he didn’t have other means of transportation. He was offered rides and warned against walking alone. But Stewart meant to walk, literally, every step of the way.

For the most part Stewart was alone. Only as he reached the more isolated, primitive villages did rules of hospitality dictate that he be provided a guide to the next village. At one point he was given a dog to be his companion. Was it really a gift? For the most part it was a liability. Now Stewart had to find food not only for himself but also for the dog. In some of the villages a dog was considered unclean and Stewart was refused lodging.

Many of the villagers were illiterate and had never been even as far as an hour’s walk outside their village. No electricity or television: hence very little knowledge of the outside world. Living in caves. Differences and jealousies between and among their groups deep and violent. But there amid these impassable mountains remnants like the Minaret of Jam and Turquoise Mountain of a lost culture.

Here is how Stewart describes himself at the end of the journey:
“My stomach had gone and I had a hacking cough. The zipper on my jacket had jammed; one of my bootlaces had snapped; and the rice bag covering my backpack had fallen to pieces. I had bedbug bites and prickly heat; my nails were long; and my hair had not been cut in four months…I ran my filthy hands over my failure of a beard, my black eye, my blistered lips and peeling nose, and looked at my clothes, which had gone unwashed for three weeks.”

As one man’s journey, this is a fascinating book. As a picture of what lies ahead of us in our country’s efforts in this region, it is terrifying.

PS: The rest of Rory Stewart's biography is equally amazing. Read it here.

A World of Difference

In November 2001 a young (age 31) Norwegian female journalist arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan. By February 2002 she had made the acquaintance of a prosperous bookseller Sultan Khan and persuaded him to allow her to come to live with his family: 3 generations, 2 wives, 13 people, 4 rooms. This book, The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad, is the author’s account of the three months that she spent in that household and in Kabul in that tumultuous time period.

Although she is fluent in five languages, Seierstad did not speak the particular dialect of the Khan household. Fortunately three of the family spoke English: Sultan, his 17-year-old son Mansur and his 19-year-old sister Leila. As you would expect then, most of the events in the book involve one of these three. The behavior of Sultan and Mansur is infuriating; and the situation of Leila heartbreaking.

The author successfully introduces much of recent Afghan history and culture – the same history and culture that Khaled Hosseini portrays in A Thousand Splendid Suns but this time it is in a non-fiction context. Having read the Hosseini book first, I found it helpful to review the history again. On the cultural side there are the stories of arranged marriages; preference for male children; the roles of women in girlhood, adulthood and old age; the burka; pilgrimage; local justice and tribal warfare. There are some lighter moments but not many. It makes sense that, when a woman is covered literally head to heel, shoes take on a special role and importance! One of the most dispiriting passages describes the restrictions that some of the women place on themselves. Even though education is made available to them after the defeat of the Taliban, many women are unable to accept and embrace their freedom.

One would like to think that in the six years since the period portrayed in the book things have improved. But I heard on the radio this morning that still today in Kabul the residents have electricity for only a few hours every other day. We are so used to rapid change in our world but we start from a much different place. One can only wonder how long it will take for true change to come to that part of the world.