Weekend!

The weekend here is Friday/Saturday - it's quite a change to get used to. On Thursday you're super excited but then when Sunday roles around you veritably hate life.

Friday I was desperate to get out of the compound and see more of the city so I went down to the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) market. It's a market designed for soldiers and expats - filled with bootleg dvds, knives, holsters, carpets and jewellery. It had the usual hum of a developing world market, vendors calling out "looking is free!" The starting prices were usually astronomical so I was careful to approach when no soldiers were around and to start the bidding in hindi (to acheive maximum discount). While some would call it safe, I've heard explosives had been discovered in a nearby dumpster.

Saturday we went up to Qargah Lake - a beautiful site only about an hour outside of Kabul. En route we had to pass huge tent cities - built up amidst the ruins of what must have previously been buildings. The city is a kaleidoscope of new developments, aging buildings, and crumbling rubble. The mountains surround the city, visible from every point - much like being inside Ngorongo crater in Tanzania. Cut into the mountains are giant steps, each one bearing houses and trees, creating a collage of brown and green that resembles striped wallpaper. Walls are covered in arabic graffiti and advertisements. The upcoming election means that the entire city is covered in posters of the nearly 40 candidates (2 of which are women). The drive meandered along the edge of mountains and required a departure from the more developed roads.

Qargah itself was wonderfully developed and the side that we entered was clearly for the well off (entrance alone was $2/person). We enjoyed a beautiful meal of kabuli and kebob followed by mewa-ye taza (fresh fruits) before taking a boat ride to the other side where locals had driven their toyotas to the river banks. (Actually pretty much every car here is a Toyota - many of them actually come from Canada and bear Canadian flags. Apparently if a car is written off as unsafe in Canada they get shipped to Dubai where they are fixed up and then imported here. )

We actually saw locals swimming! First there was a group of them all sporting life jackets (maybe some sort of summer camp swimming lessons?) and then we saw a group of males who didn't shy away from the fact that they were swimming in nothing more than very tight underwear. The men even stopped to flex and pose; only one of them was shy enough to hide behind an inflatable mattress. In a country where shorts are frowned upon in the streets, white underwear is acceptable (for men) to wear while swimming.