An Afghan Picnic

I went with Dr. Rahimullah and his family to the shrine at the town of Sari-Pul (Pul is the Dari word for bridge) early Friday morning. We had spent Thursday in Shebergan, about 130 kms. west of Mazar-i-Sharif doing two SIGN nail cases with the local orthopaedic surgeon. Sari-Pul is green with abundant trees and gardens, watered by the river. The shrine, commemorating a 9th c. CE martyred saint is uncommonly ugly--an example of the present state of religious architecture in the country--shoddy materials, shoddy workmanship, a careless assemblage thrown together without pride.

Shrines, it seems, are not always for worship and most people seem not particularly disturbed by the unprepossessing architecture and decoration. Shrines are simply an excuse; an excuse for a picnic. Picnic is the generic word for any Afghan outing. And all outings are picnics, since you would never leave home without food and a large thermos of tea. For the women who don't often leave home, a visit to a shrine is the best excuse to go out for the day. Already at 08:00 blankets lay on the open hillside between clumps of thorns and brilliant black-throated red poppies, the tea thermos propped against a stubby bush, and piles of naan bread distributed as trenchers.

Dr. Rahimullah's family had not come for a picnic. His wife wanted to sacrifice a chicken at the shrine. I never found out the exact reason for this sacrifice, whether it was in thanks, or contrition, or a request. Rahimullah was also in the dark on this, but being a dutiful husband, he bought a chicken, had it blessed by the mullah (who will resell it later in the day), and reestablished marital accord. He figured the bird had already been sold over a hundred times, so there was no sacrifice, only giving money to some vendor of birds who is in cahoots with the mullahs.

I, however, came in the spirit of an Afghan picnic--the excuse to be out, so see something different. We drove south from Shebergan along a plain that narrowed into a wide flat valley between hills, deepening and narrowing as we approached Sari-Pul. The day was full of brilliant sunshine and we left early enough to enjoy the coolness and the special rosy light of morning. Kingfishers and bee-eaters sparkled in the sunlight and the wheat looked particularly healthy and full with the abundant feel of a fat harvest.


In Shebergan over night I stayed at the local surgeon's home. He had asked what I liked to eat so his wife could make this for me. One cannot escape saddling a wife with such a task, there is no pizza carry-out, and the idea of not going to trouble for the guest seems un-Afghan. The women always act happy that they have just spent 4 hours hand making platters and platters of food that will be decimated in a mere 10 minutes of purposeful eating. To act otherwise would bring shame to the house and family. I always wonder what resentments lurk underneath the smiles. I would not be happy to be told with little notice to prepare a feast for some foreigner I did not know, just to please my husband. A pizza would certainly suit. Obviously my manners would not pass muster in Afghanistan.

I was welcomed to the courtyard of the surgeon's compound by three women squatting around an oilcloth on the ground making aushak. These vegetable filled tortellini were my response to the question what I wanted for dinner. I choose it because it is one of the few names I know and it is vegetable--not so heavy on the stomach. This was the first time I had ever seen aushak made. Though I was ushered into a long cool room away from everyone, I made my way back to the courtyard to sit around the floured oilcloth with the women. Naomi Duguid (a writer of glorious food and travel books) would have felt blessed to be in such company. They worked with the sort of speed and casual gestures one sees in people who long ago mastered the technique and so proceed seemingly to pay little attention. They continued working, chatting away, thinking it humorous that I was interested in their work.

What particularly intrigued me was the way they rolled out the dough. It was like a noodle or pasta dough--firm, but pliable. One of the women started with a dough ball the size one would use for a 9" crust, rolled it with a 3" fat, solid rolling pin, turning the flattened ball in quarter turns every few strokes and sprinkling the surface with flour. When it reached about 10" diameter, the woman changed to a 3' long 1½" diameter pin and began a vigorous rolling, but with the floured dough rolled up on the pin, not flat. I have never seen dough rolled this way and do not know the advantage, though assume that because one is rolling two or three layers of dough it all gets thinned faster. She worked for about five minutes until she had soft sheets of dough about 1-2 mm. thick. I can't wait to try this technique.

To Balkh and Beyond

Seljuk minaret


A week ago Friday, (yes, I am behind) Homayun picked me up in his car for an outing. His children and wife were at her family's village about 40 kms north of Balkh and we planned to arrive there for lunch. But first, we had unfinished business in Balkh.

When I was in Mazar-i-Sharif in early 2006 I wanted to visit the oldest extant mosque in Afghanistan, the 9th century C.E. Noh Gumbad, or Nine-Domed Mosque, at the shrine of Haji Piyada just outside Balkh. I'd read about it in The Road to Balkh, an outdated guide, but valuable historical document I had picked up in Kabul. Homayun had never heard of this mosque and because of car trouble and the afternoon buzkashi game, we never made it.

The mosque is in quite a ruinous state. All the domes, for which it is named, are missing; the one remaining, cracked arch is supported by metal scaffolding. UNESCO has built an ugly but functional metal and plastic structure to protect the site. A new mud wall surrounds the large compound of low scrub and a small grove of chenars (oriental planes) and mulberry trees offer deep shade over a nearby narrow irrigation channel. Swallows, mynahs, and sparrows chatter and whistle in the rafters and the trees; mud dabbers use the ruins as a palace.

The ruins are the remains of baked brick and mud stucco heaped on a mound of mud. The major architectural elements left standing are short double columns, whose capitals are carved stucco in a modified paisley pattern. The undersurface of the remaining bits of arches are decorated with various braided floral and foliage motifs. It looks distinctly unique in its squatness, design and size, but I do not know enough to make architectural or historical sense of the structure. The monotony of dull mud-color, the static, repetitive decoration, and the short, fat columns give the ruins a heavy feeling that is not immediately attractive. For the uninitiated amateur it is easy to find beauty in the pure colors of fine tile work, the majesty of iwans (lofty semicircular vault, generally closed on one side and open on the other, characteristic of Persian architecture.), or the soaring grace of a 16th C. Ottoman minaret. This place is not quite so easy. But why do I think a religious building must be beautiful? The importance of its mud and brick is that it has outlasted the depredations of Genghis Khan, time, and many earthquakes.

Many tinseled horse-drawn gharries ply Balkh's wide tree-lined streets. It would be a pleasant small town except that the Taliban still holds some sway and the atmosphere for outsiders, let alone farangis (Europeans) is not at all friendly. Homayun was not all that interested in stopping, but I wanted to see again the green domed mosque and shrine to Khoja Parsa, in its shady garden. The mid-15th century ribbed dome looks significantly more dilapidated than when I saw it 3 years ago. Grass grows in the spaces between the missing tiles giving the dome a hazy aura and, along with the dust, dulling the original brilliant turquoise-green. All is faded and sad.

When we first entered the shady garden of the shrine we passed a half dozen thin, dark, fine-featured women selling sparkly, plastic wrist spangles from pieces of material laid on the ground. They wore simple loose scarves, and were quite forward in their attempts to interest us in their cheap wares. Not at all like typical Afghan women. My first thought was, "gypsies." When I asked, Homayun said they were "Jugui" (pronounced jeu-gee)--typically dark-skinned, semi-nomadic people who hustle to make a living and are known as dangerous. Lurid myths exist about their indiscriminate sex lives and taste for the flesh of children. Funny how these common accusations are so easily branded on outsiders, indiscriminately repeated, just as I'm repeating them now, without authentification.

We drove north from Balkh to Daulatabad along a flat plain on a fine paved road, past wheat fields and large walled compounds whose buldings are often domed. The walls of the houses are a meter thick and the gardens are filled with shade and fruit trees. It is a world of small hamlets or villages composed of relatives farming and herding together. The landscape includes many one-humped camels grazing and hauling as well as herds of sheep and goats, often tended by children and dogs. The shimmer of sunlight off the sequined and glittered dresses worn by the little girls as they tend the animals looks most incongruous. Winter and spring moisture was generous this year and the wheat is almost ready for harvest.

On the outskirts of Daulatabad Homayun parked the car and led me into a maze between 10-12' high mud walls into a warren of interconnected living compounds. The featureless walls, the twisting and turning through shadowless midday sun, and the blind alleys all gave me the disorienting sense that this was not a place welcome to outsiders. No windows, no hint of color indicated that we were following the right path until the walls opened up to a small pond (more cesspool) shaded by a few trees where the children were playing. We were taken through another series of doors and walls into an open compound and a long room ringed with pillows and thin mattresses along the walls. A cool room, wonderfully dark compared to the sun glare outside. Safe and welcoming

The children ran in happy to see their father, received their hugs, and ran out again to play in the water and race along the walls and over the roofs shouting and screaming with their cousins. I was introduced to Homayun's in-laws not by name, but by title, "This is my mother-in-law, this is my mother-in-law's sister." For another, he said, "I don't think you have name in English, but she is the second wife of my aunt's husband." People came and went, happy to see Homayun, curious about me. After tea and a short nap, the large plastic cloth was laid on the floor and we were served aushauk, one of my favorite dishes, a type of vegetable tortellini, and raison and carrot studded fragrant qabli pillao (rice).

The evening before this outing, I had seen on the map that near Daulatabad were the ruins of a Seljuk Minaret, I asked if we might see it. Ten of us piled in the Toyota sedan on a hot dusty, slow 40 minute drive to the village of Zodyan. I felt sorry for Homayun, being stuck with a person like myself, with unnatural desires to see all the strange things. I said he must look at me as igniting a spark of interest in his children to be archeologists, something the country needs (along with the enforceable laws to protect the sites). There is no country so in need of a viable archeological program and no country so under-explored.

The Seljuk minaret sits in a small oasis just outside the large village of Zodyan on a flat plain. The map indicated only Seljuk, and I'm guessing it was built during the time of Sultan Sinjar--in the mid 12th C. I also assume this was the site of a large city to have had a mosque with such a grand minaret. Two-three story high segments of brick and mud wall ruins stand outside the village, but I couldn’t make heads or tails (or tales) out of them. The whole of northern Afghanistan is covered with tepes, round archeological mounds. Few have been explored and the locals know nothing of the history. All the more reason one of Homayun's children should become an archeologist.

The minaret, whose top has been lopped off, stands now about 50-60 meters. It is made of well baked brick formed into monotone repetitive decorative patterns including one 2 meter high row circling the monument in majestic Arabic script. A steep circular staircase winds up the dark interior and opens suddenly without the protection of railing or wall. I sat well away from the edge and enjoyed the bird's eye view of the village in the middle of the vast plain.

The village is populated by Turkmen--a vaguely mongoloid people with wind and sun-reddened faces, I quite liked their appearance and their unconcealed timid curiosity. A shrine was also present at the minaret. For whom, I do not know and I suspect the name or the story is lost in time. Sharifa took all the children into the shrine, touched the posts and the green, velvet covering, prayed and all the children knelt quietly for two minutes in this dark cool place. Other worshippers, all women and children came and went, kissing parts of the shrine, praying.

Before we left Daulatabad, I saw a flash of blue, a largish bird flying from a wire into a garden. It was the turquoise blue of a kingfisher. It was a most wonderful sighting, but even better, I saw another dozen in our drive to the minaret and back to Mazar.