Bus Mutiny and the Shrine of Hazrat Ali
I learned some new Dari words yesterday on the drive up to Mazar-e Sharif from Kabul. "Be careful!" "Slow!" "You're crazy." "Do you want to die?!" "STOP!" "DANGER!"
Before leaving on this trip, I was discussing the relative dangers with some people from work and I told them the two biggest dangers to me would be, first and foremost, car accidents, followed by weird stomach bugs and parasites. Everything else, from the Taliban to being mugged to "Al Qaeda", was almost infinitely less likely.
Barkuh, Chris, and myself set out on the trip early in the morning and ended up with a bus driver who was insane even by local driving standards. We piled in outside Kabul, paying 450 Afs for the 10 hour ride. Our driver drove with another HiAce (mini-bus/van) driven by a friend of his. They played cat and mouse with each other, overtaking and dropping back and overtaking again, coming up close in behind each others bumpers. On flat, straight roads, I dismissed this as mere showmanship and a driving danger that simply comes with the territory.
When the buffoonery continued in the mountain passes on our way to the Salang tunnel, all three expats in the car began to get nervous. Our driver thought it was absolutely hilarious to tailgate his friend's van, sliding within inches and then giving it a tiny "bump" -- bumper touching bumper -- before backing off. At 80 km/h on mountain switchbacks with 100 to 1000 foot drops off the side, down scree into sharp rocks, or straight into a river far below, this was absurdly dangerous. As the only one of us three who spoke any Dari, I told the driver to "be careful, please." Overtaking the other van on blind turns, doing the bumper-touching bullshit, and eventually starting to lose control of the van, leaving us fish-tailing from side to side on a narrow road covered in gravel, with a 500 foot drop into a river. At one point, after a very near miss with oncoming traffic at 80+ km/h, Chris finally flipped out, flying up out of his seat, spittle spraying from his mouth, screaming, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?!" Of course, his outburst served to do nothing but freak the driver out and the van immediately started to fishtail again.
Half an hour later we went through the Salang Tunnel. In the middle of the tunnel was a group of men standing around, arguing, and a white Corolla that was completely smashed, having apparently been nicked by a large cargo truck and spun out of control at high speed. Part of the front of the car was gone and the windshield had two reddened "starburst" cracks right in front of the driver seat and front passenger seat where foreheads had met glass. Whoever was in that vehicle was likely dead. While it reminded me of my own mortality and the physics of high-speed crashes, it didn't seem to affect our driver at all and he continued to barrel on, flooring it to pass his friends van while going around yet another blind corner.
The excruciatingly close misses happened a few more times with me imploring the driver to "Please, please slow.... Slow! Be careful!" Finally, our collective will, or at least our willingness to die on road in Afghanistan, collapsed. Another near-death experience and we all started shouting at the driver. He laughed it off as Barkuh continued shouting at him in English, "This is not fucking funny. You're a fucking crazy driver, you're fucking stupid." Shortly after this, we three decided to mutiny. We had the driver stop and we all got out of the van with our bags. At this point, everyone was shouting and screaming, including the other Afghan passengers. Barukh was cursing, Chris was shouting and miming a crazy person with a steering wheel. The Afghans were all shouting and gesturing for us to get back in the van. I used my phrasebook to look up "crazy" and the grammatically proper way to ask someone if they wanted to die. The driver hadn't been paid yet and was upset about losing three big fares, 3/4 of the way to Mazar. The other Afghans were trying to reconcile things despite speaking no English. They were tugging on my arms, pointing at my phrasebook, miming words that I couldn't understand. It was all sorted out within half an hour with Barukh and Chris getting into a different taxi. I got back into the same taxi, but only after much promising and swearing by Allah, literally, on the part of the driver. If there was one more close call, I was going to get out again and just hitchhike in even though it was after dark by now.
Thankfully, the rest of the trip was uneventful and I shared the big back seat, where all three of us had previously been stuffed, with a ten year old Afghan boy. He and I played counting games and he taught me the words for "beard" and "hair." I shared a protein bar with him but he didn't like how it tasted. Eventually he fell asleep against me and we slipped through military checkpoints unhindered, an Afghan boy sleeping against you a better disguise than any beard or hat.
When we made it to Mazar, I lost Chris and Barukh again and while they ended up at some hotel near the mosque square in the center of town, I ended up at a "local" hotel. Most of the guidebooks say these places don't allow foreigners, but for 200 Afs ($4), I had a room to myself. It was a floor with a sleeping pad, a single lightbulb hanging so low I burned my hat on it, and a fan that was also so low I had to avoid walking upright in the middle of the room. I woke up every hour all night, partially, I think, due to the heat, and partially because the external windows of the room opened onto a shared balcony that ran around the whole building and they could be opened from the outside. I didn't feel safe. At 4am, I knew the first call to prayer would happen shortly and I decided to start my day.
In the center of Mazar-e Sharif is a mosque that's ostensibly build on the site where Ali, the fourth caliph of Islam and Muhammad's cousin, is buried. Only Afghans believe that's true; seemingly everyone else in the Muslim world believes Ali was buried outside Najaf, Iraq, where he died. The Afghans believe he died there but that his body was tied to a white camel that walked and walked, eventually collapsing and dying here in Mazar. This place, his "true" place of burial, was revealed to a mullah in a dream in the 12th century. Supposedly, when they dug in that area a small tomb was found that contained a sword, a Qu'ran, and the perfectly preserved body of Ali.
In modern times, the site of the mosque is considered to be so holy that any grey or brown pigeons who come here will be turned into white doves within 40 days. Sure enough, the mosque is surrounded by flocks of white doves. Foreigners are allowed to photograph it from the outside, but only Muslims (read: locals) are allowed inside.
Since I was up very early this morning I went and found the hotel Chris and Barukh were staying at and dropped off my backpack for a while. Even in a city of 130,000 people, it's easy to track down two Americans since there're only a few hotels they're likely to be at. I asked at the front desk, "Two Americans are here?" and was shown down to the hall and pointed to their room. Simple.
Later, I wandered over to the mosque and went inside. Kristine and I had talked about this before my trip and I told her I wouldn't go inside because, while I'd learned the mechanics of Muslim prayer (salat) before leaving in case my life was in danger and I needed to pretend to be a Muslim to get out of it, I respected their wishes to only allow Muslims inside. Yesterday, however, I was talking with a book seller in Kabul (the one featured in the book, "The Bookseller of Kabul," actually) and he and I discussed this shrine here in Mazar. His contention was that it was contrary to Islam to not allow people into a holy site. We discussed this at some length and I decided that while it would obviously be enormously offensive to fake prayer, making a mockery of the religion in a holy place filled with people who invest it with so much meaning, I would give simple entry a shot and see if they'd let me in.
Today, after the morning prayer and without my backpack, I walked over the mosque and quietly and casually entered it. The guards stop all Westerners from entering, but I took off my shoes, greeted the guard and handed him my shoes, and walked right in. When I left, 45 minutes later, the guard gave me a big smile and I found a little piece of foil-wrapped candy in my shoe.
Inside the center building of the mosque is a series of smaller chambers, the walls of which are lined with gold. People stroke the surface of the walls lightly with their right hand as they walk through each set of doors.
The first chamber, outside the main tomb, contains a spherical metal container approximately 8 feet in diameter and resting above the ground on a stand. It has a number of thin edges on it which are covered in padlocks. People touch it and lightly kiss it, mostly from a standing position though some even crawl underneath it and kiss it from the bottom. I'm not sure what significance the padlocks have, but I believe people tug on them with the belief that if one unlocks for you, your wish will come true. As is often true, and even though Islam has a reputation in the West for being very strict and uncompromising, the "local flavor" of the religion mixes the basic tenets of Islam with hold-over folk religion elements from the belief system(s) that existed prior to the introduction of Islam.
The inner chamber houses the tomb of Ali itself. The tomb is approximately 15 feet by 8 feet, covered in cloth, and inside a small rectangular room surrounded by gold lattice work. This rectangular room is set in the middle of the larger room comprised of four symmetrical parts, with the ceiling rising some 50 or 60 feet into the air. Pilgrims walk around the tomb in a counter-clockwise path, stopping periodically to lean against the lattice work and look through, inside, to the tomb itself. When they do this, most put their hands up to cover the sides of their face. I think this particular motion is an aspect of salat in which prior to the beginning of a raka you slide your hands back, as in a "hands up!" posture, but with your hands closer to shoulders/ears, signifying that everything from that point forward is for Allah. The symbolism of that is also precisely the reason, I believe, that walking in front of a Muslim who is praying is said to negate the positive benefits of his or her prayer.
Inside the tomb area were both men and women, most deep in thought, some crying as they leaned against the tomb. Off to the side people were praying. Outside the tomb area, the grounds of the mosque, including the other buildings which have equally beautiful tile work on the outside of them, had many men who were sleeping, cripples (amputees, mostly) and women in burkhas begging with their children in their arms. The third of the "Five Pillars of Islam" is "zakat"
('purification' or 'growth'), a 2.5% tax given to the poor that, I believe, was traditionally more self-regulated and in modern times tends to be done by the state. As the Prophet said, "Charity is a necessity for every Muslim."
After leaving the mosque, I went and had breakfast (nan and chai) and then tried to dig up some information on buzkashi games. Unfortunately, the taxi driver in Kabul was right -- it's the wrong season. "It is too hot now for the horses. They cannot run." I'm sympathetic to that. :) Unfortunately, it means that I likely won't be seeing a buzkashi game at all on this trip. Mazar is the most famous place for the games and if they're not happening here, they're almost definitely not happening anywhere else.
I'm not sure what my next plans are. I might go visit Balkh. I think that from Mazar, I'll travel overland to Herat. It's a two to three day trip in a jeep, 12 hours of driving each day, sleeping for free on the roofs of caravan-serais at night, gazing up at the stars. It sounds nice and relaxing. I could fly, with internal flights being fairly cheap, but it's not like I'm pressed for time. We'll see.
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My body has been functioning in a lean mode since this trip began. I've been sleeping about five or six hours a night, eating about half as much as I normally do, and drinking twice to three times as much water. I can't tell if it's the heat? Maybe jet lag? Anxiety? I wake up at least a few times a night, every night, mostly to drink more water and to clear out the dust-boogers clogging my nose. Other than this "lean mode" stuff, my body is holding up well. No diarrhea, no headaches, no nausea, no car-sickness, no nothin'. Hardcore. (And lucky.)
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