Sylvia's Journal

Apparently there is a serial on Afghan TV about a prison break and so there were many jokes about the Taliban having picked up the idea for their tunneling into the Kandahar prison from watching TV (secretly of course). Allegedly, the earth they dug out of the tunnel was put in trucks and sold on the market as fill. I sensed there was some awe about the brazen and clever act that, once again, embarrassed the Afghan leadership – right under their noses.

As we drove across town to the US compound I wondered how many of the liberated commanders had already made their way to Kabul. How would you recognize a Taliban commander from an ordinary Afghan? At the US compound security was enhanced. Four beefy American soldiers in full battle gear stood guard where usually Afghans stand. They frisked my two Afghan colleagues but let me through. I do wonder whether the freeing of prisoners, after 8 months of digging, was intended to happen two days before the big parade of Mujahideen Day – the same day on which Karzai escaped an attempt three years ago. Is there another brazen plan?

I have been having lunch with some of my female colleagues for a few weeks now. With the prohibition that office cleaners can no longer be used to deliver lunch to people’s offices more of the women now come to the cafeteria where there is a separate lunchroom for ladies. When I just arrived I thumped my nose at it, mostly because it was tawdry and uninviting – very few women ever ate there. I had some misguided idea then that these separate lunches were silly and asked both men and women why they couldn’t eat together. Now I know better. Lunching separately makes perfect sense.

We are trying to make the ladies’ lunchroom more welcoming so we can socialize rather than simply fulfilling a physiological need. We have ordered tushaks (the low cushions common in Afghan rooms), a small table, and pillows. I am told that as soon as it is cozy and comfy the men will invade it. We’ll see about that.

Having lunch together is nice – the women talk much more than the men who concentrate on eating, mostly in silence. The women sit around a small round table where we do the opposite: I think we talk more than we eat. Most of the talk is in local langauge so I get some serious language immersion. I also learn a lot about life for Afghan women. Today I learned that in some areas of Afghanistan men traditionally refer to their wife and children as ‘the kids’ a collective noun that doesn’t distinguish between female adults and kids. It takes an assertive woman to change this. Some of my female colleagues have successfully done so.

I disclosed that I had had a lesson in Pashto yesterday and indicated which letters I found hard to pronounce. There is one letter that looks like a N but sounds, at least in Nangahar Province (East of Kabul), like an ‘l’ ‘r’ and ‘n’ all rolled into one. It requires some serious tongue gymnastics.

My innocent inquiry led to a serious discussion about where the most proper Pashto is spoken – none had any standing in this debate as two were native Dari speakers, and three had a Dari speaking mom and a Pashto speaking dad; only one was all Pashto but still a mixture of Kandahari and Kabuli Pashto with the latter having no chance of being considered pure.

My Pashto teacher doesn’t speak much English so I am being taught in Dari., effectively getting two languages for the price of one. There are many words that are the same but also many that are completely different. Unlike in Dari there are male and female words. I am already discovering that plural and singular word forms are quite different from each other. There are new letters that look a bit like Dari letters but with a completely different pronunciation. They have dots and circles at unexpected places – some letters are real tong twisters – and then, I am told, there is a grammar that is much more complex.

I have a Rosetta Stone Pashto program which I tried on for fun over a year ago. At the time I was completely lost and gave up halfway Unit one – Lesson One. Now, with my improved Dari I am no longer lost, progress through many lessons quickly and on some exercises did quite well at least in word/sound recognition.