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Saturday, February 15, 2003
Roperos: An Afghan impression
By Godofredo M. Roperos
MY brother-in-law, Dr. Arne Hansson, a Swedish transport system expert who has worked on so many World Bank projects, from Zimbabwe to Indonesia, as consultant, had to go to Afghanistan in connection with one of his projects.
My sister, Lorna, sent me excerpts from Arne’s e-mailed impressions to her.
His observations seem interesting enough to share with Sun.Star’s readers.
“Kabul, Saturday: ...All’s well here. Very peaceful looking, like anywhere in Central Europe and not really adventurous at all. The Khyber Pass is the only place said to be remotely dangerous, and we had to bring an armed guard, but it’s not even in Afghanistan! It’s on the Pakistani side of the border. So all I can complain about so far, apart from the small wardrobe, is it seems boring.
“Kabul, Monday:...Kabul has been rather cold and misty since I arrived but today it’s better, sunny and +10. Probably still frosty during the nights but my hotel room does have an electric heater and anyway I don’t mind much. My real winter gear like the thick sweater is still in the suitcase.
“Car parts, electronic equipment, computers, etc., are bought cheap in Iran, driven up across Tajikistan via Turkmenistan and down to Kabul, “sold” there to a company which they own themselves, then exported to Pakistan as ‘used’ Afghan goods (=exempt from the 500 percent import duty), and resold to unsuspecting customers as the latest all brand new directly from Japan.
“A recent World Bank report says about Afghanistan: ‘the poorest and most miserable country on earth’. Poor ok, but why miserable? Arrogant creep. Probably some miserable American who has no clue what life is about.
“Kabul, Tuesday: “...Bread is the staple food here, usually baked like Nan but oblong instead of round. Very good when warm—I used to have that for both breakfast and lunch, first with eggs and then usually with some hot vegetable soup (like chick-peas). The “dinner food” is a mixture of Indian/Pakistani, Persian and Central Asian (Turkistan, Tajikistan, etc.).
“But good as that sounds, it’s severely handicapped by the problem of local ingredients. Not many vegetables, and are like the cold and stony soil or sand. Lakes and rivers have very fresh water but are probably too cold for fish because there is never any in the menus.
“Meat is OK but too expensive for most people, except chicken. For dinner I usually prefer Indian/Pakistani, when available, like Rogan Josh or Biryani. But there are also some very good (Persian?) specialties like Yoo Khan: large dumplings with minced lamb meat and herbs, wrapped in a thin wheat paste and served in their own sauce.
“Kabul has a post office, but after being there I’m not convinced they can read addresses in English letters. You could probably manage actually: the two main languages Dari (similar to Farsi) and Pashto both use Arabic letters, although adding some letters of their own. The digits are also Arabic, and many phrases like a salaam aleikum...
“Saturday:...My driver will take me to the border, which is most of the way. But he and the car have no permits for Pakistan so I’ll have to taxi through the Khyber Pass to Peshawar. We’ll try and leave very early, so with luck I may be able to catch the Peshawar-Lahore flight at 5 p.m. If there are available seats, etc.
“Lahore, Sunday, 26th January:Great that we are in touch again. In a way feels like a vacuum in between the Afghan mountains, and then also in the Khyber Pass 8-9 hours without any possibility of contacting the outside world. Not even satellite phones work.
“The Pakistanis up here in the north are a quite different people from those down south. Like the Afghanis, most are a mixture of Persians and various Mediterranean people from the West, tribes like the Tajiks and Turkmenis from the North, and Mongol people from across the Himalayas.
“If it wasn’t for the clothes and, the universal moustache, many or most could pass as Europeans. Alexander the Great was probably the first Greek to cross the Khyber Pass and 5 percent are still blond and blue-eyed.
(February 15, 2003 issue)
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