(From A Lucky Monkey on the Hashish Trail.)
Herat was a city of horses. They trotted up the street in a dance, pulling little carriages. Each carriage was painted all over with pictures and other painted decorations. Every inch. And each truck and bus on the street was illustrated with flowers and animals and little landscaped scenes. Not just one large mural on each side, but every inch of space was covered with these little paintings. It was everywhere, and I’d never seen anything like it. It had a lot to do with my first impression of the country and its people. I figured that no people with this much art in their lives could be bereft of soul.
And the horses. They were everywhere in this little city and they seemed to be celebrated rather than being viewed as dumb work animals. The people clearly loved their horses in Herat, and between the horses and the painted vehicles, the street scene was surprisingly sweet.
That is, except for the women. Whereas women in the previous Moslem countries had their faces covered with scarves, these Afghan women wore the burka, a one-piece cloth shroud, black, that covers them head to toe, with only a small woven grill allowing them to see out. When they appear on the streets at all, they hurry from corner to corner like black shadows. Shades. But mostly, not on the streets at all. Though I thought I liked these people, it was easy to see that the women, were under complete domination. As a traveler, I took it for granted that each new culture would show me something I had never imagined. Would have aspects that were unknown to me and hard to understand through Western eyes, but after a couple of months in Afghanistan, I knew that this was, in fact, a terrible burden and a lasting problem, not only for the women but for their society in total. I had no contact with women in Afghanistan. I did not talk to one in a market or a chi shop. They weren’t there. All my conversations were with men and boys. Women were owned and hidden away. Respected and revered possibly, if one were to accept the literature, but totally without control over their existences beyond the home. And the homes were walled compounds.
I awoke the afternoon of my first day in Herat, back on the roof of the hotel, having finally shaken off the effects of my border experience (eating much too much of the black Afghani Hashish). How I had found my way back to the little hotel, I didn’t know. I could see from the roof that Herat was an oasis town with some greenery.
That had been scarce along the recent journey. The sun was high in the sky. My bones were warming. From the street, I heard the clop and jingle of the horses mixed in with the usual traffic sounds. And everywhere was an aroma that I was to come to associate with Afghanistan, the smell of small fires, burning everywhere along the roadsides, where men cooked little kabobs over small braziers. This smell was so ever-present that years later, a smell like that would summon up an immediate olfactory memory, and I would be back there in that so different place.
Because this place was different, in all the ways a traveler dreams. Exotic architecture,
landscape, attitude, dress, sounds, food, and here, smell. And home so far away. That is a feeling that is harder to find today. In most places now, though you be on the far side of the planet, you carry inside the feeling that home, in an emergency, is a plane and a day away. That wasn't true for travelers at that time. We had come overland and would return that way, and our homes were months away. Telephoning was not possible. Even in Italy phoning America had required long periods at a special telephone station. Here in the East, there was nothing like that. Contact with home meant a letter waiting for you at a pre-ordained American Express office in a bigger city than this. Email? Not yet a madman's dream.
I got up and descended into the hotel, drawn by the sounds of laughing and …. the smell of burnt toast? I peeked into an open room. A couple of guys were sitting around. They were English and I was going to get to know them very well. Barry and Dave. Barry was reclining on his bed. He looked like Rod Stewart (though I hadn't yet ever seen Rod Stewart). What was fine about Barry was that he was always laughing. He had come all the way out to Afghanistan to enjoy an indulgent moment in the sun and he was having it. Dave was a man's man. Maybe a hod carrier, one of those British laborer guys. He didn't claim to be the brains of the team but he had a great heart.
They were having tea and burning a piece of nan, the local bread, over a small brass contraption that looked like something a Brit archeologist would take on the expedition.
I’m stumbling in from (you will remember) a 24-hour hashish stunning and sleep on a roof.
“Hi,” (I croak) “Do you think I could have a cup of tea?”
They look up at me....... and laugh and laugh. Dave goes and gets me a cup.
“Want some honey? No proper milk, just this stuff.” He holds up a container of powdered milk.
“Everything, thanks.”
“You look like you could use some of this,” says Barry who is holding up a very fat joint.
“No thanks. I ate some at the border a day and a half ago, and I've just come down.”
This sends them into more laughter. They know about eating this hash. “Really,” laughs Barry, “this will make you feel better.”
Then for the first time of many many times in Afghanistan, I have a smoke against my better judgment. Hmmnnnnn. But all we do is laugh and tell traveler's tales for the next few hours and everything is good.