Kabul Day 3 (or is it 4?)

...how long have I been here?

I have a tendency to get lost in time anyway, but here it seems impossible to keep track. We are staying at Turquoise Mountain Foundation, which is housed in a walled-in compound behind the old British Embassy (bombed out in the war). There is a 19th century fort (not 14th century, as we'd previously thought!) which is being restored, as well as gardens and classrooms where they are teaching classes in pottery, calligraphy and woodworking. It is beautiful and quiet, friendly with mostly Brits living here - being here seems more like camp than being in a country ravaged by war for thirty years.

My first day here I was taken to Murad Khane, a bazaar in an old section of Kabul which was destroyed. TMF is restoring and rebuilding it, and has a clinic there, a school and an arts program for kids.

I am helping my host Jenny Hartley with an oral history documentary she is making. She has surveyed households in the area and found the oldest members of the community to interview them. She told me that the life expectancy for both men and women in Afghanistan is 40-something years, so a really old person here might be in their 60's. On this day, I shot an interview with an 87-year old man. He was beautiful!

Then I shot the arts program for kids - !!! Some of the kids came from the school in Murad Khane, but many just came off the street in the bazaar. So sweet to see them rush in, eager to cut and paste and paint. The culture here doesn't really encourage creative self-expression just for the sake of it, so this is the first time many of these kids have done anything like this - potato stamps! They have gotten to know Jenny and her colleagues, and when they see her in the bazaar they run up and ask, "When do we get to come and make a mess again?" I will try to post a clip of these sweet-faced, wide-eyed kids grappling with glue-sticks in this mud-walled house.

In an unexpected twist, Adam had to stay back at the compound (after all the preparation we had about how I wouldn't be able to do as much, and the gender roles here!) and the next day was Friday, which is a weekend here, and it poured down rain as well, so we stayed here all day except for a quick trip to the local market around the corner. By yesterday, Adam was raging with compound fever; the sun came out and it was actually WARM, so we went to Chicken Street with Fatma, an Afghan woman who works at TMF and speaks perfect English.

After all the warnings about dress code and behaviour, I ended up wearing jeans with a Kurta (long shirt - women must ALWAYS always cover their butts here) and a fleece hoodie with a scarf to wrap around my head. I was wearing Jenny's duck boots to navigate the thick, gooey mud and puddle-filled streets. It felt so good to wear jeans! I was relieved to have been with western women and see how they deal with the dress code - I was able to cobble this outfit together that felt like I was being myself while still respecting the local culture. I mean, it's not like I was going to fool anyone into thinking I am a local, so why not embrace my American self?

I repeatedly grilling the folks at TMF about how to behave here; what to wear, where to look - men can't look at women, but can I look at people? Not sure where the boundaries are - (this isn't an area I've particularly excelled at anyway, but here I'm REALLY clueless!) but here it's more than just social etiquette, it might be a matter of personal safety! After all that, I felt pretty safe walking around, shooting everything (a surprisingly small number of people didn't want to be filmed!) and being myself, albeit a slightly toned-down version.

There's so many incredible stories here - amazing people doing extraordinary things in extreme contions - it's beyond kid-in-a-candy-store for shooting and writing. I've said it before, but it bears repeating - there's lots of horrible, awful things happening here, but there's also lots of amazing, beautiful things happening here - it's a very inspiring time here in a lot of ways. Most Americans I know, educated and well-read as they may be, are clueless about what it's like here, what is really happening. I am psyched to be here to see for myself, and am hoping to capture some of the inspiration to bring back to America.

Electricity is even worse here than India, so hopefully the gods of power will shine on us and I can get a clip up soon!