the road less travelled

highlights from the hashemite kingdom

2007-10-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

a week is much too short to experience the many sides of jordan. but here are some of the highlights from the trip: fascinating areas ripe with ancient histories & natural wonders spanning centuries, putting my place in this world into perspective.

jerash
cobbled streets with wearmarks of carriages of the roman days, towering pillars & collonnades which whisper of the power that must have dwellt in these ancient cities.

a gateway of the temple of zeus, built AD 162

the 800m long cardo maximus, or collonaded street, was first built in 1st century AD & consisted of 500 columns!!

the agora, where main markets & public meetings were held

the cathedral, covering the remains of an earlier temple

remnants with the modern jerash in the background

dead sea
we spent on luxurious day bobbing & rolling like corkscrews on the surface of the dead sea. alternating floating on the thick oillike mineralrich water with coatings of black salty mud, it was a great & fun experience, not to mention reviving & revitalising. wish i had a dead sea closer to home...

jordanian coast, with a hazy israel on the other side:

warm black luxurious mud!

petra
finally, petra. what to say, this place blows me away, i don't know which pictures to chose to convey some fraction of the feeling of this aweinspiring place.... narrow passageways of towering rock, sandstone of shifting reds yellows browns, the most amazing stonecarvings which unfold around every corner, highly developed architectural & engineering feats from an intriguing ancient civilisation... several days of jumping around on the cliffs would have been needed to explore the 800 registered sites in petra - & it is estimated that only about 5% of petra has been excavated... next time i am bringing my climbing & hiking gear...!

djinn (spirit) blocks, built by nabataeans in the 1st century AD

the siq, a narrow 1.2km passageway with sandstone walls towering skywards up to 200m

remnants of a stonecarving, with a man leading a camel that is still discernible in the rockface

the siq ends dramatically with the al-khazneh (treasury), remarkable well-preserved with it's fantastic carvings.

the name stems from a local legend of hidden treasure, but it was actually a tomb for a nabataean king. it dates from somewhere between 100 BC to 200 AD.

the area is full of tombs, with facades carved out of the rock

the roman soldier's tomb

the monestary was built in 3rd century BC as a nabataean tomb, but is thought to have been used as a church in byzantine times, hence the name

view of the kings tombs

rock detail

istalif

2007-09-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

(these pictures were actually taken this past spring, but better late than never...)

istalif is a picturesque village about one hour north of kabul, lying at the base of the hills looking out over the shomali plain. it has a long tradition & history of making pottery. much was destroyed during the taliban, but families who have passed on the skills from generation to generation are now rebuilding & trying to make a living off brightly coloured bowls & vases. sisterester worked with the istalifi potters for almost a year, to improve the quality of the production.

ruins

view over shomali plain

resource centre

from dust....

...to finished bowls

those were the days

2007-08-05T06:19:00.000-07:00

making our way back into town along the infamous jalalabad road, accompanied by an afghan music channel, the famous ahmed zahir starts singing a dari rendition of those were the days.

the slightly twangy wavery afghan lyrics combined with the so-familiar tune sounds a little odd; but as i listen the impact of the words in this context sink in... those were the days, when this country was not so infested with external interests, when the powerplays & wargames of presidents & rulers of the world did not yet dictate the present reality of the millions of little people trying to make it from one day to the next in this odd hodgepodge of interests called afghanistan.

it's been going on for so long, it's now as much a part of reality here as the dust we breathe...

when were the days when there wasn't an external interest pulling the strings?
will there ever be a day when the afghans can "sing & dance" to their own tunes, when they will "fight & never lose " and ultimately "live the life they choose"?

“you can tell a happy cyclist by the flies on his teeth”

2007-07-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

(quote: a great postcard i have on my fridge.)

our dear world is ripe with overuse underuse abuse, the imbalance of resources overproduced underproduced, & the wastage, oh wastage galore! it's easy to get depressed thinking about the consequences of our present ways of life.

biking fits in very nicely into the equation that seems so completely impossible to solve: trying to turn the trend of wear & tear on Mother Earth. the reasons for increasing levels of biking abound, & i will hereby endeavour to explore some of them.

ONE
biking does not cause pollution
the issue of pollution is one that is all too easy to simply sweep under the rug as we once again ease into the leatherupholstered seat of our glossy car & cruise away. I won’t go into the statistics of the number of cars that infest this earth, but we all know the general picture. it’s enough to look at any street in any city to assess the damage. here we can mention the tragic example of china, where bikes used to be the main mode of transport, but the rise to modernism has brought the Individually Owned Vehicle to the masses. considering the population of china, this is scary indeed.

TWO
bikes do not cause congestion (well, tour de france is perhaps the exception….)
overcrowding of vehicles is a major problem in many big cities. not enough p places, & woe you if you are out in rush hour! kabul is a prime example of this. this city was definitely not built for the huge influx of exhuastpuffing engines infesting every spare inch of street. & not any old cars at that, a large percentage happen to be big oversized landrovers & landcruisers (which, mind you, do come in handy during the muddymuddy winters…). not to mention the warmachines, & the ramshackle busses that have so graciously been handed down from various european countries where their aged services are no longer required.

THREE
biking gives you free exercise
it is a concerning fact that obesity is now a serious nutritional problem, a bizarre contrast to the starvation & poverty that is a stark reality for so many millions. too much sitting still, too much standing still, too much eating - & ‘bad’ eating at that. it is suggested that a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise is necessary to maintain health. by biking to work, to the grocery store, or just for the sheer lovely pleasure of feeling the wind in your face, these 30 minutes would be spent with no effort!! (granted: this does not work in afghanistan at present. although many people do bike, these people are exclusively men. i have been told by a couple afghans that afghan ladies certainly used to bike. but at present….? this is indeed a very sad thing.)
furthermore, biking does not put much strain on your lower limbs & joints, & can be very useful for an array of different pains & aches.

FOUR
biking makes you happy
it is generally believed that endorphines are released when muscles are in action. endorphine is a biochemical compound released after strenuous exercise which acts as a natural painkiller & gives you a sense of well-being, even exhilaration. biking is a prime endorphine-releaser!
furthermore, the pleasure of being engulfed by sights & sounds & smells as you cruise through fields & forests, the satisfaction of gaining the crest of an impossible hill that you thought would never end, then flying down the other side at 50-60km/hr, singing some crazy song from highschool & feeling that you might just lift off the ground.

FIVE
biking gets you where you need to be
ok, so biking is not as fast as driving. but why does everything have to go so dreadfully fast? (i am very much aware of a contradiction here... i tend to be the worst offender of squeezing too many things into too little time, & rushing is thereby guaranteed... but we all need something to work on...) back to the point: with a bike you can get to most places, in fact, in some cases it can be quicker than the public transport due to traffic & all (tried & tested in gothenburg for 5 years, & madrid for 2 weeks). plus, as with walking, you are much more likely to notice the little details of life as you roll along: breathe in the smells, the wind, the birdsong. & the weather is only as big a deal as you make it. we have a saying in sweden: there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. sure, you'll need another layer to deal comfortably with rain & snow, but riding with raindrops in your face, spraying through puddles or taking a tumble in a pile of snow can be very invigorating! (although i have to say, a strong headwind is not my favourite.... but who said life was perfect?)

SIX
biking does not (generally) kill
sure there are accidents, but i'll bet anything most of them are associated with crazy drivers not used to or willing to share the road. deaths in traffic are so unnecessary, & could be virtually eliminated by more people biking!!

SEVEN
biking is the way forward.

the end.

el camino con azadi

2007-07-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

the following are a few details from
my trip with azadi across northerna spain
from roncesvalles to santiago de compostela.

cathedral in puente la reina

cathedral in burgos

cathedral in frómista (complete with storks)

cathedral in leon

cathedral in rabanal del camino

altitude: 1270m

...& the cathedral in santiago...

NB azadi means freedom in urdu,
& i can't think of a better name for my bright red two-wheeler.

daily bread

2007-06-05T22:55:00.000-07:00

no afghan meal is complete without the freshly made nan, & i feel compelled to dedicate an entry to this central feature of the afghan culinary culture: it is eaten for breakfast, with tea & maybe cream or jam to dip in, and for lunch & dinner, soaked in soup or used as an eating utensil to scoop up the food.

this nan, which comes in regional variations, is made in tandoors (big ovens) sunk in the ground, with their sooty gaping mouth at the top. a fire at the bottom heats the claysides of the tandoor, on which the nan is baked. this breadmaking is a highly collaborate effort!

one man forms little balls of dough;
one man rolls them out to thin pancakes;
one man is responsible for slapping these flats onto the sides of the oven.

before baking, a sprinkling of sia dana (black onion seeds) &/or khash khash (poppy seeds) adds the finishing touch. the steaming results are then displayed & sold a little differently depending on where you are: in large baskets wrapped up in layers of cloth to keep the heat, or hanging up in the nan-e wayis (bakeries).

the most common bread is an elongated large bread which can easily for used as a eating utensil. it is also made as a round, & for some reason it tastes better in this shape... the best bread (according to my opinion!) is found in mazar, where they are baked as thicker smaller rounds. & better still is the mazary bread that is made in the homes, nan-e khanagi; this is a treat every time i go to mazar!

nan is treated particularly. it is carried & served right side up, the handling conveys a sense of importance. after a meal, the remaining bread is wrapped in the tablecloth & kept; no nan is thrown away. dry nan is dipped in soup or tea. also, piles of dried scraps of nan can be seen on the street: old dried nan is used for feeding animals.

the word nan can also synonymously be used for food. i made this mistake the first time i was here, asking for only some nan-e afghani, meaning a simple piece of afghan bread & being presented with a fullfledged afghan meal...

variations of nan:
nan-e khushk: literally dry bread, which you ask for if you will not eat anything else, just bread.
nan-e khanagi: the nan which is made in homes, usually with coarser wholewheattype flour, giving an amazing fragrant brownbread. a definite favourite!!
nan-e bazaari, nan-e tandoori: nan from the market
nan-e roghani: breakfast nan where they knead in some ghee (fat) into the dough before rolling it out & baking it.
nan-e gird: round nan
nan-e panja kashi: large, elongated nan
nan-e tawagi: thin bread made on a tawa (like chapatti in pakistan); can also be called nan-e chapatti
kulchi-e tandoori: sweeter bread, made with milk & sugar

nan-e wayi – bakery
nan-e way – baker (men make the bread in the nan-buis, while women make the bread in the homes)
bui-e nan – aroma of nan

this steamingnanaroma compells to nibbling on the way home from the nan-e wayi, mm-hmm!
one of little luxuries of the multifaceted life here.

mobilisations & details from the field

2007-03-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

as part of the development programme for our physiotherapists we have wanted to encourage more active & manual methods of treatment. so, an australian physio has been here for almost a month to do a course on manual therapy (soso interesting & inspiring!), & we have for the past weeks been traveling a fair bit conducting training in taloqan, mazar-e sharif, jalalabad & kabul (can't go to ghazni, one of the regions where we have physios, because of deteriorated security).

here are some photos: a few scattered glimpses from the travels & a few from the training (only of the men unfortunately, can't post pictures of the ladies as this is a little sensitive).

tilework

2007-03-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

we were back in mazar-e-sharif a couple weeks back, & going back to the shrine i honed in on some of the details of this beautiful construction. the tiling & the different shades of blue are really lovely, & compared with so many historical structures & sites that have been destroyed or worn with uncare & the passing of time, the condition of the shrine is truly remarkable.

the mother of all cities

2007-03-03T03:39:00.001-08:00

so the arabs named balkh, this northern town which used to be a magnificent & powerful city. little remains to tell of this, & driving through present-day balkh you can just sense the shadows of its past glory, through the corner of your eye.

balkh was once a desirable region sought by the high & mighty: alexander the great, for example, praised the city, chosing it for his base for a few years & marrying a princess from the region. it hosted a variety of rich religious eras: zoroaster preached his beliefs a few hundred years BC; buddhist pilgrims flocked to worship at the many buddhist temples found in the region; islam entered with the arabs in the seventh century AD. it was also an intellectual centre, & many great persian writers & poets stem from the region, including rabi'a balkhi (see below).

tragically, as with many other places in afghanistan, denghis khan ravished the city in 1220, which marked the end of its glorious era. it did regain its foothold & slowly rose to some semblance of importance due to its strategic position. however, it was finally stripped of its capital status in the mid1800s after a series of particularly harsh outbreaks of cholera & malaria, & was replaced by the flourishing mazar-e-sharif, just 20 minutes down the road.

below are some pictures from this fascinating town:

rabi'a balkhi was the first woman of the islamic period to write poems in persian. her tale is tragic: she fell in love with a slave, & because of poems written to this lover she was cast in a dungeon to die by her brother. with blood from her slashed wrists she wrote her last poems on the walls of what became her grave. her tomb is now visited by girls & women who come to pray & seek inspiration for lovers problems.

the ancient walls which once protected balkh hint at the power that was; their crumbling remains now line the southern part of the town. climbing up the rise & onto these walls i soak in the marvelous view of the surrounding region of the balkh province, where the sun is setting over trees & fields just starting to prepare for the coming of spring.

orange statement

2007-03-03T02:11:00.000-08:00

there are an assortment of burqas in the world of different styles & colours. due to diligent attentions from western media, i am assuming there are few who have never seen the afghan chadari. (& i will not delve into a discussion about the practice of hiding the female side of the population while the men roam free to do & look at whatever they please...)

the most common shroud through which ladies here meet the world is a lovely clear-sky blue. a few white ones break the blue monopoly, but i have seen very few black - or any other colour for that matter - burqas used. then, last week, when walking in the bazaar in mazar i saw a row of darkgreen, black, & (shock!) bright orange shrouds!

what a brilliant way of revolting against the system while still complying with the cultural norm: the whole impersonalising role of the burqa where ladies are grouped into an anonymous mass could be challenged by the bright orange that would stand out like a flashing light on a dark street.

i would love to see an orange burqa walking around!

the time inbetween

2007-02-03T02:20:00.000-08:00

kabul has a 5th season: the Time of Mud.

after a few weeks of this sloshy state of status quo, it would seem the Cold has passed on for this year as well: longjohns, layers-upon-layers & hotwaterbottles are no longer of survival value, & the bukharis (local heaters) are no longer working overtime to keep some semblance of heat inside our rooms & offices.

so, the skies & the clear air tease with the promise of spring, and (novelty!) the other morning i heard little birds making a commendable effort to ward of winter (allow me to stray momentarily: birds are generally a rarity here, unless you go down bird-street in murad khani, the old city. a narrow man-crowded lane, adorned with an assortment of cages where all the absent birds from the skies seem to have been captured & squashed into rude mixed accommodations. in moments of frustration over the personal limitations forced on an independent spirit, i sympathise greatly... what worse crime of Freedom than to strip a bird of it's right to soar at will over the problems of this world... we are a cruel breed indeed to impose such restrictions).

but, do not be fooled! spring is weeks off yet. for a time still we will look up at the blue skies & the fantastic white mountains, while our feet tie us to the ground, slurping through the chocolatepudding glory of the kabul roads (this city, i might add, is the only one i know where city jeeps & fourwheeldrives can actually be considered legitimate...). i am again grateful for my rather masculine hikingboots (which award me continuous odd looks in this place where elegant afghan ladies elegantly navigate through the mud in their elegant highheeled shoes. i feel extremely unelegant) which do a fabulous job of keeping my feet warm & dry & clean.

& just watch. a sudden mercurial drop & a snowfall obliterating the sky will send us rushing back to sit huddling by the heaters. which isn't so bad, actually! an extension of the time which is perfect for meeting up with friends over countless cups of tea & coffee.

not bad at all.

the shrine in mazar-e-sharif

2007-02-02T20:27:00.000-08:00

ghazni

2007-01-27T01:35:00.000-08:00

band-e-amir

2007-01-24T06:15:00.000-08:00

bamyan

2007-01-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

afghan people

2007-01-23T06:02:00.000-08:00

kabul

2007-01-19T02:07:00.000-08:00

moments lost?

2007-01-19T00:18:00.000-08:00

“all those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain”

i saw blade runner recently, a bizarre movie at best, but this comment towards the end changed the aftertaste. it stuck in my mind. all these moments... what better way to preserve the Moment than with a photograph? they say pictures say more than a thousand words. a thousand words i have said, so, to sum up the words of last year, in the near future i will try to post a few images from selected experiences of 2006.

said robert frost: "two roads diverged in a wood, and i took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference"

2007-01-17T05:35:00.000-08:00

exactly one year has passed since i started the episode of my life called Aiming Hoping Trying To Make a Difference in the Physiotherapy Profession of Afghanistan.

the past months have witnessed numerous ups & downs...

the thrill of challenges waiting to be tackled
the impatience with challenges which take sooooooo much longer to tackle than i would like
the satisfaction of being able to offer something that is needed & desired
the insufficiency of my ability in the face of the magnitude of the Mountain of Needs Hopes Expections, wondering if all my efforts make any difference at all
the frustration of being stripped of independance, of freedom, of the joy of running in the forest or jumping on my bike & heading nowhere in particular
the joy of meeting & getting to know one amazing interesting person after another
the fascination of peeling away another layer of this amazingly complex context

the sum of it all comes down to the priviledge of being part of a little sliver of this intriguing complicated country. being here inspires many dreams and hopes; at times they pull in all kinds of contradicting directions. then the (in)sanity of what i am doing comes around, and i wonder what drives a routinehappy perfectionistsoul to leave a well-organised life in the comfortable developed unruffled world of sweden...?
i guess robert frost pretty well sums it up. the unknown waiting to become known, the fascinating scenery, the variety of faces on fellow travellers. the Road Less Travelled continues to beacon with it's unpaved potholed undulating path, & the thrill of flying down the slopes are well worth the arduous climbs uphill!

so, forgive the philosophical ponderings. the halfway line has been crossed & it is with anticipation (& my share of butterflies!) that i wander into the already well-filled months of twothousandandseven.

anything & everything can happen.