KABUL LETTER:Despite the continuing conflict, lavish weddings and intense shopping experiences give life in Kabul a degree of normality, writes ORLA FAGAN
FROM THE air, Afghanistan is a vast, empty, dry, mountainous terrain, mainly treeless and grassless.
The mountains are vast and brown and villages are difficult to make out as the clay brick structures look like the terrain.
Kabul is a set in a valley, where even the trees look brown. It is a big dust bowl and during the hot summer months the roads become dusty dirt tracks.
What is unexpected during the summer is the variety of flowers and gardens. Some of the security barriers along the footpaths in Kabul are obstructed by large concrete circular structures which are filled with earth and used to grow roses. All end up covered with dust but they are a welcome sight in an otherwise grey city.
There are beauty parlours on many streets that look like the seedy adult shops you find in the developed world. The windows are heavily curtained and it is impossible to see inside but the women leave looking glamorous with full make-up and fashionable headscarves matching the outfits they are wearing. These women are from the middle classes and don’t wear the burka. It is the poor who are covered up and cannot afford a visit to a beauty parlour.
Around Kabul, the most popular variety of burka is the blue version, which drags along in the dust from behind but comes just above the knee at the front and has holes punched around the eye area for visibility. It is not uncommon to spot stiletto heels under the burkas which humanise the invisible body. Watching women on the streets covered like this is like observing ghosts moving around.
Every morning women in burkas arrive to clean the offices and houses of the wealthy residents. When they arrive at the gate, they face the peep hole and pull the burka up to sit on top of their head so the security guard can see who they are allowing inside. For about €6 anybody can buy a burka and experience the claustrophobic world from the other side of the punched holes.
Away from such a world weddings are occasions when all Afghans let their hair down. And the wedding business is big. Couples often spend the remainder of their married lives clearing the debts they incur from their wedding day. Guests can number up to 1,500 people, with extended family, friends and whole villages attending the nuptials. Up to one tonne of rice can be consumed and everybody helps with the festivities. Women dress in Western gowns, showing their bare arms and backs, which would never ever be seen in public. One popular venue is the Kabul Paris Wedding Hall which is the size of a large hotel and surrounded by flashing fake neon trees – a kind of Las Vegas-meets-Kabul. The outside of the hall depicts flashing neon signs of couples dancing the tango and the nearby roundabout hosts a mini Eiffel Tower.
Back in the city, a helpful guide to the visitor is to know that the streets are called after the business that is conducted there. Flower Street is popular during the summer months when gardens are blooming; Butcher Street is lined with the carcases of cattle, sheep and goats hanging from the shop fronts; Toilet Street is where they sell plumbing equipment, and Chicken Street is the main shopping street but bizarrely there is not a chicken in sight. It is however a good area for carpet stores and for the expatriate a whole weekend can be spent viewing carpets and haggling over prices.
Shopping in Kabul is a social affair. Where the carpets have been made, the pattern, and the quality of each is discussed at length. Shopping takes hours, with endless cups of green tea consumed, prices discussed, forgotten and woven back into the conversation after many more cups of tea have been drunk.
North of Kabul is Istalif village – 40km away and a million miles in terms of quality of life. The elevation is the same as Kabul at 1,800 metres and a hike along the riverbed to the Aga Khan Foundation hostel involves a further climb of almost 500 metres.
Walking up from the main village you skirt around some smaller hamlets and so as not to offend the local people, dressing appropriately is essential, especially for women. Whether the weather is good or bad you have to wear long pants, with shirts that come as far as the knee and cover the full length of the arms. It is obligatory to have the head, neck and shoulders covered with a scarf, which is difficult when temperatures rise.
When we passed women at the river fetching water they crouched down and buried their heads once they realised men were walking by.
At one spot on the river a man was bathing in his shorts with two women with him covered in burkas, a sight that is not common as men and women are separated in society and women wouldn’t normally see a man in such a naked state.
The hostel offers views of the surrounding mountains and it is easy to see how the insurgents are protected by such a wild terrain.
The war and its consequences may be grabbing headlines but the people who continue with everyday life in Afghanistan do it with grace, resilience and a sense of humour. For many of them a peaceful existence is something that happens in another part of the world.