And in the Third Month Comes Return

Sunday April 27, 2008 2:48 p.m.
Delhi National/Domestic Airport

OK, the always frazzling final Delhi work stretch is completed: we are now cooling our heels at the airport waiting for our flight down to Mumbai, where our return on Northwest Airlines departs tomorrow night back to the states via A’dam (Amsterdam).

Since we returned from Afghanistan it has been more than 40-42 degrees centigrade in Delhi, or way above 100F—brutal. I wilt in this kind of weather—I do not know how people live in heat like this for months at a time. I suppose it’s partly the heat, partly the final wave of non-doing that is just beginning to settle upon me after pretty much 60 straight days of major doing (not counting a couple days here and there in sick bay). But I feel spent—utterly drained of energy, totally ready to come home. Or already be home, really, but first there’s 50+ hours of travel to endure, including the upcoming 24 hour Mumbai window. After all this travel, I guess another couple days shouldn’t be too bad. I’ll just keep holding the vision of strolling barefoot in the fresh growing grass back at Tree Toad Farm.

Upon arriving home, the next wave of the trip unfolds: the months of reviewing and editing footage to develop some finished video pieces from the journey. The idea is to integrate a lot of this work into the new Dharma Boutique web shop/adventure site that I am working on for a summertime launch—so it will be a busy season once I get home. A little time to decompress sounds good first, though.

Sara’s heard about some kind of evening reception on May 1st in New York, something regarding Afghanistan and photo-journalism—given our most recent adventures there, it would seem like a room we should perhaps be in. Though pulling that off barely 48 hours after we land seems a tad harsh to me. But we’ll see. The journey continues…

Sara has a post on her blog about Shira the Lion Cub of Mazar-e-Sharif—if you’re up for a good cry and some sweet photos, you can find them both there. Once I get to a semi-fast web connection, I’ll also try to throw some photos up here on some of the posts where I’ve been frustrated in uploading photos. But for now, there’s more cute puppy photos than you can throw a stick for right here:
http://www.sarakarl.blogspot.com/

But, now that our flight to Mumbai has been delayed by some unknown measure of time, I think I’ll first just lie down on the tile floor and pass out for a couple days.

Love and Death; or, Time to Go Home

Wednesday April 23, 2008 2:21 p.m.
Delhi, Hindustan

It’s hard to write now, because the tears are still filling up my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. One of the many things left unwritten in recent days has been Sara’s, and to a lesser extent my own, adoption of a sick and tiny little puppy in Mazar-e-Sharif and subsequent adventure of trying to heal her up and bring her back to the states with us. She really was an amazing little pup: a sag-e-jangi, or Afghan fighting dog, she had already had her ears and tail cut off, while being bred to engage in the local blood sport of dog fighting. Yet she had a composure I’ve rarely seen in any animal, human or otherwise. When, after buying her freedom from the proprietors of the Mazar Hotel for the cost of 100 Afghanis (or $2 US, plus $2 for a little blue towel to swaddle her with), it was time to drive 10 hours during the heat of the day down into Kabul, she barely blinked the whole ride through—just relaxing and enjoying the ride as a chance to catch up on her rest and relaxation. Whenever she needed to do her business, she’d either give us a little whimper or just hop out of her little travel pouch and do her thing outside—and then climb back into bed.

Sara named her Shira, after shir which is the Dari word for “lion,” and shirac, the word for lion cub. The poor little thing was suffering from malnutrition, some sort of nasty intestinal illness (gastroenteritis, one vet said) which made her pass blood in her diarrhea, spent a fair amount of time either throwing up or otherwise writhing in bodily discomfort, and we picked more than half a dozen ticks off of her over 2-3 days—they just kept appearing. Conrad, and many others, were convinced she would indeed outweigh Sara herself within 2 years, and likely be close to as tall—these sag-e-jangis are huge, I guess. Meanwhile, she was the mellowest and most adorable thing that side of the Hindu Kush.

Shira died today, about an hour ago. Sara, miraculously, had gotten all her papers and shots and vet stuff in order, we flew her smoothly through customs from Kabul to Delhi, and it seemed like the toughest part was behind us. Just as we had gotten her to the veterinary clinic, figuring we’d check her in for 2-3 days of rehydrating and nourishing and medical attention to get her healthier and ready for the trip to the states, she passed away in Sara’s arms while I was across the road buying the medicines and supplies the clinic needed in order to treat her. Maybe… if the taxi driver had stayed and waited like he said he would rather than making us search 15 minutes for a new ride after dropping off our luggage at the guest house; if we hadn’t been the last people to get our luggage off the flight; if the vet clinic had had any supplies in stock, rather than making each animal’s parents buy and deliver everything necessary, including the IV tubes, the betadaine and every last item that took me 30 minutes to find and buy while Sara waited with Shira at the clinic—maybe; maybe, maybe, maybe she might have lived.

But, she did not live. While I thought she was with us for a period of healing and rejuvenation and new life, and saw her health challenges in that light, in reality I guess she came to us in order to die. After probably 4-6 weeks of mostly motherless infancy, eating bread and being eaten by fleas and ticks, losing her tail and ears at the hands of those who wanted to breed her into a fighting machine, she discovered us and we all fell in love. She came with us and had several days of love and snuggling and kindness and encouragement, and just when we got her from the vet in Kabul to the vet in Delhi, she passed away. Ouch.

Shir-e-Mazar, the little Lion Cub of Mazar-e-Sharif, has left behind her mortal coil. I’m more beside myself with grief than I could have imagined possible only a few days ago. I guess I haven’t really let myself begin to love a dog like this since Gemma, our beloved greyhound, who was like an angel incarnated into the hell of dog racing and rejuvenated by the love of my partner Caroline, and the love of my own heart. I feel crushed, Sara is crushed, and sadness fills the suddenly steamy air of Delhi.

I know life goes on, and there is so much to feel grateful for. But man, the last thing I want to do now is stay in Delhi for several roasting hot days and finish dealing with money and shipping details for getting my goods en route to the USA. I just want to be home, and take a bath and stare out at springtime’s renewal in a million shades of green, and roam barefoot in my back meadow, and see my friends and family, and rest. I feel like I’ve lived through several epochs in just the last two months. I’m wrung out. I’ve found some amazing items to bring home, seen parts of the planet never seen before by me, and lived through adventures large and small. Now, it’s time to go home.

Almost.

A weekend in Balkh & Mazar-e-Sharif

Tuesday April 22, 2008 8:05 a.m.
Back in Kabul Afghanistan

Well, so much for flying to Delhi last week. We just couldn’t drag ourselves away yet from this first engagement with Afghanistan—so we changed our tickets (at no cost, thank you Afghan air travel system) and went exploring furthur into the Afghan hill country. Nothing like 20+ hours of driving to get a quick hit of a place.

We launched on a fantastic weekend road trip north of Afghanistan across the Salang Pass high country into Mazar-e-Sharif with our favorite Zuhaak driver, Said. It’s a solid nine to ten hour drive from Kabul up to Mazar, even with not many stops made along the constantly incredible terrain. We traversed numerous landscapes and colorful stone canyons and had a wonderful time leaving Kabul far behind. Landing in Mazar-e-Sharif after dark, we had a mellow night of it, deciding with some regret not to join the several folks from TMF who had also driven up that morning—Tommy, Jila and Constance—as they left the following dawn to visit and meet with an archeologist working a nearby site where, quite possibly, Alexander the Great met and married Roxanne here in the farthest reaches of the Greek empire. It sounded just staggering, and right near a place called the healing spring too. We tried to visit later but our driver had heard of security concerns and didn’t want to bring us there.

I stayed back to deal with some necessary e-mail business, sorting out details of a selection of vintage Uzbek and Tajik textiles I’ve been sourcing for my former employer ABC Home in New York. By late morning we headed out to meet our TMF friends in Balkh—a wonderful quiet little town evincing little hint of its former glories: stomping ground of Alexander and Roxanne, birthplace of Zoroaster, and the place where the mystic poet Rumi grew up until age twelve when he and his family fled the incoming Mongol hordes. We searched for Rumi’s family house, or what was left of it, and before finding it we were led first to an amazing ancient decomposing domed mosque, where we feasted on ripening fresh mulberry fruits, a first for me. After prying ourselves away from that gorgeous building, we eventually found it: the old mud walls comprising the remains of the Rumi family domicile. We found a group of more than a dozen local kids running around, unusually friendly and engaging, though many were girls and hence usually much more reserved.

There’s too much to express right now—having landed back in Kabul, it is now time to finish up everything: FedEx’ing these textiles to America, finishing up my buying here with a few pieces of Afghan lapis jewelry and another stellar batch of great vintage textiles. I’m particularly delighted by a stylish collection of incredible embroidered boots (unbelievable!) and velvet and vintage textile vests and “cosmic smoking jackets” that I scored in the last couple days—I can’t wait to have a little “Afghan goodies” sale after I get home and all these goods arrive—way cool!

OK, time to get up and enjoy the last day here in Afghanistan. More details, and photos, later…