Kabul in Winter

When you live here for a while, the way of life in Afghanistan becomes a reality. I remember being at a dinner party my first couple of weeks here, when suddenly all the electricity went out and we were plunged into darkness. No one shrieke, no one made a fuss, in fact whoever was telling their story kept speaking and everyone else kept listening and I sat there wondering if I was the only one who had noticed the blackout. But now I understand, it is only when you leave here that you actually remember it is not normal to have one hour of electricity a day or to have no real roads or addresses or postal system. When I got back to my parents’ at Christmas and opened my bag, I was struck with this overwhelming smell of 16th Century peasant life, I and everything I owed smelt (as my dad kindly pointed out) like the Yorvic Viking centre. It is not surprising, heating over winter consists of bukaris – small wood or diesel burning stoves that provide heat just while they are lit and then seconds after the fire goes out, the room is freezing again and you have to start messing around with wood and splint and matches and diesel to get it all going again. December was harsh, it was cold, but January was a whole new ball game and I think half the problem was that I’d forgotten the standards of life you have to live by here. I’d got cosy with my parents in America, I’d got lazy with central heating and fridges and ovens that just turn on, I expected that turning a tap would result in water…and I wasn’t prepared in anyway for the coldest January in Kabul in 40 years. I have not experienced cold like it. You see your breath when you wake up, when you are cooking in the kitchen, when you are working. Pipes freeze so there is no running water (the pipes in our house froze for the whole month) ice actually formed around the flush in the bathroom. I had a recurring dream where I’d turn a tap and water came out. After the pipes freeze, they generally crack and so if you do manage to defrost them, then water comes gushing down, through the mud roofs and muddy, cold water pours down the walls in your house and you are left with a damp stench that you know will be around til spring (this happened to my boss, not me). For 4 weeks I washed from a bucket of water collected from the well in the garden and heated on a bukari, I got dressed to go to bed then got in my sleeping bag, under by duvet, I never wore less than 2 pairs of thermals and 103 layers. But I survived and somehow the harshness of it all adds yet another dimension to the camaraderie that you share with people around you. People take one look at you and know whether you are a have or a have not (got running water). The haves are usually generous and offers of showers at random people’s houses are not uncommon. A meeting I had at the British Embassy ended with a contract and the offer of a bath! Where else would that happen! I took them up on it of course, and turned up 3 nights later, my towel packed in my bag and spent 2 blissful hours in a bathroom that felt like home, being naked and happy for the first time in ages…I think for a moment there as I lay in this pristine bathroom, as much hot water as a girl could dream of, not a chill in the air…I actually forgot where I was, just for a little while, but these are the moments that get us through a winter in Kabul!