The Afghan Queen: A True Story of an American Woman in Afghanistan (20 page)

Kings Palace outside of Kabul BEFORE it was looted and gutted
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One old Turcoman in full tribal dress was bug-eyed staring at the central chandelier. He stood rooted to the spot with his head tilted back. He clutched a small boy in each hand. The impatient boys pulled him forward. He laughed as he let the boys lead him to another room of treasures.

A soldier and my friend Kit tried to help the old hajji who looked like he was about to topple over. I was more interested in the old man than the glittering chandelier. The boys led him away, more gently. We all watched as the boys in Beatles T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers, tried to coax the old man out of his trance.

Kit said, “All these glittering prizes were taken out of the backs of the Afghan people. While this place should be a People’s Museum or Palace of the Revolution, the new revolutionary council will allow the people to loot and gut the palace. You’ll see.”

A year later, I saw what remained of the palace and cried. The wrecked palace was cordoned off with razor wire, but there didn’t seem to be anything left to loot. Knowing the people, however, I realized they would dismantle the remains, carrying it off, stone by stone to sell in the marketplace.

Kings Palace outside of Kabul AFTER it was looted and gutted
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Some of the soldier guides tried to explain that all this wealth was stolen from the Afghan people. That was true, I thought; it belonged to the people. It was their heritage, their wealth. As one guide explained, “Look around you. This is the food that Daoud’s tribe took from your children’s mouths.”

A few old men were openly crying while they exited the palace. A woman from Nuristan sat outside the palace wailing at the top of her lungs while relatives tried to console her. One of my merchant friends told me that she kept repeating that her sons had died for this wealth.

Little did I realize, three years earlier, that my petty traveling inconveniences would be a source of embarrassment compared to the April days of the revolution. These thoughts ran through my mind constantly.

Traveling back and forth to Afghanistan with the caravan, I continually ran into many of the people who sat with me during those campfire talks. Most were on their semiannual pilgrimage to their ashram near Delhi.

We all got along splendidly. Michel and Monica were Swiss, as was Doris. Philip was the lone Englishman, in our little bus group and the only person with whom I could talk easily. Everyone else spoke German which was something of a chore for me. They spoke some English but were no more comfortable with English than I was with German.

As we traveled, my German improved considerably, but never enough for relaxed conversation. It was like my Pashtu language skills, adequate for trading with merchants, but conversationally limited.

The driving schedule was taking a lot out of us. We drove from sun-up until midnight. While there were four of us taking two-hour driving shifts, it was still exhausting, snacking all day, with only pit stops every two hours. Midnight meals gave many of us fitful sleep.

I was losing weight from this daily routine, and the weight loss delighted me. My jeans kept falling off, until Philip, gave me a pair of his suspenders. I hoped to be able to buy some jeans with elastic waistbands, if I could find them. Eventually, my Afghan suppliers would make some jeans with elastic waist bands.

In Greece, we learned that many foods in Yugoslavia were rationed or hard to get. We were accustomed to buying fresh food along the road, but in the Balkans, we would have to settle for meager rations. Milk was rationed and cheese was of poor quality, when we could find it.

There were plenty of overpriced imported foods, but we were unable to barter for these and did not have enough money.

We pooled our funds and stocked up on food in Thessalonica. Here food was plentiful. We stocked up on canned foods, yogurt, cheese, olives, fruit and wine. Jarred fish-roe spread, teramosalata, was a great favorite, especially on fresh crusty bread. Also, we had laid in a good supply of superb Turkish coffee before crossing the Bosporus.

Teramosalata is easily made using any salted fish roe. The fish roe is mixed with bread crumbs mashed potatoes or rice. Paul makes it at home with brown rice and unflavored yogurt. Lemon juice, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil are added. Sometimes, chopped black olives, fresh fennel, and cilantro are also added. The mix is a matter of taste.

I dragged a small plug-in battery-operated radio along and we were able to sample some local music. Hard rock, heavy metal was the common denominator music throughout Europe at the time, which served to lift our mood. Also, the bus had a collection of acid rock and anti-Vietnam rock. Usually I acted as disk-jockey.

The bus had a fair library of tape cassettes, some of which I contributed, such as: Ike and Tina Turner, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, Dylan, Janis Joplin, Chicago, Who’s Tommy and Jeff Starship. Mozart’s
Magic Flute
was the most popular of all the classical tapes, along with Mahler’s
Resurrection Symphony
and Stravinsky’s
Alexander Nevsky Cantata
.

Before crossing into Greece, we spent a week in Istanbul to repair the caravan and especially the bus. Most of us had business of various sorts in Istanbul. I found a number of tribal art merchants; one in particular specialized in tribal dance and musical instruments.

This merchant displayed a variety of instruments and played many for me. I purchased a dozen different instruments. These she packed in special, burlap-wrapped Styrofoam crates with official export permits and shipping addresses sewn on the burlap. The crates were picked up by airline messenger while I was at the shop, and these arrived in New Jersey before I did.

I was curious to know how she learned to play all these instruments. She showed me pictures of her folk dance group. Some she had made into postcards. She was of Turcoman background. My favorite photo is of her taken 25 years earlier. In this photo she is a teenager singing in a family folk group.

Turcoman Singer-Drummer

During our week in Istanbul, we did all we could to prepare our caravan for the hard trek to Thessalonica, Belgrade, and then to Zagreb, Croatia. While still in Zurich, the bus had acquired new tires, and the old had been kept as spares. A new rock-proof windshield and heat-resistant Kevlar coated exhaust system was installed, along with new and improved shock absorbers.

We worked out a system to change flats in under 30-minutes. Axles were reinforced with special bracing and spare axles were on board. The bus was like an old woman, full of strange noise and creaking, but still tough as nails. As a driver and mechanic, I’d become quite fond of old-lady-bus.

At some major cities, I had business contacts. Mainly, these were state museums. I did museum business in Istanbul, Athens, Thessalonica, Belgrade, Zagreb, as well as cities in Switzerland, and Germany. For the last two years I maintained a loose-leaf sales catalog with removable photos of my updated selection of tribal offerings.

With this versatile catalog, I could provide photocopies of the items that interested my clients. Also, I mailed printed catalogs to key prospects. For reasons I could not fathom, there was no business for me in France or Italy; however, I was completely selling out my acquisitions between buyers in Switzerland, Germany, and the States.

A business associate in New York, married to a French diplomat, explained that museum-related purchasing in France was controlled by government cultural departments. Paul and I had dinner with the couple one night, and the husband explained that the French government was “ballistic” about preserving French culture. All cultural purchases were restricted to government buyers.

Paul asked if he knew anything about museum purchasing in Italy. He replied, “Ah, Italy, I can tell you a little something on that subject. In Italy, I’m not aware of any formal government purchasing policy, but there is a firmly established unofficial buying network.

“As museum and government officials are not well paid in Italy, they must be ‘back door agents.’ That is the term they use. By means of family networks, officials have museum buying fully controlled, including the gift shops. Sicily is semi-autonomous, but I’m sure you can guess who controls all business there.”

Musical Folk Instruments became major collector items

My first day in Istanbul and my first stop was the general post office. Some letters from home had finally caught up to me. That first morning I left the post office with three aerograms from Paul. I was ecstatic. They were three of the best, funniest letters I’d ever received.

We then went shopping in a huge covered Turkish bazaar. There were merchants in shops and stalls from all over the world. The signs contained flags of the various nations represented. Finding my contacts was not as simple as I hoped.

The Copal amber merchant I dealt with so profitably in the past was gone. Copal amber was now $20 a necklace, untouchable at that price. Copal is a cloudy type of amber; far less valuable but popular all the same.

At the bazaar, I tried to find other contacts that Mike had given in Kabul. He said that the Istanbul bazaar was the grandest in the world. I asked around, but had no luck. The bazaar was like a city, divided into avenues and streets. It was much bigger than I imagined. There were even merchants selling tribal art from Polynesia and New Guinea.

After we got new visa photos and took care of some womanly shopping, we returned to the campsite. I had a chance to spend the night in the Unimark. This vehicle had joined our caravan in Milan. It was a house on wheels, with a shower, sink, stove, and even a sofa. The shower was most prized, since few campsites permitted a hook up to their water system.

Since leaving the Balkans, we campers had had only two shower opportunities. By the time we reached the outstanding Istanbul campsite, we were all fairly ripe. One of the first things on our minds was a shower. We queued up for the co-ed showers. There were six separated shower stalls, so the decontamination process was fairly rapid.

It was hot and humid when we reached Istanbul. The old stone public buildings, museums, churches and mosques provided cool, meditative relief. Everyone’s favorite point of spiritual renewal was the Topkapi Museum.

Topkapi is one of the great human accomplishments. Early in the Christian era, Topkapi was the site of the Saint Sofia church complex. With the Islamic conquests, Topkapi became the most magnificent mosque in the world. Since the success of the Turkish revolution in 1910, Turkey has remained an officially secular republic with Topkapi as the jewel in the crown of the new Turkish republic.

Topkapi Palace Museum Seraglio Point overlooking Marmara and Bosporus
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Topkapi displays the treasures of the old sultans. While the Topkapi jewelry is nothing less than spectacular, it is widely copied throughout the world, especially in the Turkish bazaars. Many of the jewelry stalls feature not-so-cheap imitations of the Topkapi treasures, all of the same uniformly miserable quality.

Near our campsite was an old mosque where, on certain nights, an old mullah performed beautiful light shows while telling the story of the mosque and that particular Muslim sect. Originally the mosque was the center of a Dervish sect. The dervishes were all but outlawed by the current Turkish government. While the mullah told his story in Turkish, the light show was so beautiful and his voice so full of emotion, that I hung on every word. I recall the goose bumps I felt.

Most of the narrative was a cry, and he was shedding copious tears while he spoke. I was so moved by his story that I went to talk to him after his presentation. On my mother’s side, her family name was originally Osman-Ataturk, so I knew a little of the language. I recognized some of the old mullah’s words but not enough to understand his story.

The old mullah apologized for not telling the story in English, but promised to do so if I returned the next night. We brought the entire caravan the next night.