There are a few universal truths about a deployment to Afghanistan, if the wind blows the wrong way this place stinks, Tim Horton’s is an international phenomenon, the Brits drive with reckless abandon making even a 16km/h speed limit dangerous, and Saturday is Baazaar Day, a fixture on which you can set your genuine Rollexe watch on.
There is little pomp and ceremony to the market, though it does hold a certain splendour and attraction, reminiscent of a renaissance fair minus the jugglers, and musicians. But it does have swords, and exotic fabrics, and trinkets, and smiling men in Man-jammies. It is very much like a flea market, it is outdoors, and divided into stalls - and full of stuff you really don’t need. Well, except for Scorpions Frozen In Resin Paperweights. Nothing says, “I am a Man Who Has Everything” like an amber coated resin arachnid. I own two, but I digress.
Shopping at the market can be broken down into categories: Movies and Software, Marble and Stone, Rugs and Pashmina, Jewellery and Watches, Trinkets and Antiques, and Weapons and Guns. Hm, welcome to Trivial Pursuit: the Afghan Edition. Instead of answering skill-testing questions you barter your way to pie.
Bartering, there is a learned skill. It is essentially the real fun behind the market experience, meaning to take away nothing from collecting keepsakes and touristy bits for family and friends. And the activity and novelty of just spending money, even boring American money, helps you feel normal again.
The script is the same, though the quality of broken English will vary:
Honest and Upfront Vendor - “Come sir, look watches (insert any merchandise here)”
Eager and Intrepid Shopper – “Oh no, just looking” Coy, slick smooth
Honest and Upfront Vendor – “No for you my fren’ I make good deal. Half price.”
Eager and Intrepid Shopper – “Oh I dunno” Aloof.
And then you stare at each other a bit, and feign indifference, even though you have to buy this marble tea set because your spouse in Canada has placed their order.
Eager and Intrepid Shopper – “How much?”
Now either the vendor say something three times what you’d pay or, retorts with “make an offer.” Which of course you do and it is taken as a playful insult. Then the great debate begins, and eventually ends with a handshake.
Definition of a bargain: a transaction in which both parties believe they have fleeced the other and got the better of a deal.
There are some popular purchases. Marble, particularly marble chess sets.
The (ahem) “New Release” movies are exceptionally popular. Sometimes there is little else to do than fire up the laptop and watch a movie still in theatres. Except buyer beware, you can’t tell the guy in front of you to put his head down, or tell the girl on the left to eat a little quieter.
For those who call KAF home we all look forward to Market Day, it is the highlight of the week. Starting late Friday with the “What are you looking for this week?” conversations, and punctuated with the Saturday evening, “Oh man you got a steal/ you got rooked!” conversations. Followed by a couple days of “strategy building”. It passes the time, and provides memories and stories.
Oh, and if it rains on a Friday the disappointment starts to spread. A nervous chatter begins wondering if the market will happen the following morning. Even insurgents get angry if there is a chance the Market will be cancelled, and show it by lobbing a couple of “warning shots” at us. Yep, the market is a big deal. And for you my friend, half price.
26.6.07
What HLTA tought me
Well I am back, and to be honest faithful reader it was not until I was on the long plane ride back that I started to consolidate my thoughts into what I could say to sum up my time home. I could mention how odd I felt, when I went to the drivers side of my minivan to get in as a passenger, to when we went to the mall and saw so many people, and men and women without weapons, and I did not have to barter a price for my produce, though I wished I could.
And yes, I was eager to get to come back to Afghanistan, to get back to this dangerous little sandbox. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed my time home, immensely, and I put every effort into “being there” with my wife and my kids, my family and friends. But I knew when I went home that my time was not over, and bits of my job would travel with me lodged in my brain forcing me to think, create, solve, debate, and somehow deal with them. In no effort to delude myself I believe/ know that my wife knew this as well.
My time home made one thing become very clear. In all movies, except those crafted to not have closure, there is a climax. There is an ending, satisfactory or not. Sports provide the same thing- all sports. Our culture is dictated by pop culture events that have definite, and often times, immediate results. In NHL playoffs there are winners and losers, game-by-game, series by series. The quality of play and anticipation make the game-to-game series to series excitement something palpable. TV shows, even long running series often have single episodes that introduce ‘conflict’, show our antagonists and protagonists, their struggle and always - resolution.
My stay in Afghanistan, and that for many soldiers here will not have closure, a climax, or a satisfactory ending in the conventional sense of the word. This is no video game, sporting events, or episode of Friends. There will be no battle that signifies the defeat of the Taliban and insurgents, and results Afghan civilians dancing in the streets, and NATO soldiers returning home to ticker tape parades, and roll credits.
There will not be a final school or hospital opened in the next three months that will have the general Canadian public rejoicing that we have educated/ healed the masses of Afghanistan.
What I am saying is that we will return home to Canada making way for the next wave of soldiers. What will dictate that our job is done, and that we ‘won’? For many soldiers out in the sand sweating, fighting, and surviving the mere act of returning home, whole and alive may be enough of a climax. But for those of us in the relative safety of KAF this is less of a victory, still felt, but not on the same scale. We will return home, heroes all, but without that pop culture sense of victory. Is that why so many of us volunteer so easily to come back? To finish the job? Soldiers do not define success by adhering to a fabricated and often times irrational “Exit Strategy” but by mission completion, and mission success.
Perhaps we can take solace in the fact that for these six months we were at the top of our professional game, for all the strife and struggle we were at the top of the pyramid. For some this will be the culmination of more than a year of dedication to training and deployment here. For others this will be step two or step three in a revolving door of continuous assignments to Afghanistan. To some soldiers this will mark a fitting twilight on long careers, for others a bright and lucky start to a career. So maybe we aren’t bringing a gold medal home when we touch down on that tarmac, but the sense of accomplishment will be no less, and families will recognize the relieved but wistful looks in our eyes when we think about what’s next.
And yes, I was eager to get to come back to Afghanistan, to get back to this dangerous little sandbox. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed my time home, immensely, and I put every effort into “being there” with my wife and my kids, my family and friends. But I knew when I went home that my time was not over, and bits of my job would travel with me lodged in my brain forcing me to think, create, solve, debate, and somehow deal with them. In no effort to delude myself I believe/ know that my wife knew this as well.
My time home made one thing become very clear. In all movies, except those crafted to not have closure, there is a climax. There is an ending, satisfactory or not. Sports provide the same thing- all sports. Our culture is dictated by pop culture events that have definite, and often times, immediate results. In NHL playoffs there are winners and losers, game-by-game, series by series. The quality of play and anticipation make the game-to-game series to series excitement something palpable. TV shows, even long running series often have single episodes that introduce ‘conflict’, show our antagonists and protagonists, their struggle and always - resolution.
My stay in Afghanistan, and that for many soldiers here will not have closure, a climax, or a satisfactory ending in the conventional sense of the word. This is no video game, sporting events, or episode of Friends. There will be no battle that signifies the defeat of the Taliban and insurgents, and results Afghan civilians dancing in the streets, and NATO soldiers returning home to ticker tape parades, and roll credits.
There will not be a final school or hospital opened in the next three months that will have the general Canadian public rejoicing that we have educated/ healed the masses of Afghanistan.
What I am saying is that we will return home to Canada making way for the next wave of soldiers. What will dictate that our job is done, and that we ‘won’? For many soldiers out in the sand sweating, fighting, and surviving the mere act of returning home, whole and alive may be enough of a climax. But for those of us in the relative safety of KAF this is less of a victory, still felt, but not on the same scale. We will return home, heroes all, but without that pop culture sense of victory. Is that why so many of us volunteer so easily to come back? To finish the job? Soldiers do not define success by adhering to a fabricated and often times irrational “Exit Strategy” but by mission completion, and mission success.
Perhaps we can take solace in the fact that for these six months we were at the top of our professional game, for all the strife and struggle we were at the top of the pyramid. For some this will be the culmination of more than a year of dedication to training and deployment here. For others this will be step two or step three in a revolving door of continuous assignments to Afghanistan. To some soldiers this will mark a fitting twilight on long careers, for others a bright and lucky start to a career. So maybe we aren’t bringing a gold medal home when we touch down on that tarmac, but the sense of accomplishment will be no less, and families will recognize the relieved but wistful looks in our eyes when we think about what’s next.
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