The series continues. Just life as a fobbit, this one being a Sailor in a landlocked country. Some of these will be a little dated, as they went to family first, then got sent to me to run for all y'all. Our landlocked sailor, btw - is also the creator of the Motivator series...
As I said Friday is our day off. So yesterday I went to the bazaar for some shopping. One of the interesting things about the bazaar is the bargaining. Its pretty easy to get to something that both can agree on, but of course only the seller knows what the real cost is. Some of the good ideas are to do your homework, to stick with single merchants you trust, buy in bulk, and be honest. It also helps to at least attempt to speak a few words of Pushtun. (“Hello”, “please”, “thank you”, is “A Salaam Alekum”, “luftan” and “tashakor”)There really are no thieves here. Being allowed to sell on the bases is a really good deal. It’s all cash and there are lots of people wanting to buy. Now while they will mostly not cheat you, they will also not stop you from cheating yourself. For example if your starting offer is twice what they would have started with, they won’t tell you to bring it down, they will just accept it. The tradition is that they will offer you gifts as one friend to another to get right with Allah for taking advantage. Mostly I was offered gifts (a distressingly large amount of gifts) but I do owe one young man a soccer ball for a necklace he promised to sell me for whatever I had on me. I saw his face fall when I opened my wallet. Bulk buys at an honest price will also get you gifts, and I had a few for just being friendly.
There is one 12 year old named Masood who remembered that two weeks ago I promised to come by his stall and by something. I did, when I opened my wallet and he saw the picture of Caroline and Chip he gave me a necklace for each of them. He is a sharp young man, and I should probably give him my resume, I think he’ll own his own company some day.)
Bargaining is fine, and I figure anything I pay a horrendous extra amount for is going directly to the Afghans, so I don’t really mind all that much. They are also pretty friendly, ask to see the different level of quality in a carpet or anything and they are pretty up front. I am staying away from the antiques though, I don’t know enough to really spot the fakes.
Saturday night is Mass. A priest comes over from the Italian embassy. It was an interesting display of the Catholic community. We had Spaniards, Frenchmen, Poles, Italians, Irish and Americans. The mass was mostly in English, with the readings in whatever language was the reader’s native one. Father did use Latin for the blessing of the Eucharist, though, which threw me. When we said the Our Father, we said it first together in English, then once again in each language. All in all it did feel the same as mass anywhere else.
The Italian embassy has what is probably the only Catholic Church in Afghanistan. They Afghans let them build it because Italy was very supportive after the collapse of the Soviet backed regime, when most of the rest of the world lost interest. A friend of mine who went there said she met a nun who has been in Afghanistan for about twenty years. She said that when the Taliban were in power they would often ask her to pray for them. While they didn’t really respect her religion, they did respect her dedication to it.
Things keep moving on here, we’re still trying to fit our tools in with the staff, and trying different configurations of support.
Update: Since the question arose in email - no, Our man in the 'Stan is not the guy who blogs at Military Motivator - though he obviously uses the same muse as Joe, our man in the 'Stan. Joe's stuff has been released into the wild via this space and his email list - I just recently saw they've been posted on the Usenet, too.
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