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Celebrating Nowruz in Mazar-i-Sharif

We chose to cel­e­brate the Per­sian New Year, Nowruz in Mazar-i-Sharif because it is the epi­cen­ter of cel­e­bra­tion in Afghanistan. Over 200,000 peo­ple con­gre­gate at the Rowze-e-Sharif Mosque which the Afghan Shia believe hous­es the tomb of Hazrat Ali ibn Abi Tal­ib whom they con­sid­er Islam’s first Imam. Nowruz is offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized as a nation­al hol­i­day and high rank­ing offi­cials attend the cel­e­bra­tions. Although the fes­tiv­i­ties are cen­tered on the Mosque, Novruz is a pre-Islam­ic hol­i­day that is not mentioned…

Goodbye Jalalabad

The wind picked up on our final morn­ing in Jalal­abad. It was soon strong enough that we locked our win­dows and yet it howled through the cracks. By the ear­ly evening the gusts were so strong that they broke win­dows on the upper deck, broke our deck fur­ni­ture and knocked over many plants. We were about to leave Jalal­abad, our adopt­ed home, where I spent 1% of my life. Before head­ing back to San Fran­cis­co, we decid­ed to do some…

To lose and find a child in Afghanistan …

Rawed’s father Gulza­da brought him to Jalal­abad city to be seen by a doc­tor.  Sev­en year old Rawed was show­ing symp­toms of jaun­dice.  They drove into the city from a small vil­lage in the dis­trict of Sherzad.  As is com­mon prac­tice, dad tem­porar­i­ly left Rawed with a shop­keep­er from the same vil­lage and went to park the car.  “I’ll be back in a few min­utes, and then we’ll walk to the hos­pi­tal.”  When he returned the child was gone. Gulza­da is our friend Haji Najib’s ma’­ma’,…

Of Lions and Horses in the Panshir

Last Fri­day morn­ing we head­ed off at first light from the mud­dy streets of Kab­ul. We wound our way north, past Bagram, where ISAF is head­quar­tered, and took a sharp turn east in the vil­lage of Jebal Ser­aj. We’d decid­ed to take a day long pil­grim­age, of sorts, to the tomb of Ahmad Shah Masoud. His grave lies deep his home­land of the Pan­shir Val­ley which he so famous­ly defend­ed against the long and ardu­ous Sovi­et attack. Masoud is arguably…

Teleconferencing Medicine

Tues­day was one of my most reward­ing days in Afghanistan.  I wit­nessed some­thing unde­ni­ably and irre­versibly pos­i­tive. In the morn­ing an ambu­lance came to pick Dr. Pete and me up from the Taj.  We crammed along with the dri­ver in front, while 5 female OBGYN doc­tors and a male ward direc­tor sat in the back, occu­py­ing one bench and the patient cot.  I’ve rid­den in the back of this ambu­lance before and know that the cot slides around and the…

Traffic fLaws

Osten­si­bly, in Afghanistan, traf­fic dri­ves on the right hand side of the road. How­ev­er, this rule is lenient­ly applied. In Afghanistan the road is used for dri­ving, and if the left hand side of the road is open, a dri­ver will take it.  Today while cruis­ing down the lane of oppos­ing traf­fic, we had to edge back into the reg­u­lar flow to pass a check­point. The guard was angry. “Why were dri­ving on the oth­er side of the street??” He demand­ed, accord­ing to…

So like no shit, there we were…

Today we went on the PRT (provin­cial recon­struc­tion team) base in Jalal­abad. Lou had arranged the meet­ing. A New York­er was run­ning it. He spoke fast (refresh­ing­ly so, as one’s mind atro­phies from a pre­dom­i­nance of inter­ac­tion with non-native speak­ers.) He was excit­ed about a par­tic­u­lar new fund­ing stream from USAID that was meant for off­beat projects that are not being addressed by oth­er large funds. Lou had con­nect­ed a few dots and sug­gest­ed crick­et fields and now the ball…

Ladies Night…. Or Afternoon

The park in Jalal­abad is, like so many oth­er pub­lic venues, open to men only. How­ev­er, Wednes­day is spe­cial. Wednes­day is Ladies Day. So Jenn, Kel­lie and I decid­ed to take a soc­cer ball and spend a few hours hang­ing out in the park with the Ladies of Jalal­abad. The park is sur­round by tall walls, shield­ing it from the views of passers­by and the entrance is guard­ed, per usu­al, by a young man in fatigues hold­ing an AK-47. He…

Kabul to Jalalabad

The ride from Kab­ul to Jalal­abad was long and adven­tur­ous. I saw a dog being killed in Kab­ul. They are con­sid­ered pests here. Most of our dri­ve time was spent sit­ting in traf­fic on the windy seg­ment of the Kab­ul Riv­er Gorge (also called Tan­gi Gharu). Part of the rea­son for the bad traf­fic is that peo­ple tend to dri­ve on both sides of the road in both direc­tions. At first it seems like a good idea, you get a lit­tle bit…

Nangahar Public Hospital

The first time we came to the hos­pi­tal, the staff apol­o­gized pro­fuse­ly for not being able to host us. They were deal­ing with the wound­ed of a sui­cide bomb­ing inci­dent in the dis­trict. There was one casu­al­ty. Five peo­ple were in the OR. And they were embar­rassed in front of us, that such things hap­pen in their coun­try. We left, and came back yes­ter­day. Nan­ga­har Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal (NPH) is a Region­al Post-Grad­u­ate Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal for the East­ern Region of Afghanistan.…

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