My confidence in the German clinic waned a bit when I observed assistants getting the name labels of patients wrong and when one asked why it mattered if a patient was allergic to a drug, but the worst was the poison anti biotic they prescribed
5/20
Now I 've got 2 different diagnosis so I'm still in the dark about what's causing me to feel like this. Cure (sic)hospital said I don't have the big T but didn't explain fever
I'm imperfectly trying to get well on my own instincts
And the mini mobile Afghan circus girls I somehow managed to bring to the university today in spite of it all climbing all over me was way more effective than anti-biotics
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
A Hike in the Hindu Kush
May 2, 2009
A Hike in the Kush
Last weekend, I’m hiking out alone, yes, HIKING! A group of us went to the lodge above the village of Istalif (see February post)- a getaway in the mountains for people like us, restricted most of the time to guest houses and offices where we work, not even able to walk to the corner, nevermind a HIKE!
Owen, the owner, came to Afghanistan to work on hydro projects with an NGO about 15 years ago. His first hyro project was in the village just below the lodge – so he’s like god to these people – he brought them Electricity! Hot water! They let him build or he bought the land or something. The only way to find out about the lodge is word of mouth. He’s had his share of close calls- reportedly there’s a stand of T just north over the mountains, a 14 hours walk from here-in the past he’s been kidnapped but they let him go the next day- it’s different now, he says nonchalantly, if it happened today he’d be killed.
One room for men, one for women, cushions around the room to sleep on, several Afghan guys make the food, for dinner we sit around on cushions on the roof under the stars- it’s REALLY Heaven. Besides eating and sleeping there’s nothing to do but HIKE! I keep saying it because it’s such a luxury, the first time in 4 months to do anything physical and the best part is where this all takes place- the photos say it best. I felt like I was back in one of the side canyons of the Grand Canyon, except the water was rushing snowmelt, the peaks of the Hindu Kush were deep in snow and the goats clinging to the rocks had feisty little boy and girl shepherds. You get there by driving these windy mountain roads through villages whose streets are so narrow you can reach out and touch the walls of the houses as you drive by. Then the road quits and it’s a two and a half hour hike along and sometimes in the river- narrow ledges like the trails in the Grand Canyon. It’s hot and I more than ever still need to be covered from head to toe so it's taking me longer than the others but I’ve got Kevin and Owen for company- it would not do for me to be walking alone among these men who still treat their women like chattel, women whose husbands would never allow me to photograph them. Their lives are probably like the neighbor one of my students told me about: his (once) close friend married a woman, they had a kid, he tired of her, kicked her out, and kept the kid. She had nowhere to go. Her father said he’d kill her if she came home. I passed a young woman whose aging pained sunburnt face told me a similar story.
After lunch, everyone else hikes to the very top of the craggy peaks but I am already worn out from the hike in so I keep to the lower trails and run into little shepherds perched on the side among their goats. They are feisty aggressive little turks demanding with big smiles that I give them my rings (the lodge also hosts soldiers from ISAF who give the kids all kinds of stuff so that now they expect and demand it. ) Every kid I see here for the next two days will ask for a ‘pen’ .
After awhile I tire of trying to keep my rings and go down to the river where I meet a slightly older shepherd boy. We sit by the river among his goats. He points to a distant peak and I watch him and his herd make their way up the mountain side that is more cliff than anything. I watch for a very long time until the goats are dots. We exchange waves every couple hundred feet. I have really good far vision and can still make out his turquoise jacket.
The next day I’m hiking out alone because I don’t want to hold the others up, Owen is gone, Kevin is eating. Suddenly this feisty little shepherd girl from yesterday (no, I couldn’t even take her photo) comes up behind me eyes blazing and says urgently in Dari which I do not understand and body language which I do, pointing to her knee, that I must go back just as I see Cynthia turn the corner, her face striken in pain. She had decided to keep me company and immediately fell on the rocks smashing her knee. The shepherd girl is now all happy because I have rescued!? Cynthia but still asking for a pen which I duly give in exchange for a blinding smile which I will carry in my mind’s eye for a very long time. She turns to go back to her goats.
World Lit continues- We just had our first discussion of Homebody Kabul yesterday and I was quite surprised at the reaction of one of my best students- he was offended by a line from the Homebody in the monologue- about the terror of sharia law, he was offended that she called it a terror, but most shocking, when I asked him for an example- he thinks stoning of adulterers is perfectly acceptable!
A Hike in the Kush
Last weekend, I’m hiking out alone, yes, HIKING! A group of us went to the lodge above the village of Istalif (see February post)- a getaway in the mountains for people like us, restricted most of the time to guest houses and offices where we work, not even able to walk to the corner, nevermind a HIKE!
Owen, the owner, came to Afghanistan to work on hydro projects with an NGO about 15 years ago. His first hyro project was in the village just below the lodge – so he’s like god to these people – he brought them Electricity! Hot water! They let him build or he bought the land or something. The only way to find out about the lodge is word of mouth. He’s had his share of close calls- reportedly there’s a stand of T just north over the mountains, a 14 hours walk from here-in the past he’s been kidnapped but they let him go the next day- it’s different now, he says nonchalantly, if it happened today he’d be killed.
One room for men, one for women, cushions around the room to sleep on, several Afghan guys make the food, for dinner we sit around on cushions on the roof under the stars- it’s REALLY Heaven. Besides eating and sleeping there’s nothing to do but HIKE! I keep saying it because it’s such a luxury, the first time in 4 months to do anything physical and the best part is where this all takes place- the photos say it best. I felt like I was back in one of the side canyons of the Grand Canyon, except the water was rushing snowmelt, the peaks of the Hindu Kush were deep in snow and the goats clinging to the rocks had feisty little boy and girl shepherds. You get there by driving these windy mountain roads through villages whose streets are so narrow you can reach out and touch the walls of the houses as you drive by. Then the road quits and it’s a two and a half hour hike along and sometimes in the river- narrow ledges like the trails in the Grand Canyon. It’s hot and I more than ever still need to be covered from head to toe so it's taking me longer than the others but I’ve got Kevin and Owen for company- it would not do for me to be walking alone among these men who still treat their women like chattel, women whose husbands would never allow me to photograph them. Their lives are probably like the neighbor one of my students told me about: his (once) close friend married a woman, they had a kid, he tired of her, kicked her out, and kept the kid. She had nowhere to go. Her father said he’d kill her if she came home. I passed a young woman whose aging pained sunburnt face told me a similar story.
After lunch, everyone else hikes to the very top of the craggy peaks but I am already worn out from the hike in so I keep to the lower trails and run into little shepherds perched on the side among their goats. They are feisty aggressive little turks demanding with big smiles that I give them my rings (the lodge also hosts soldiers from ISAF who give the kids all kinds of stuff so that now they expect and demand it. ) Every kid I see here for the next two days will ask for a ‘pen’ .
After awhile I tire of trying to keep my rings and go down to the river where I meet a slightly older shepherd boy. We sit by the river among his goats. He points to a distant peak and I watch him and his herd make their way up the mountain side that is more cliff than anything. I watch for a very long time until the goats are dots. We exchange waves every couple hundred feet. I have really good far vision and can still make out his turquoise jacket.
The next day I’m hiking out alone because I don’t want to hold the others up, Owen is gone, Kevin is eating. Suddenly this feisty little shepherd girl from yesterday (no, I couldn’t even take her photo) comes up behind me eyes blazing and says urgently in Dari which I do not understand and body language which I do, pointing to her knee, that I must go back just as I see Cynthia turn the corner, her face striken in pain. She had decided to keep me company and immediately fell on the rocks smashing her knee. The shepherd girl is now all happy because I have rescued!? Cynthia but still asking for a pen which I duly give in exchange for a blinding smile which I will carry in my mind’s eye for a very long time. She turns to go back to her goats.
World Lit continues- We just had our first discussion of Homebody Kabul yesterday and I was quite surprised at the reaction of one of my best students- he was offended by a line from the Homebody in the monologue- about the terror of sharia law, he was offended that she called it a terror, but most shocking, when I asked him for an example- he thinks stoning of adulterers is perfectly acceptable!
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