Kabul Doctors

Now it happened one Sunday in Ankara, when streets were dead, everyone having evaporated to vote for someone special important and wealthy who’d change alter and manipulate the course of the Turkish future with panache, charisma, dedication, fortitude, and cold hard cash  ...

After 4,000+ years of invasions, intrigue, bells and whistles, harems, delicate Blue Mosque mosaics, gongs, cymbals and flutes in life’s chess game, survivors said YES we have realized truth and freedom and democracy in digestible form. One size fits all.

I stood on a main artery filled with silent rusty water fountains of youth. Shuttered stores gleamed with expensive watches, clothing and exchange rates. A bundled man in stone cold shadows sold Simit, a common thick round seedy pretzel from his red and white rolling carnival circus wagon.

Five women in shimmering red, green and sea blue silk danced along shiny plate glass windows admiring their reflection. Hello Beauty. They hugged each other exploring visual perceptions. Their dark skin, sharp noses, deep black eyes complemented long hair under bright head scarves. Clothing reflected silver balls and small mirrors. They jabbered in Farsi.

Three posed in front of a clothing store to have their picture taken with a male mannequin. Men talk nonsense, make war, babies and are real dummies. A white frozen dummy wore a dark pin stripped suit.

A tall woman used a point-n-shoot digital camera to trap an image of her laughing friends. One didn’t smile because she was sad, serious and a long way from home thinking  ...

How are my brothers and sisters today are they alive trying to find food while the Taliban coerces them into religious ideologies resembling spider webs composed of incessant swarming angry bees beheading and stoning and honor killing innocent women for trivial behaviors in public like walking, turning, gesturing, laughing, weeping, or pausing?

Breathing was a major crime.

Fundamentaliism is the Big H smack, said Louie, a barbarian crusader … look at world’s religions  ... Christians have a booze addiction  ... Catholics have faith in dope, weed, grass and ganja  ... Agnostics have a library card.

Shhh ... said one woman whispering to herself, One should keep quiet, practice self-censorship. Think freedom but don’t say it. A mantra for billions.

Don’t you realize how the dying religious leaders sleep together and will shuffle your deck, rearrange their animosity, hunt you down like a dog and pick their nose in private before blowing your life, wife, strife into their rag?

Do be pious, stupid and poor in mind body and spirit swallowing religious addictions controlling your gravitational awareness with mathematical rational certainty.

Her family, praise Allah, were still alive when she returned and she wasn’t sure about their destiny or hers because life is filled with unexpected complicated and complex random surprises and inconveniences and nature is a cruel beautiful illusionary dream.

At that exact moment bi-lingual Asian orphans played hide n’ seek in secret gardens above landmines far removed from adult stupidity, regrets, indignation, jealousy and revenge-tainted anger.          

The photographer finished. I gestured if she wanted me to take a picture of their group. Yes, she said, in impeccable English, Please ask your friends, your sisters to stand there, pointing to a wide area where full trees created a soft background. She sang to her friends. Two shy ones hid behind flowing skirts. They were coaxed out of hiding. Click.

I handed her the camera. Where are you from, We are from Kabul, Why are you here, We are doctors, we have been attending seminars and will return home this week.

Are you all from Kabul, No, gesturing to the women hiding behind their sisters, They are from distant provinces, I see ... How is the medical situation now in Afghanistan, do you have enough medicine … It changes we are fortunate to receive medicine from international aid agencies, our hospitals need more equipment, it’s a struggle at times especially outside the capital …

How are the children doing in your country, are they receiving medical care and enough food, can they go to school  ... We are doing our best to take care of the children  ... I wish you well in the future, knowing you face large responsibilities, it was nice meeting you, Thank you, she smiled, Good-bye, joining her friends passing shops, talking free.

One whispered to her shy sister, Our friends in Kabul will never believe it when we tell them we walked down a street talking, feeling free, how we had our picture taken by a man who wasn’t an immediate relative.

Her sister laughed, Yes, it’s strange feeling free to be your true self without fear of the religious police following you step by step, day in and day out like snakes ready to bite you, Someone should cut off their head, said another sister dancing her mirrors  ...

My dream, said another sister, Is to be a free person in a free country  ... Is that too much to ask, Freedom is a life changing experience with responsibilities, said her sister, smelling wild roses, I feel free.

When I related this encounter to a TLC student she asked, Were they open or closed, referring to veils not their liberated emotional being, They were open.

Book of Amnesia, Volume 2

Hope Marries Exile

Hope had free choice. She married Exile at the Cathedral of Dreams. They ran through meadows, olive orchards and summited Spanish mountains above the Mediterranean.

“There’s a big world out there,” she said to Exile.

“Yes and that’s only the top of it,” he said. “Shall we share an orange?”

“Yes,” said Hope smiling at real and imaginary worlds past the event horizon, “we will sacrifice the peel to enjoy the fruit. Delicious.”

Hope birthed a girl named Patience. Raising Patience was life’s little test for Hope and Exile. Patience gave them the test first and lessons later.

Exile was a lone wolf and Patience tested his love. She tested his stability, honesty, trust and way of creating worlds inside worlds melding swirling atoms of experience. He was a risk taker not a ticket taker. Patience admired this.

Personality tests revealed their character traits and imperfections. With empathy and gratitude Patience tested Exile’s ability to act and let go. She gave him desire, anger, and ignorance and he created a diamond reflecting 10,000 things. Patience cherished this jewel in the lotus.

Hope was relieved seeing Exile content in this context.

“No one dies. Their spirit evolves,“ said Exile as they chopped and carried wood.

“True,” said Hope. “Patience lives forever. Magic protects her. I felt it before she was born. She was a stream of light floating inside me.”

“She is radiant,” said Exile. “She is beauty, truth and wisdom incarnate. She will master her Jinn spirit energies becoming a fine healer.”

Exile raised Labrys, his double bladed laughing axe. Stream splinters sang twilight. Exile chopped. Hope carried. A yellow moon rose through orange-blue streaks above the Sierras.

“He went to the cemetario today,” said Hope.

“Who?”

“The forcestero, the outsider. Visiting spirit sources.”

“Indeed,” said Exile, “they fly with the full moon.”

Hope and Exile danced in their nets of light. Their floating spirits were free of substance. Free spirits in a free world left temporal bodies floating down to the Rio Guadalete River.

River said, “I wake you up. You follow me and reach pools. Pools are your quiet mind in deep meditation. Deep pools reflect absolute emptiness. No people. Nada. Zip. Zero. You: nature, water, stones, vegetation, trees, animal skulls, blue sky, and sound ...

My music is water. It is soft. It is all you know. You are centered pure and simple. It is all you need. Water is the first thing an infant needs and the last thing an adult requests. To satisfy thirst for your dying father you will smash ice. He was appointed to have you. You selected him to accept responsibility for his life and death ...

You memorize my silent sound and carry it in you. It is light and portable. It multiplies its flowing vibration by streaming. Stones sing with water. They sing their softness, wildness, purity unimpeded. Amplification of clear water is short immediate direct and with you forever. It is heavy deep and real. HDR baby ...

I wake you up. You pay attention. Your spirit flies away and I know you are safe, blessed by my pulse and flow becoming river. Feel the energies. My magic spirit is strong. It flows through your life adventure. I sustain you. My stream is never ending, never beginning. It is the stream of life. Absorbed into the flow you are still. As above, so below.”

Exile and Hope combined their blood with water. The water rushing from dark gray Sierra Mountains through dolomite paths was clear, cold and delicious.

Gathering flowers they savored fresh turned soil, olive and cork trees, pine, evergreen, Pinsapar Fir and trees without a name.

Trees pointed at stars. “Look there,” they said, gesturing thin branches toward sky diamonds, “there, there we are.” Trees identified pulsating white stars.

“Yes,” they sang, “there we are.”

“Look,” sang another, “there we are.”

“And there, and there, everywhere.”

Moonbeam winds heard stars whisper magic star tale secrets of star trails dancing in a vast silent vacuum. Hope and Exile manifested light.

ART - A Memoir

Author Page

Lao kids carry worlds on their back.

Hammam

Twice a week I traversed a rubble path from #187 past plastic bags, small broken trees and rubbish to a hammam. The Turkish styled public bath cost seven dirhams or seventy cents.

Women left. Men right. A shy veiled girl accepted coins. I crammed clothes in a plastic bag and handed it to the smiling toothless attendant. He gave me two buckets made from old tires, reminding me of the souk zone where boys cut the rubber, hammered and sold them.

I pushed open a heavy wooden door. Three low-vaulted white tiled rooms had variable degrees of heat and steam. Men reclined on heated tiled floors or collected cold/hot water from faucets in buckets, soaping and scrubbing themselves.

Entering a heat mist dream of forms, I walked through the first two rooms to a space along a wall. I filled one bucket with scalding hot water, another with temperate liquid. Closing tired eyes I stretched out absorbing heat on my back. It penetrated skin, muscles and bones in a respite from poverty’s chaos and hospitality.

Sweating men scrubbed in steam and water music. Working out kinks an old wiry man bent a man’s arms and legs into pretzels. The skinny bald man worked wrists, elbows, and shoulder joints to the point of snapping them off a skeleton. Rolling a patron over he pummeled a spinal chord, slapped a back and bent knee joints leaving the man spread-eagled on tiled floors. Customers welcomed his torturous attention.

I soaped and scrubbed off layers of dusty skin with a rough hand cloth. Oceans flowed from tiles to drains.

I retrieved clothing, dried off with a sarong, slipped into fabric and gave the attendant a tip. The old man smiled, rolled his eyes shook his head. I dropped more coins into arthritic brown fingers.

“Shukran. M’a ssalama.”

Clean skin felt cool night air. The dusty path was filled with scooters, boys playing on abandoned rusty cars, scavengers probing trash and mothers dragging black gowns on the ground. Yellow slippers slapping earth flashed golden dust particles.

Children sang, “I never promised you a rose garden.”

A one-eyed mendicant looking for alms stumbled past.

Cafe men watched perpetual terrorism reports at full volume on a television hanging from a ceiling.

“Ah, Ahab,” said a smiling young waiter in a purple vest balancing his silver tray of cups and water glasses. “Coffee?”

“Yes, no sugar please,” gesturing I’d sit at a table outdoors on cracked pavement away from media. Dejected shoeshine boys tapped wooden boxes as their dark unemployed eyes inspected shoes of chronically unemployed men drinking endless tea.

Another waiter cut mint tea leaves, crammed them into a silver plated kettle, dumped in a brick of sugar, closed the lid and poured a light brown steady stream of tea into a small embossed glass. He poured it back into the pot. He put the pot, glasses, spoons and sugar cubes on a tray to be delivered to patrons.

A subtle red sunset spread across adobe walls. Atlas snow patched mountain ranges on the southern horizon turned pink. Women in billowing blue cloth tread sand from clustered stone villages to take a local bus to the shimmering Red City or sit on broken cement talking with friends.

Dusk and twilight married, creating night children. More field hands, more economic resources and more offspring futures destined for trades making $1.00 a day. Women sat talking on fractured pavement surrounded by trash. People discarded their lives going through it.

A small single tree in a patch of dirt epitomized local life. People had stripped off branches and leaves leaving a sharp broken piece of wood sticking out of the ground.

People wandered aimlessly or sat on hard packed earth. Unemployed men on haunches stared at dirt.

A fruit seller with green grapes on a rolling cart waved at flies circling a light bulb. A young man in his wheelchair poured bottled water over a handful of grapes. Water disappeared into dust around his wheels of fate. Savoring one grape at a time he observed boys weave past on broken bikes.

A bearded man paced the street collecting discarded cardboard in his recycled life. Cardboard made excellent cheap sidewalk seats, foundations in rolling carts to keep stuff from falling out, sun hats, beds and shop doormats after infrequent deluges.

Shredded telephone wires dangled from the wall of a telephone office as men lined up to make calls on the single working phone while holding mobile phones and punching digits.

Disconnected grease covered boys with their tools spilling into the street manipulated mammoth truck tires along broken sidewalks. The area buzzed as people with survival instincts scrambled to make a living.

On a side street two men unloaded shoes from the trunk of a car. Location - location - location. One seller spread a bright blue tarp on the ground anchoring it with bricks. His partner arranged cheap running, dress and casual shoes. No Adidas Berber shoes for these guys. They fired up a propane lamp.

After a day of oppressive heat residents prowled looking for a bargain and telling stories.

ART

Adventure, Risk, Transformation

Burma

Buy An Eagle?

Omar meditated as workers drilled, hammered, poured, pounded, sifted, sorted, packaged, shipped, received, laughed, cried and analyzed their efforts to make it heavy, deep and real.

A newspaper in the Marrakesh souk whispered about trillion dollar foreign wars. An endless labyrinth of global deficit spending prospered in a radiant mathematical certainty.

At Djemaa El Fna I perused old Touareg jewelry, rainbow carpets, silver bowls, cracked dishes, green ionized utensils, long leather bullwhips, elaborate Berber bags and junk. Dealers bought and sold pots, pans, brass and silver.

The day was hot and the souk was cool. I evolved into F/stop sense trapping light and freezing time.

Writing with light I followed leather smells along narrow corridors into a zone of low wages, unregulated workshops and child labor exploitation. Poverty’s people hung scraps of clothing on thin lines in stale air.

Inside a small room, a ten-year old boy slaving his six-day week for $6 applied coats of thick viscous liquid paste to leather.

“May I make an image?”

“100 Dirhams,” said an older boy punching holes in leather.

Metalworking, jewelry and mosaic making were the most hazardous jobs for children because of the chemicals. Children making slippers were exposed to glue vapors. Dust caused respiratory problems for children working in pottery sheds. Child labor was linked to the politically sensitive question of educational opportunities.

Poor families globally see education as an expensive waste of money & time.

There’s little pressure from local political parties, trade unions, or wider public opinion for any legislation on child labor.

UNICEF targeted Moroccan authorities to persuade artisans to stop hiring children under twelve and release those already employed for a few hours of schooling each week.

The bare room was 8x10 and filled with noxious fumes. No ventilation. I negotiated without inhaling. One dim bulb heaven, empty walls with leather punching tools and piles of treated leather needing a brush.

“Too much.”

We engaged in a broken animated conversation. No deal. I walked. Show them the soles of your shoes. Singing boys glued magic slippers. 

*

Animal pelts hung from wires in the old slave market. Leopard, fox, and rabbit complemented long wide boa constrictor skins. There was a falcon in a cardboard box and a young nervous eagle in a cage.

“How are you?” said a boy.

“Good, thank you.”

“Is everything ok?”

“Yes, I’m just having a look. How much is your eagle?”

“For you I make a special price. Morning price. Two thousand.”

“Two thousand? ($200) Expensive. How old is it?”

“It is two-years old. It is from the Atlas Mountains. For you I make you special price, morning price. Brings me good luck.”

“You make your own luck. I’ll think about it.”

I wanted to buy the eagle, get on a Super Tour bus, reach the Atlas Mountains, hike to a stone village in a blue-fogged valley and release the predator. Trapped in humanity’s cage starving for food, water and freedom I needed someone to release me in clear mountain air.

I turned to photograph men pushing and pulling a donkey dragging a cart through a broken wooden gate.

“Where are you going?”

“Maybe I’ll be back.”

“Come, mister,” said the desperate boy grabbing my vest, “come here see this animal skin. It makes a strong medicine. It helps you with your wife.”

“My wife doesn’t need help.”

“Where is she? We have many perfumes.”

“She’s wandering around. She smells a good deal when she nose it.”

“Maybe spices, maybe you like spices.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe you are looking for something more powerful,” he said, “something to take with your tea, a special blend from the Rif Mountains?”

“What is it?”

“Ah, it is a fine, how do you say, potion, a special blend from a mysterious plant. Hash helps assassins forget their troubles. It protects them in heroic battles against sticks, stones and drones. No hash? Then perhaps a little of this balm might interest you. Here, try a sample. Rub a little on your temples. It takes away pain.” He opened a tin and smeared red paste on his fingers.

“No thanks, I’m ok. Pain is a sickness leaving the body. Suffering is an illusion. See you later.” 

I dissolved into a swirling unedited film where sense data, memory and imagination were unified as director, player and audience.

The sun burned through the Red City reflecting shadows and dust. As men shoveled dirt others hauled bricks in broken wheelbarrows to a lot. A man with bleeding hands laid them to infinity.

Donkeys clipping along a fractured road dragged carts overflowing with boxes of fruit and vegetables. They pulled loads of mattresses, end tables and cabinets to distant destinations.

Homes were all cinder block. Men made the blocks and loaded them on pallets so donkeys could pull them to sites where they waited for generations to finish their education and get to work.

Beasts of burden labored past men and boys repairing bikes and inoperable scooters.

Poor people took bus 11. Walk.

Women with babies strapped to backs drifted through red dust. Old men in jellabas hooded against wind shuffled in bright yellow slippers.

In dusty alleys men chopped tea bought from an old man on his bike offering fresh mint spilling from crushed baskets.

Men crammed leaves into a dented tea kettle, poured in boiling water, threw in blocks of white sugar, closed the lid, filled a small glass, swished it around and poured it back into the kettle with ballet dexterity.

Bad teeth decayed in hungry mouths.

A beggar shuffled past reciting the Qur’an. Waiting to feel a coin his open hand held everything. On Fridays someone gave him Dirhams.

Swarms of flies and starving cats patrolled perimeters near a butcher removing white fat. Young kittens in deserted dark corners waited for inevitable death. Happy children returning from school sampled dates, calendars and centuries. Girls carried fresh kneaded bread to a neighborhood oven for baking. Veiled babbling women haggled with sellers of henna, saffron, turmeric and aromatic spices.

At Djemaa El Fna a dancer in white robes, red sash and maroon hat wearing bells and clappers twirled as friends pounded drums. Sedated white tourists dropped coins in a sorting hat. Europeans entered the show of shows.

A musician played his flute. Black cobras fanned diamond skinheads. Exchange rates were favorable. Water sellers worked crowds selling H2O from goatskin bags. They poured life into jangling brass bowls hanging from their creased necks. Photos with tourists cost extra. 

Packed tour buses competed with humans, petite cabs, grand Mercedes taxis, pedestrians and horse drawn carriages. Desperate shoeshine boys banged on wooden boxes inspecting shoes of idle men sitting in cafes watching idle people watch idle people.

A boy draped in clothing wandered through a cafe trying to interest men to purchase a khaki vest with many pockets, the latest fashion statement. Men wore them buttoned and well pressed with empty compartments. A man tried on a couple. They discussed price. The boy was tired and persistent. The man found a reason or excuse not to buy it because of price, size, or too embarrassed to admit he didn’t really want it or need it. The boy put the vest on a hanger, gathered clothing, trudging toward idle men at another cafe. They read newspapers, drank tea, smoked and chatted with friends in their city oasis.

Red, blue and yellow carpets draped over ochre roof edges created a patchwork of adobe, blue sky, white mosques spires and a cold crescent moon.

Rows of men squeezing orange juice yelled for customers, “Come here my friend, I have what you need.”

Salesmen bagged fresh dates, figs and nuts.

Souk seller beckoned people, “Have a look at my shop.”

Shops were crammed with leather, ceramics, swords, clothing, lamps, rugs, hats, spices, shoes, knockoffs and scented cedar tables.

Men in a one-light bulb heaven scrapped scented wood or pounded leather on steel platforms as well manicured idle wealthy men in clean white shirts, pressed pants and leather shoes slouched near their Berber carpet shops discussing prosperity and idyllic life.

Young men up and down alley mazes competed with each other for Dirhams as young sellers advertised Adidas Berber merchandise. The world was full of merchandise. Buyers and sellers competed for the best steal deal. The art of negotiation played a litany.

Always Be Closing.

At Djemaa a black Cobra gunship helicopter emerged from under a thin goatskin drum to unravel its three-foot long body on a threadbare carpet. When tourists approached, a young boy waved his hand close to the reptile grabbing its attention. Rearing with a flared black hood it weaved with the boy’s gestures. Playing an old game of survival, they danced and darted toward each other. Tourists dropped spare change on the carpet and wandered away to get lost.

An old stoic Berber in shade hoping to sell red yarn played with the dial on his dusty portable radio looking for a new frequency and better reception.

Hustlers plying language skills switched from German to English to French to Japanese trying to initiate conversations with blind tourists. Everybody wanted a slice of a diminished post-9/11 pie.

Humanity floated through broken reed shadows.

ART

Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Natasha

Passengers waited for a flight from Amsterdam to Casablanca on September 2nd, 2001.

Your Self, originally from Fez and now San Francisco was going home to see his family after years away. He was a wise man bearing gifts.

There was a woman from the Ukraine with her five-year-old son. Natasha was tall, slim, beautiful and married to a Moroccan. They’d met at the university in Kiev where she gave birth and he lived in Amsterdam. She hadn’t seen him forever.

He didn’t come to the airport to see her because he didn’t have the correct papers nor was she able to leave the airport and see him because she lacked the correct papers so she waited for her flight to her new home.

Natasha had heard about Morocco but had never seen it. She was taking her son to Casablanca to live with her husband’s family. She didn’t speak French or Arabic.

Her cheap red, white and blue plastic baggage split at the seams. Her son pissed his pants leaving a trail of urine in the departure lounge. Natasha was beside herself with a double identity theory.

Everyone spoke the same language as night fell with the roar of planes taking people somewhere left gravity. We were buried at gate 54D, miles from duty free shops, perfume, electronics, banks, toy and clothing stores, restaurants, diamond rings and watches.

Fliers carried yellow plastic “Buy and Fly,” shopping bags.  

It was midnight when we landed in Casablanca. We walked through a towering hall with a waterfall and intricate mosaic tiles. A gigantic framed image of a benevolent aristocratic king watched passengers.

Customs was a formality. The baggage conveyer belt broke down as frustrated passengers waited. Small wheels on useless baggage trolleys were bent and stuck. They careened left and right as people wrestled impossible loads through green nothing to declare zones toward strangers, friends and relatives.

I helped Natasha load her bags on a cart and she disappeared into humanity with her son. Her husband’s father, mother and grandmother in jellabas approached her. They hugged her speaking words Natasha did not understand. The old woman scooped up the boy. I knew they’d take him forever, this progeny of theirs and connection to their son.

Natasha, an aberration in their world would be relegated to a new life. She moved into their culture with a Ukrainian passport, sensing unknown languages where she would be welcomed yet relegated to serving her new family.

They would project their unconscious loss on her.

She’d carry their water and gather their wood. She’d shoulder their fading light, hopes, and dreams. Their grandson would realize everything. They disappeared into a city of five million.

Being a grand man in their hearts, their son in Holland could do no wrong. Many women came and went in his life. It was his dark-eyed nomadic destiny. When his wife was trapped in the airport he was with a prostitute. He wasn’t lying when he said his family would take care of her.

Natasha heard this story at 54D but didn’t believe it.

ART - Adventure, Risk & Transformation - A Memoir