The dusk is electric this Holy day evening of Ramadan. To the south the horizon dances with light as a dry storm flashes its skirts with light but makes no noise. Two hours after the fast is broken and the air is full of voices. The voices of mullahs chanting the broadcasts. A legion of…
My neighbours? My neighbours are no different to your neighbours. Sure they live in a rabbit warren of mud roofed, grass sprouting houses all interconnected by covered walkways. Probably a bit different to the McMansion or Californian Bungalow or nondescript Australian Housing Estate Modern style over your back fence. But their kids play and shout…
The Taliban conveniently announce the 12 May will mark their summer offensive kick off. Other reports and rumours underscore that date with hints of a big and signatory attack on Kabul, possibly the airport. Great. Goodonya. Thanks. I am flying out of Kabul on the 12th. I dropped off to sleep last night testing what…
You can find humour anyhere. If you look for it. In fact in this place, to which we should ascribe ingrained sadness, there is a vein of light heartedness that everyone is so ready to tap. As friend Ray noted last week, these people are so quick to laugh and smile, unless and until you…
Afghanistan now stretches out below me like an old brown blanket, little patches of squares hinting at villages made of those clay walled square compounds. We have quickly left the snow capped ramparts that surround Kabul. Two months ago the city was captive to blue white, but the rising temperature has quickly melted that away.…
As we roll into election week there is a fragility of life that stabs us every day, despite the so necessary ‘get on with living’ attitude that pervades this place. An attack yesterday – or was it the day before, it’s easy to lose track – on a guest house is applauded for its failure,…
I feel very relaxed getting about this town. But to be sure I am always looking. Even when I don’t know I am looking. We were creeping through traffic today and in my peripheral vision a vehicle going the other way suddenly stopped beside us, with a slight screech of rubber.
I come up the stairs at the end of the day, negotiating a brick that is placed on the marble step least I step on a pattern that is remarkably akin the Arabic script for God, past the kitchen from which leaks the strange sounds of a woman singing over a crackly radio, and I…
Apparently the prospect, memory or concept of sex crosses the male mind every eight minutes on average. (Who measures these things? And how?) If ever there is a cure for the wandering mind it’s a four hour walk down a glacier in summertime, when crevasses are open, icy maws with white flecked palates and blue…
I woke at first light, snuck out in the icey slap your face cold to the latrine, then snuggled back into the sleeping bag only to be told ten minutes later it was time to get up. Arrgghh.