By Jett Thomason

I recently had my first month-long work trip to Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. The trip represented a number of firsts. First time to Africa. First time to be jetting around for quick site visits rather than long-term job assignments. And first time to be representing the US government in the field with the official passport and all.

Rwanda was the first country to visit on my tour. In pre-trip reading up on the country, it was impossible to find a travel narrative that doesn’t wax poetic at the sight of small villages nestled in the misty hills and tilled plots stretching up on all sides of volcanic soil-laden slopes. And for good reason, the place is postcard bucolic beautiful. It was also impossible to find an English-language book that doesn’t also drift into commentary on “the unimaginable horror of the 1994 genocide and the subsequent re-birth of the country in an ethnicity-blind, forward-looking example of an African success story”. More on that later.

My first outing beyond the capital was to western Rwanda. In a steep mountain village several hours off the nearest paved roads, my agency has been financing a cooperative of pineapple growers that are trying to produce and sell juice for the local market. Seeing them for the first time, I marveled at the precision engineering imparted from years of selective planting. The plants rise up straight with a single pineapple resting on a short stalk. The long leaves on the top provide the perfect handle for plucking the fruit. The eyes on the side of the pineapple start to get dry just as it is at its ripest, avoiding any question about the best time to harvest, and when ripe the skin slices off easily enough but prevents birds and other animals from getting to the crop before you do.

So far, the cooperative has been making juice by laboriously slicing pieces of pineapple into small chunks and then hand-squeezing the pieces between two cutting boards. Our grant is financing a proper juicer that should dramatically decrease the amount of time and physical exertion needed for this stage. The cooperative has been incredibly productive even with this strictly manual effort, juicing, pasteurizing, and selling thousands of bottles of juice. When I saw the stockroom, the bottles had slightly misspelled English labels, but were fairly professional in appearance. It took me a minute to realize that the cooperative has recovered empty Heineken bottles for re-use. Since the beer company is one of the few in Rwanda to not recycle, it’s the first choice for a locally sustainable and affordable juice company like our grantee.

I thought that my few years of French would carry me far in Rwanda, but English is the dominant non-native language and has been ever since 1994. The genocide that started then ended when rebels, formerly based in English-speaking Uganda, swept over the country and seized control. While this linguistic heritage has served me conveniently in the capital city, out in the countryside I have to rely on the translations of our staff for communication. The Rwandan groups I have met are invariably warm and welcoming, but the intermediary translation has definitely affected my impressions of their culture.

There is a tendency for Rwandans to make a deep “mmmmm” sound as part of conversation. The sound is not a rising-then-falling “mmmmm” voicing of satisfaction. It’s much more a starts-high-then-goes-low murmur that I have decided is a mix of basic acknowledgement, indication of understanding, polite demonstration of the listener’s attention, and sometimes agreement. I have to admit I was startled the first time when the entire room filled up with this sound at exactly the same time.

“We’re very happy to see your strong progress and improvements to the facility as we begin this grant’s disbursement”, I say.

My colleague translates and then suddenly the room fills with the first “mmmmm”.

“My role in Washington is to compile the financial data and memorandums to help get projects funds to you as quickly as we can.”

Translation in Kinyarwanda, then “MMMMMM”. Increased volumes always coincided with statements related to getting funds out quickly.

photo credit: Shared Interest

I then launch into my carefully crafted statement, likening the grant process to the current preparations for the coming rainy season. They have plowed the fields and readied the grain; we are assisting with outside monies that will, like the rain, allow their work to yield a strong harvest. It is fitting, respectful, and I smugly reflect on how well the metaphor applies to the role of a rich donor country in development.

Once the translator is finished, I’m met with a quiet, fairly polite “mmm”. Not quite the rousing murmur response I had been hoping for. As we discuss some grant paperwork, the translator explains one of the first forms to be signed. A commitment to a drug-free workplace, slightly ridiculous in a country and in a village where subsistence agriculture effectively prices everyone out of a market for recreational drug use, is one of the first standard items we have to cover. It is, after all, US government money being used for the project.

Upon translation, “MMMMMM” breaks out immediately and then strong, enthusiastic clapping to this passage. The country representative and I look at each other in surprise.

“I guess they like that one,” he says.

As mentioned, it is literally impossible to find any books in my public library’s system that both discuss Rwanda but omit mention of the 1994 genocide. To broadly summarize, the majority Hutu people, who had until relatively recently been shut out of power and privilege, took up machetes and butchered nearly a million of their minority Tutsi countrymen. In the immediate wake of the genocide, the Tutsi rebel forces swept down into the country from northern strongholds, drove out the genocidaires, and proclaimed the end of ethnicity and a new beginning for the country. They also quietly re-assumed their traditional dominance of the organs of political and military power.

The new arrangement has largely worked with no breakouts of violence for more than a decade and a strong record of economic growth. That being said, for all the discussion of the genocide in the literature and even a Hollywood movie Hotel Rwanda, I have gotten a sense that any actual discussion of the events is something not suited for polite conversation while actually in Rwanda.

Instead, there are subtle clues and hints as to a person’s ethnicity. Many of the persecuted minority spent years in Tanzania and Uganda as refugees. They learned English, were exposed to more modern economies, and they have assumed many positions in international organizations like ours. There is no mention of the word “Tutsi”, but the term “returnee” seems to be an acceptable code word.

During one moment of a heated meeting with a company director on a different project visit, I caught a glimpse of the issue’s weight on the country or at least on how they want to present themselves to outsiders. I had to negotiate access to the director’s financial records by one of our staff members who the director has claimed is out to smear his reputation. As discussion becomes heated, he blurts out, “Do you know about the genocide? Do you know what happened here?”

I have no idea where this came from, we’re communicating in my slow, rusty French, and I am left slightly speechless. His colleagues struggle to jump in at this point.

“No! It’s something that cut to the heart of Rwanda! I won’t back down! I can’t allow this inspection visit from that staff member!”

Five members of his management team alternately plead in their Kinyarwanda language with him, while trying to anxiously steer the conversation away from the whole issue. My staff’s uncomfortable, I can see the managing director is angry and yet also embarrassed at his own outburst, his nearby wife appears mortified. I am more befuddled, trying to understand where this suddenly came from. Maybe a people beaten and subjected to such violence live with the scars under the surface. Or maybe this simply an irrational businessman who is used to getting his way and when pressed decides to claim victimhood so I will back down. There is a vein of truth running below the cultural surface that I won’t understand on this eight-day visit.

After visiting the pineapple growers’ cooperative, my team and I overnight in a small guesthouse.  Rising early, we drive back to the capital on a Sunday morning. The roads are crowded with people, Hutus in this case, who are making their way to Sunday church service. Shorter, darker skinned, and with broader facial features than my Tutsi staff members, there is no way to really believe that the issue of ethnicity and race is behind this country just yet. Rather than talk about the obvious features, I make a simple comment about how these rural people appear to be quite religious and diligent in their observation.

“One hand with the Bible and one hand with the machete,” says a staff member sitting in the car. “That’s the kind of religion these people have.” I say nothing. The other staff member simply murmurs a soft “mmmmm”.

Jett Thomason is now a program analyst managing small grants projects in Africa. The views expressed are entirely his own opinion and in no way are representative of any government or other institution. Over the past decade his travels and work have taken him throughout the former Soviet Republics and Europe to Afghanistan and Iraq.

By Jett Thomason

My alarm clock goes off at five. It’s been about four hours since I fell asleep. I’ve woken up to go to the early-morning festivities for a neighborhood circumcision ceremony which is locally and collectively referred to as one of several Uzbek “weddings”. I have been a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small provincial town in Uzbekistan for more than a year now. The people of my town are exceedingly friendly and known to be the most festive in the country. If there’s a wedding to go to, it will be a neighbor of mine pouring the vodka and cracking jokes for the table.

An Uzbek man can reasonably expect to be the main participant in four “weddings” in his life. There’s the bishek-toi (new baby wedding), the sunnat-toi (circumcision wedding for boys), the niqoh-toi (marriage wedding), and the final funeral celebration. All of these are pretty similar in the arrangement. Neighbors and friends and recent companions and new acquaintances and coworkers and their families all come out for the bash. Part of the wedding which is limited to men only is the morning plov ceremony that I have woken up so early for.

We can hear the horns before we can see the house. Big bellowing long trumpets announce the opening of the wedding. Guests arrive streaming onto the street. It’s been blocked off to cars and set with plastic tables and chairs. Most everyone is wearing their skullcap with the local evil-eye preventive charms sewn on. The hosts are leading people in, and everyone exchanges head-nods with their hand across their chest in the wonderful Muslim greeting. It expresses piety, modesty, honor and deference all at once.

Once a table is filled, the serving and eating begins. One man pours the tea the requisite three times, another opens the vodka, young boys run around handing out tomato and onion salads. Older boys quickly follow them with plov, the steaming rice, carrot, and meat dish that is ubiquitous in this part of the world. The word is the root for English “rice pilaf”.  Legend states that Alexander the Great’s army chef was puzzled over what to cook with such simple ingredients. Plov, it became, and apparently the soldiers took to it heartily because there’s not a celebration in Central Asia without it. The dish is slightly different every time you have it. Or so I’m told. Plov is like fine French wine, far wiser people than I can detect the subtitles of cooking it in different ways. I just enjoy it and don’t bother with the shades of distinction.

Everyone eats. The plov is packed into spoons or palms and slid into the mouth. Neighbors mutually implore each other to eat. Vodka, tea, soda, and melon are passed from hand to hand to hand and finally to mouth. The plov portion is just finishing up as the young boy of honor is brought out in his turban and robe made of velour and gold trim.

The grandfather holds up his grandchild—today a man. Speeches are made and countless people wish the young lad success, health, and a large family. One of the elders has had a bit more vodka than he should have, and expresses his hope that “what the mullah made short today, may it be much larger in the future!” Great laughs come from the men at the tables, great sighs from the ladies looking out from the doorways.

People begin to finish their meals and work their way into the adjacent park. Today’s wedding is even more noteworthy because there is going to be a ram fight. The hosting family has spent about $10,000 on the prizes for the winning rams.  For perspective this largess is spent in a country where a person pulls down an average monthly salary of $80. All local ram owners have been invited. As such, there’s quite a crowd waiting around the field when we arrive.

As we walk in, we see the rams tied up and waiting for their moment. A few are banging their head against the trunks of trees. These are the berserkers, the ones given their due space. Other rams are congenial enough to be petted. They all have nicknames. Tornado, Gypsy, Super, and several Tysons are all ready to win their masters a rug or maybe the championship prize of a camel.

The park fills up over the course of the hour. The camel is terrified, frothing at the mouth, and difficult to control. Dust piles up around its stamping legs and passersby futilely try to keep their pants clean while inspecting the beast. The musicians have turned the music more upbeat and a costumed girl dances for small notes from the bystanders.

Finally our host comes out and takes the microphone from the band. There are yet more speeches. People are beginning to get tired and are itching to see some action. The rams peacefully look on, grubbing for grass. One man speaks for ten minutes, repeatedly answering his own rhetorical questions. The sun begins to beat down and the vodka fades. I desperately wish for a ram to dash across and butt him off the field. Finally it’s over and the crowd roars relief and satisfaction as the first two rams are brought out.

Someone notices my camera and urges me forward for a better shot.  The aggressive hospitality of the crowd has pushed me right out onto the edge of the field for a front-row view. I’m an honored guest, but having about a thousand people stare at me as I stare at the rams doesn’t feel so honored.  As the rams are squared up, I feel eyes lift from the foreigner to the real sight.

The rams break free of their owners and the heads of the animals smack together.  It sounds like fencing with logs. My unease at watching the fight disappears in the rush of the moment. The rams shake, back up slowly, and run towards each other again for a mighty smack. They back up again, but they’re not walking backwards in perfectly straight lines. They are backing up slowly but surely in my direction. Smack, another shake, another move towards me. I start to look anxiously at the ditches, benches, and speakers blocking me from an easy exit.

Smack, they crash again and one of the rams bows out. The crowd gives its solid approval at the performance, the beaten ram runs back…. towards me. I snap a picture of imminent impact and scramble to get across the ditch. Dust billows up as I try to cross over the side of the field; the shamed loser is scared and looking to get past or through me. I hop up onto a ledge full of people, the ram stops short and nonchalantly strolls in the other direction. I laugh at myself along with the rest and decide that I’ll enjoy the following matches as a local would—on the sidelines.

The other rams are brought out in pairs and steadily the rugs and other prizes are passed out. It comes time to give the camel off. A monster is led onto the field. It’s huge, at least waist high on a tall man and I can’t begin to guess how much it weighs. The horns curl back under and over its ears and the gray wool shines in the sun. He’s the reigning champion. The speaker entreats someone to challenge him. Minutes pass as the speaker assures that the loser will also get a consolation prize. It’s still a while before a smaller ram is led out. The excited owner pulls it by the horn; it’s not as willing.

The animals are arranged in the middle of the field. The speaker calls for the American guest to come out and watch. I’m pushed out to the field again. The large and imposing ram is even more so from close up. Suddenly the white challenger makes a dash at the large one. Smack. Perhaps he can pull it off…they back up, the owners, a few feet away, encourage their beasts with clapping and cursing. Smack, and they bounce off each other. Both shake, back even farther up, and run at it again. Smack, the white ram’s legs buckle but he regains.

The champion doesn’t even appear winded. They hit and retreat again. The white ram backs up, backs up, backs up, and people start falling down as he backs into the crowd. The rams start to dash towards each other from sixty feet away. Simultaneously they both dive into the air. The champion has the mass and the advantage and blows down the smaller ram.

It’s over, the white one turns and runs. For added glory the black champion encourages the flight with a hit to the rear of the failed challenger. The crowd heartily approves. The cheers could be from anywhere and from anytime.

As the prize camel is brought onto the field, the owner beams and the host makes generous gestures. He’s too far on to the pitch to speak into the microphone but it’s not needed. We’ve heard the same lines a thousand times today. The proud winner stands by its owner, avowed champion again. The camel suddenly jumps and spits, the startled winning ram turns tail and runs off the field followed by its owner. The crowd enjoys this sight as much as the fight. Old men turn grinning to each other. “There’s always someone bigger!” they mutually confirm.

I pick my way through the crowd, past the spitting camel, and exit the dusty field. Another wedding, another memory, but this isn’t one I’ll soon forget.

Jett Thomason was a TEFL volunteer in Uzbekistan from 2002- 2004 in the United States Peace Corps.  Since then, he’s worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and traveled extensively throughout Asia, Europe, and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. He lives in Washington, DC.

the beach at Lake Tanganyika in Burundi

No Leave Travel Blog

I know I shouldn’t complain about business travel to Africa. It’s always a rewarding experience. But it’s also an exhausting one. For nearly three weeks I had been waking up at 6, cleaning out my work emails, and leaving the hotel by 7. We would be on the road all day seeing projects. With the sun long set, I would return to my hotel room, eat an overpriced and usually mediocre hotel meal, and crash. So when I suddenly found myself with a free afternoon in Burundi, I was thrilled.

To say that post-conflict Burundi doesn’t see many tourists would be a gross understatement. Travel on the highways is banned after 6 pm when the military pulls back to their garrisons. I attended a security briefing at the embassy a few days into my visit where I learned I had been violating protocol for at least three days by such rash measures as taking local taxis and traveling without a radio link to the security station.

The threat to life and limb and the nearly complete lack of tourism infrastructure were obstacles to enjoying my rare bit of leisure time, but the Lonely Planet guide raved about the beaches of Lake Tanganyika where “the waves are strong enough to keep away the parasitic snails that infest most of East African bodies of water.” What had really gotten me excited was the brochure from the swanky hotel, “Club du Lac”, that had quietly been inserted into my passport when it returned from the Burundian Embassy’s visa desk. I guessed the Ambassador’s brother must be an owner. Either way, the lake, the hotel, and its beach sounded great. Even better, the US security officer had actually signed off on the safety of the place. But really, I needed a little downtime.

I was not totally sure that I could just walk into the hotel and onto their stretch of beach, but I have always been a big believer in begging for forgiveness rather than asking for permission. I changed in the hotel bar restroom, slipped on my cheap Chinese mirrored sunglasses, and walked out to the sand as if I knew what I was doing.

Lake Tanganyika

It was a Saturday and one of the rare beautiful days in the middle of the rainy season. Dark green mountains rose up on the Congolese side of the lake crested by white clouds. A pristine beach with ocean-worthy sand lay in front of me. A bored guard with his AK-47 was throwing rocks at a can for want of people to watch. I had the beach almost entirely to myself. A European diplomat and his wife were playing in the shade. Figuring them not to be the bag-snatching type, I asked them to watch my things while I went into the waves. They pleasantly agreed.

The water was cool and fresh with the wind blowing just hard enough to stir up some surf. It was fantastic. The view was pristine, and I was alone in the water, the only soul taking advantage of the natural peace and tranquility of floating in the lake. It was a Saturday and people in this poor country could only afford to take their Sundays off. I had the water all to myself. Floating on my back, looking at Congo bobbing in and out of my line of sight, I had to admit that while it was not quite adventuring like I used to do, the government-sponsored travel had its moments.

Half an hour later, I strolled out of the waves, glowing with the realization that I was in the heart of Africa, that it was beautiful, that I was loving my job, and that I would get to come back to all this in the near future. I walked back to get my bag from the European couple.

“How was the water?” the man asked.

“Oh fantastic,” I replied. “It really was just the right temperature and so fresh. Like the ocean but without all the salt.”

They nodded politely in agreement. “So you don’t worry about the hippos?”

I looked at them, looked down, then at the mountains as I collected my thoughts.

“Thanks again.” I grabbed my bag, slipped on the sunglasses, and walked over to the bar for a drink.

Posted by Jett Thomason, 20 Jan 2010

By Avery Sumner

My mother crossed the border of the United States for the first time in her life two years ago. It was to visit me during one of my off-season excursions. When I owned the cafe on Chokoloskee Island in Florida, I often traveled in the summer months when my business was closed.

I recall my usually insightful mother saying how she looked out the airplane window for her first glimpse of foreign soil and mused, they have the same dirt. As if dirt would be an entirely different substance over here. I laughed when she marveled at how the baby of foreign speaking people played the same peek-a-boo game as American babies. Not realizing the whole purpose of the game is to play with a child not yet old enough to speak any language.

I laughed at her not because of the foolish thoughts, I mean I’d had those too. My first trip to England led me to Brighton Beach, which wasn’t a sandy beach at all, but a coast with lots and lots of rocks almost like you’d find in a playground. I thought, why, and better yet, how did they put these here? My brain process makes perfect sense to a person who’s only seen natural sandy beaches and man-made rocky playgrounds.

But to the rest of the knowing world, the idea that people would haul enough rocks to cover an entire shoreline is evidently absurd. So I understood my mother’s mindset. It was just funny to see her where I had been years before on my first trip across the ocean.

I’m living in France now, for the next year or two. Since moving here, I’ve found many occasions to throw myself the same condescending smile I gave my mother. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve traveled, when in a new world, you think and regretfully say the craziest things.

I’ve recently been wondering why this is so and I think I can give two pretty good explanations. The first is that, for me at least, traveling represents adventure. I expect everything to be dazzlingly different. So I’m always surprised when the ordinariness of life meets me in my exotic travels. You mean dogs bark here too? Truly, some of the most surprising finds are not the differences, but the similarities, because you’re not expecting things to be the same.

The other instigator of complete foreigner stupidity is the consistent discovery that basic facts are not at all facts. Like the fact that hammers have two sides, the hitting side and the forked extracting side. This is not something I remember learning; it’s just something that Is. Do I know how to put a nail in the wall to hang a picture? Yes. Do I know how to do this in France? No. Here, hammers are missing the forked side, like mini sledge hammers, like pencils without erasers. How do you get the nail out if you make a mistake? I can’t say.

Something as second nature as flushing the toilet now consumes quite a lot of my mental energy, so much so that I get nervous if I have to use a bathroom I don’t know. No two toilets are the same in France. Some have a chain to pull, some have a button to press, some have two buttons to press, some have a foot pedal, some have a button to pull and some flush themselves only after you’ve exited the automatic door. I’m certain there are other varieties I have yet to encounter.

Basic facts about drinking have since been disproved as well. To have a beer does not mean to hold and sip as often as you like. I noticed this when Alain and I were at a small working-class bar where all the tables had been moved outside for the summer solstice festivities. Grilled sausages could be had and beer and cocktails circulated. It was summer, it was outside, we were grilling. Yet every single person sat in a chair with a drink on the table, not even a hand around the glass.

I thought, if I was at Leebo’s in Everglades City there’d be people wandering about all with drinks in hand, some even double fisted. Suddenly the beer glass I had been clinging to became extremely apparent to me and I felt the need to put it on the table. But that felt even stranger so I picked it up again. My lawlessness lasted a mere seconds before I decided to conform and set the glass back down on the table.

Then the singer broke out with an REM song, albeit with a hint of Frenchness. “Zat’s me in zee corner, zat’s me in zee spaut light loosing my reeleezgion.” It was like my own personal soundtrack, wondering how much of myself I stood to lose by relearning all the facts of life.

So this is my new foundation; a world turned backwards and inside out. Even as I type I see the “A” coming out as a “Q” because French keyboards have some letters in different places. When the simplest things that you understood as common sense fail to work for you, something bizarre (to use a French word) happens to your frame of reference and you begin to question the very laws of nature, like the make-up of dirt I suppose. I’m not sure I even know how to walk down the street anymore. In French, to convey that I miss home I have to say, home misses me very much.

Then just when you begin to expect all things to be alien–all of life–the strangest thing happens. You realize some things are the same. And then you say it out loud because it’s just such a profound discovery. Like the other day when I was at our little grocery shop I noticed the woman in front of me had a scrap piece of paper with the things she needed scribbled down. I caught myself, but truly, I almost remarked out loud how strange it was that she used, gasp, a grocery list, just like us. I don’t know, I guess because the shop was so small or something, or because people tend to shop everyday or I don’t know, they just do it differently. So the list seemed extravagantly the same.

In a way, my expectations for everything to be magically different, for the adventurer in me, translates as hoping for things to be better. I guess I was hoping to suddenly be a morning person. But no, motivation is just as hard to come by here in France. Loneliness and purposelessness float around here too. I walk the same, lay down and wake the same. Gravity pulls just as heavy and all the same things I struggle with at home are here. And you know, they have the same dirt.

Avery Sumner lived on Chokoloskee Island for seven years where she owned the store begun by C.G. McKinney in 1890. She lived in France for two years after that and currently resides in northern Georgia with her French husband Alain.

By Jett Thomason

Ramadan is entering its final week and the holy day of Eid is beginning. The people here in Kandahar are much more observant of the traditions of Islam than anywhere else I’ve been. The fast is a true one, no drinking of water, eating of food, or smoking is allowed during the daylight hours. People go to work, but everything tends to trickle off into just a drizzle of activity by late afternoon. However, like any generalization the individual experience is much more different.

I’ve been working on the base like mad lately. Our company is constructing concrete pads for prefabricated buildings. As I have quickly learned, even a “small” foundation requires a tremendous amount of gravel, sand, and concrete. All of this must enter through the base checkpoint that varies in attention to procedure and intensity according to who are the guards on duty. However, as an American, my citizenship is the one thing that gets goods inside with the least amount of difficulty.

Our gravel supplier is a little square man named Kabir. During the Soviet occupation, he lived in Moscow for more than three years as a university student. “Three and a half” as he always corrects me. The fact that he lived in a modern city and saw something more than the backwardness of Afghanistan he holds very dear.

After a few days of working together, I questioned the cubic measurements he gave me for a particular load of gravel. He stood up straight and looked me square in the eye.

“I am an educated man! I lived in Moscow for three and a half years! Educated men do not try to lie or cheat. But now in Afghanistan, these illiterate and uneducated men are in charge. You cannot trust them.” As he talks about the warlords, the busy mustache bounces emphatically and his nostrils flare.

“These generals! What have they ever done besides hold a gun? They have so much money and no knowledge! Not like in America!”

I add no comments. But I’ve since learned to measure each truckload and have Kabir read off the number (with my assistant looking over his shoulder).

We joke in bad Russian. He’s apologetic for being out of practice and uses his quaint Russian with a little hesitation. I laugh and chat along with my terrible grammar and construction-worker profanities slipping out.

“Next time you have a little drink, you will invite me along, won’t you?” he asks with a little rise to his eyes.

“Of course,” I assure him, “We’ll sit down, share a bottle or two.” As all Russians euphemize a good vodka session, I tell him, “We’ll have fifty grams together.” Any ex-Soviet worth their medals knows that 50 grams of a shot quickly becomes 500 grams of a bottle.

“I remember my student days,” Kabir smiles. “I sat with friends, a little vodka, a little music in the park,” he leans in with a wink, “And let’s not forget the Russian girls!”

The procedure for getting the gravel delivered into the base seems straightforward. The gravel delivery is scheduled and announced to the base operations. Upon arrival, the gravel is escorted inside the base and taken to a secure searching location. The drivers are searched and sent to the side, and the K9 units are called out to sniff the cars for explosive residue. When the cars are clean, soldiers search the vehicles and then escort them into and out of the base. As with any long procedure in Central Asia, this never works out perfectly.

The biggest impediment to the entry of vehicles is the two warlords of the area. One is President Karzai’s brother. Major General Gulali lives in a house that I’m sure he considers imposing, but has been nicknamed Kentucky Fried Chicken by the soldiers on base. I don’t get called to meetings at the General’s residence, but drive by each day and smile at the appropriateness of the unofficial name.

For all the help the warlords were in getting rid of the Taliban, they have an elaborate system of revolving monopolies for all business on base. The US military purchases materials, rents cars, and hires workers through the two “generals”. Every week Major General Gulali and Major General Sherzai sit down and decide who gets the gravel contracts that week, which workers get the fence construction work, and who gets to rent the bulldozers. My initial market research quickly discovered that the Army pays about 75% on top of everything.

In order to keep our costs low, we’ve arranged side deals with the suppliers, brought in goods directly from the city, or run around the “official” contacts provided by the U.S. military contracting office. It’s good for us, but for Kabir, he has to sneak into the search zone, meet us a kilometer outside of the base, and be driven in personally by the American—me—to avoid problems from the militia that watches the main gate to the base.

The Mafia-ness of these rackets may be justified on a national political arena. There is something to be said for keeping the country peaceful through flowing dollars. But it does nothing at all for the little guys in the marketplace. After a while, sneaking around the militia guards and other local agents has come to seem like standard operating procedure.

Kabir—with his formative years spent out of the country—has greatly enjoyed our daily business interactions also for the chance to have a drink of water during Ramadan. He has been eager to come in for a single truck in spite of the expense of time. Once the bomb-sniffing German shepherds have failed to find anything but sand and rock on the trucks, Kabir jumps into my cab.

“Where is the water Mr. Jett? You know I am very thirsty!” He smiles and looks around the floor. I hand him a bottle of water.

Kabir cracks it with fervor. Then, like a passenger sneaking a slog of whisky in a moving car, he leans down to slurp up gulps before any locals spy him. The militia guards are small potatoes compared to the Ramandan peer pressure in Kandahar. Kabir legitimately fears physical injury if he’s caught breaking the fast during this month. I wish I could lend him my foreigner status for these weeks. He was never the kind of person meant to abstain.

Once he’s had a swig or two of water, a rising tone builds up in his accented Russian.

“Mr. Jett, you know I need one more thing!”

“Yes, Kabir?” I feign puzzlement as I feel the single cigarette in my pocket.

“Did you bring a cigarette?” he looks at me with pinched eyes and a tight mustache.

“Kabir,” I say, “you know I don’t smoke. It’s bad for your health.”

Agitated, “But you know I do! I ask you to bring me a little cigarette!”

I fumble around, watching as his eyes bounce from pocket to pocket as I pretend to search.

“Oh, I don’t know if I brought one….”

His face crumbles.

“Here we go!” I shout and hand him the forbidden tobacco.

“Ah! Thank you Mr. Jett!” He lights it and holds the burning Korean cigarette below the dashboard. His smoking reminds me of teenagers smoking behind the high school, severe inhalations and attempts to blow the smoke downward so that it’s too dispersed to see. Just like high school, the illusion fails.

After this routine, he sits back in the shiny blue outfit and maroon vest he always wears. The relief of a tested man shows on his face. Only ten more days to go. I know he’ll be calling me tomorrow morning to see if I need any gravel delivered.

This past Sunday I went in to the city ostensibly to purchase steel reinforcing rods for our project. Handing over $17,000 in cash seemed to be worth doing myself, but the real motivation was to get out of the insular airbase environment for a while.

Our company has three employees who handle procurements from the city. Abbos is an Uzbek I’ve worked with before and trust with any sum of cash. We also have a Pashtun buyer, Amin, from the north and Muchtabo, a taxi driver hired for the two months of this project. Muchtabo told me his friends call him ‘Fido’. We had a quick discussion of American culture and pets before I reverted back to calling him by his full name, Muchtabo.

We drove into the city of Kandahar in the early afternoon. The desert steppe was just starting to catch the sun’s shadows. The highway from the airport into town gives a great perspective down into the basin of Kandahar. Stark and jagged hills surround the area. It rains, or drizzles, about a dozen times a year here and greenery is sparse. Driving through the western part of town, the ex-Taliban president Mullah Omar’s house can be seen. It’s a low white compound lying across a shallow hill, not the impressive citadel I was expecting to see.

Rickshaws dive in and around the traffic. All of the trucks are painted with luscious landscape scenes and veiled women with beautiful eyes. Chains hung from the bumpers with dangling triangles of sheet metal chime in the stop and go of Afghan streets. Men and boys dodge trucks and a few women in full blue veils cling to the storefronts. A busy intersection in Afghanistan is a cacophony of horns, screaming and frustrated traffic policemen, and the background jingle of the cargo trucks.

We got to the steel rod salesman’s office right on time. I wore my Afghan clothes, took off the sunglasses, and was passing myself as the Uzbek businessman in town for a little business. We tucked into the office with glass windows to the street. In the taxi outside, our driver laid back dozing between his bursts of text-messaging on his cell phone. $25,000 in cash lay in my bag next to him.

The Persian flowed past me and I attempted to catch what glimmers I could. Aside from the basic numbers and a noun or two, I was lost. Looking around the office, I could see what is a striking and yet common sight. Multiple posters of multiple candidates for the recent presidential election were pasted on the walls. It seems the novelty of the election and the quality of the prints outweighed the convention of only supporting one single person. To truly express a political allegiance, people tape the portrait of the preferred candidate on the inside of their car’s windshield.

The owner of the business had no right arm. As I looked at the walls to keep myself from being too bored from the heavy business negotiations on the phone in Pashtun, I saw a very gruesome picture montage that clearly related to the Taliban.

A young woman held a pair of bound, severed hands. A man had a raised cane up clearly about to strike the veiled woman in front of him. A bloody corpse lay face-down in the sand. A child looked on with grief as a crowd stoned two people in a square. I turned back in my seat feeling a little colder. I looked at the company owner counting money with his left hand and suddenly had a lot of questions I would never ask him.

We left the shop after only two hours, relatively short by Central Asian standards for business meetings. I was prepared to go home, but Muchtabo our driver told me, through my Uzbek interpreter, that he was inviting us to be guests at his home to break the Ramadan fast. Going to a near-stranger’s home for a meal that could make me sick in the ex-capital of the Taliban –I agreed in a heartbeat.

We drove through the town pulling away from the main streets and getting into a clearly more residential area. Abbos was talking at me the whole time, but I couldn’t pull myself away from the window. Children ran around in the swirling dirt. Too young to fast, they didn’t recognize the steady uptick of activity as people began to pull away from the sluggishness of late afternoon. Riders on bicycles, bread hawkers, and taxis all swarmed down the tiny streets brushing against the mud walls of the houses. Every single person had the first cup of water and a hot dish of the day firmly fixed in mind.

We pulled up to an alley that fell away thirty degrees towards an open ditch. I thanked the low sling of the Toyota station wagon for hanging onto the road. Muchtabo raced ahead of us into the house. Abbos looked at me, “He is going to tell the women to get in the back.”

Abbos continued, “Pashtun people are like Uzbeks, very hospitable. They say ‘A guest is a gift from God.’”

Muchtabo bounced out the door and led us inside the house. Two pieces of fabric hung across the open door – a veil for the entryway. We caught a glimpse of the mud brick courtyard and were ushered into the guest room. As is the custom, the doorframes were lower than a person’s height. This is done to ensure that no one accidentally forgets to pay respect to an elder inside the room. To enter, everyone bows their heads as they come in.

We walked into the thin tall room and sat on the cushions on the floor. Only the stray hair bow and cosmetics in the corner betrayed a female presence in the house. We sat down, relaxed, and prepared to break the fast. Muchtabo went out to relay a stream of orders and to play with his two children a bit. He came back in with an ashtray and a pack of cigarettes. As he lit up I laughed.

“You have a cigarette before a glass of water?” I asked.

Sheepishly Muchtabo nodded yes. He reached out to offer me one.

I passed on the proffered cigarettes and took a glass of water. Muchtabo nodded at me and said something to Abbos.

“Mountain water,” said Abbos. “It’s from the hills here, straight from the spring.” It was cool and perfect.

Then the rice came. Large steaming piles of Basmati rice with a little sauce on top. This was accompanied by a dish that smelled wonderful and looked like Collard greens. That seemed to be the extent of the feast. As everyone began to pull food forward, I figured that this was a simple household and I should be happy that they invited me in.

I started to eat, and was suddenly overwhelmed by the stream of food. Spicy cucumber dip, grilled and spiced chicken, steaming meatballs with chickpea sauce, a plate of sliced vegetables, soft and hard roundels of bread, and a tray of sodas were placed all around the eating cloth on the floor. I was a bit stunned, but began to do my part.

The food was excellent. I hadn’t fasted, but I was hungry and this was delicious. After a month of eating frozen food shipped into the military base, the delicate flavor of fresh vegetables was incredible.

There was no dinner conversation; breaking the fast is not something to be done over witty comments or interesting discussion. It’s serious and we ate. I sat back, stuffed with more than half of my meal still in front of me. The crispness of the chicken, the spice of the pilaf, the tang of the sauces were all exceptional. It was one of the best meals I’d ever had, more so for being in this simple mud house.

We lay on our sides; I tried to express how good the food was with my three applicable Persian adjectives. The host, Muchtabo, was very forgiving of my accent. Then he stood up, which I thought was the cue to leave. I started to straighten my long Afghan shirt when a tea tray was shoved past the curtain. We all got a cup and curled pastries coated in honey were set in front of us. Freshly made that day, the hollow pastry broke and honey spilled out onto the tongue.

We would leave soon, but for now we drank our tea. The fast had been broken and all were grateful.

After teaching English in Uzbekistan from 2002- 2004, Jett Thomason set off to visit the rest of the republics of the former Soviet Union. Since then, he’s worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and traveled extensively throughout Asia and Europe.

By Stephen Bugno

They told me the gunfire only rings out at night. But this morning, after sunrise, I woke up to loud clashes across town in the Al Ein refugee camp and the upheaval continued until 11am. Then we checked the internet for the story: Ma’an News reported that one Israeli soldier and an 18-year-old Palestinian youth were killed.  The Israelis blocked the entrances to the camp, so the Palestinian died before an ambulance could get inside.

Children in Nablus

The day before, on the bus ride from Ramallah, I was befriended by the man in the seat behind me. He pointed out all the Israeli settlements along the way.

“That’s my land,” he shouts. Mahmood is fuming, but somehow contains his anger.

The settlements are secure, self-contained towns, built of similar looking houses, usually located on the crest of the hills. Unlike Palestinian villages, settlements have priority access over water and electricity. The settlers also have their own newly-paved highways.

For an hour and a half we crawl over the decaying old roads in our aged, beat-up bus. We navigate around terraced, olive tree covered hills, passing Palestinian villages as well. They are older, employ more natural looking building materials and blend in with the rocky dry landscape of the Holy Land.

We get held up at each checkpoint. A single file line of cars, share taxis, and buses wait. These checkpoints and settlements are what infuriate the Palestinians most. But no one gets upset today, even as we sit sweating, the hot afternoon sun beating on us through the windows.

Finally we arrive at Hawara checkpoint, the last one before Nablus. One by one we walk through metal gates and show our passports, guns pointed directly at us. We are shuffled like cattle in a slaughterhouse. This is a twice daily routine here and can add up to two or three hours to an already long commute to work.

A Palestinian village in the West Bank

Nablus is located in the northern part of the West Bank and is contained inside of a zone called Area A. Here Palestinians have the privilege of administering and policing themselves. But because the checkpoints restrict access, it is basically an open-air prison.

Once in Nablus, I meet Hakim in a share taxi. A circus clown by trade, he had been performing in Jerusalem for the past few years. He tells me he’s now blacklisted and no longer allowed to leave Area A. His distant cousin has just been identified as a rebel by Israeli intelligence.

Nablus is a center of Palestinian resistance in the Occupied Territories and given the frequency of incursions by the Israeli Defense Force it is regarded by some as a dangerous place to live. But in reality it is most dangerous for insurgents or militia men or those unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire in the refugee camps. A nighttime curfew helps to minimize casualties.

The nights in Nablus are quiet at first: a clear contrast from the typical bustle of Arab cities I witnessed in Egypt and Syria. No one here is out past midnight. I peer out from the third story window of our house. Nablus is built in a valley and stretches up onto both hills. From here I have a good vantage point to witness the stillness of night and the glow of the city under yellow street lamps.

Some nights there are incursions. When the gunfire starts, the dogs start barking, and the cocks start crowing.

Tonight I wake and rise from bed to watch the fireworks across the city: flashes startle my not-yet-adjusted eyes and tank blasts thunder my consciousness. After 15 minutes I can’t watch anymore and return to bed and lie awake.

My roommate, already here one week, has slept through the whole thing.

Stephen Bugno made his way from Istanbul to Cairo during a six-month overland trip in 2007, stopping for a month to volunteer in the West Bank. Since surviving these nights in Nablus, he has been living the life of a nomad: teaching abroad, traveling, and writing. His articles and essays have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Transitions Abroad.

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by Jett Thomason

I had just finished planning and running a boys camp at my lyceum. With the summer mostly wide-open, I’ve been trying to see the interesting sites that get neglected when you actually live in a historical place. My most recent touristy visit was to a minaret in the nearby town of Shiforkan. The minaret is one of the tallest in Uzbekistan and might be the most overlooked of all the tourist sites here. From the main highway, the tower is visible for about thirty seconds. Many locals are unaware of its existence, and frankly, most locals are unaware of the town of Shifokan’s existence.

I arrived in Shifokan with two other Peace Corps volunteers who had worked at my camp. We strolled up to the town square expecting to find some sort of tourist information and the usual vendors hawking needless junk. Instead the minaret attracted about as much attention as a radio antenna. And from the looks of the top, there were several of those with wires stretching suspiciously into the offices of a nearby clinic. Access to the minaret appeared to be only through a locked door… about ten feet above the ground.

Not knowing whom to ask, we went to the nearest women selling newspapers. As I phrased my questions carefully in Uzbek, a man in line took one look at us and told us he could help. After going through The Conversation “Whereyoufrom whatareyoudoinghere areyoumarried howmuchmoneydoyoumake?” he took us into a small TV shop. One man was working in front of a pile of electrical boards with what appeared to be a piece of rebar and sparklers. Our guide explained the situation.

“They are Americans! They want to go to the minaret!”

“Hmm, they need permission to climb it from the mayor,” the salesman replied.

“How do we get that?” I asked.

“Well, they won’t give you permission,” he told me.

“So…. what do we do?”

“Well, I suppose we’ll go. After all, one has to respect guests.”

And with that sweeping comment on the culture of hospitality, he grabbed a flashlight, closed the shop behind him and led us around the corner. Away from the minaret.

I ignored this. Ignoring something blatantly wrong usually works here. As we walked down the back road, the guide told us the minaret hadn’t been opened for about three years. Too many people getting vodka and bright ideas into their head at the same time. After one too many drunks came down the tower the hard way, the minaret was locked up.

“But you’re guests, we’ll be quick and it’ll be fine.”

We knocked on someone’s door, asked for a ladder and went back the minaret. A small crowd of children gathered to watch from a safe distance. The ladder went up, and so did our guide. I scrambled up after him; the ladder was about a yard shy of the door. My friends followed. As my eyes focused, I saw that each step was about half a foot under dry but slippery pigeon guano. With the flashlight, we crawled up the very cramped and dark stairs. About a dozen nests with pigeons were laid out all the way up the path. Who’d of thought I’d have to come to Central Asia to see my first baby pigeons?

A few steps were rotten and there were a few close calls. As we got closer, more light came down the stairs. Suddenly there was the roof and open platform.

I’ve been on many high buildings in America, but the several minutes it took to get to the tower top made it feel much higher. Shiforkan had just been a dull place in between other cities I wanted to be in. This view changed all that. We could see far across the flat irrigated fields. The town was small enough to see its boundaries in sharp relief. House courtyards were suddenly open into view. We could quickly see and understand the town, see all the people in the streets and houses doing their work.

I imagined how many centuries this had been used to call people to prayer. And now it was mostly a TV antenna booster. Just then the TV repairman yelled at us to hurry down. We snapped some pictures, took one more look at the amazing view, and then walked back down into the normal, unremarkable town.
Jett Thomason was a TEFL volunteer in Uzbekistan from 2002- 2004 in the United States Peace Corps. Since then, he’s worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and traveled extensively throughout Asia, Europe, and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in public policy from Georgetown University in Washington, DC.