For The Romance Of It All
Dear Everyone,
It’s ridiculously hot here at the moment. My office is probably the coolest place in the building, so I thought I’d make some excuse to be in here. Outside the sky is growing dark again and it thunders. We’ve had sunny weather and no rain for a long time. This is like the summer storms you hear about from people who grew up on the prairies. It would be nice if it rained a little to bring down the dust. The dust comes in yellow clouds and covers everything. It’s usually hot and windy when it’s dusty so you come home from the street caked with a layer of silt that has stuck to your sweaty skin. I usually wrap my scarf around my head like a turban and imagine that I’m Lawrence of Arabia. It makes a dust storm more romantic rather than irritating.
Phil Morris, the first intrepid Canadian to set himself against the wilds of Afghanistan with SFL, said that he came here “for the romance of it all.” (At least I was told he said that – if I’m wrong, sorry Phil). Like him, we can see these things romantically. Getting up at four in the morning and driving out to a remote village with a truck full of money to pay the road workers is an adventure not a job. Sure, you can fly down to Kabul, but the most beautiful approach is by road from the north, at sunset, after 13 hours of spine-jarring travel. And there are stories of others who got to ride horses and donkeys to places that no vehicle could go. This is a dusty country, riddled with bullet holes, littered with refuse, broken down and ancient, but it is one of the most romantic places on earth.
This week I got to drive to Baharak, a place where three rivers meet in a riot of green. There are full glades of trees there, and fields, and waterfalls. The streets are tree-lined, and (this astonished me) clean. It is a major stopping point at this time of year for shepherds and nomads on their way up to the northern summer pastures. On the way, we were halted again and again as the sheep herders hustled their animals over to one side to let us pass. Sometimes we just stopped and let the bleating flocks flow around us. And then there are those majestic and romantic animals, the camels. We passed one grassy area by the river where a tribe of nomads – Kuchis – were camped, spread out in huge earth-brown tents with a hundred camels kneeling around them. The decorated children peeked out and giggled at us. The unveiled women looked at us brazenly. Men with hands and faces carved from wood and stone squinted at us and went back to their work. And the camels milled about, munching grass and smiling their haughty know-it-all smiles under half-lidded eyes, as though they were just putting up with us until something better came along. It was all close enough to touch, a whole world that before only existed on the pages of books, or on movies screens.
There is something inside me that falls in love with this world. I think that I, like Phil, am here for the romance of it all. Last weekend I woke up at five and walked for two hours up through a tiny village into the hills, wearing sandals, robe-like garb, and a turban on my head. I sat by myself in the wilderness, listening to the calls of the goatherds high on the hills. I took off my clothes and stood glistening under a waterfall. I lay in the sun until my skin was dry again. I followed the river down through canyons and under stone aqueducts, following goat-trails down between the cliffs and striding through rivers. I feel myself more here. I hear God better. I understand now why my soul has always lifted when God answers Job by describing the wilderness. It’s because God is a romantic too. I love this place for the same reasons he does.
I am sending you some pictures I took at Halim’s house. I also want to tell you that if you wanted to send money for him, but couldn’t meet the deadline – which was admittedly tight – we’ve worked out a way that allows you to donate money until the end of the summer, or perhaps even beyond. So if you were disappointed at not being able to help due to the deadline, be so no more. All the information on how to support this cause is the same. Halim told me yesterday that his family knows that you have agreed to help them. Now, he said, his children sleep - rather than cry - at night. Whatever you do for the least of these….
Peace and joy (and romance) to all,
rjs
It’s ridiculously hot here at the moment. My office is probably the coolest place in the building, so I thought I’d make some excuse to be in here. Outside the sky is growing dark again and it thunders. We’ve had sunny weather and no rain for a long time. This is like the summer storms you hear about from people who grew up on the prairies. It would be nice if it rained a little to bring down the dust. The dust comes in yellow clouds and covers everything. It’s usually hot and windy when it’s dusty so you come home from the street caked with a layer of silt that has stuck to your sweaty skin. I usually wrap my scarf around my head like a turban and imagine that I’m Lawrence of Arabia. It makes a dust storm more romantic rather than irritating.
Phil Morris, the first intrepid Canadian to set himself against the wilds of Afghanistan with SFL, said that he came here “for the romance of it all.” (At least I was told he said that – if I’m wrong, sorry Phil). Like him, we can see these things romantically. Getting up at four in the morning and driving out to a remote village with a truck full of money to pay the road workers is an adventure not a job. Sure, you can fly down to Kabul, but the most beautiful approach is by road from the north, at sunset, after 13 hours of spine-jarring travel. And there are stories of others who got to ride horses and donkeys to places that no vehicle could go. This is a dusty country, riddled with bullet holes, littered with refuse, broken down and ancient, but it is one of the most romantic places on earth.
This week I got to drive to Baharak, a place where three rivers meet in a riot of green. There are full glades of trees there, and fields, and waterfalls. The streets are tree-lined, and (this astonished me) clean. It is a major stopping point at this time of year for shepherds and nomads on their way up to the northern summer pastures. On the way, we were halted again and again as the sheep herders hustled their animals over to one side to let us pass. Sometimes we just stopped and let the bleating flocks flow around us. And then there are those majestic and romantic animals, the camels. We passed one grassy area by the river where a tribe of nomads – Kuchis – were camped, spread out in huge earth-brown tents with a hundred camels kneeling around them. The decorated children peeked out and giggled at us. The unveiled women looked at us brazenly. Men with hands and faces carved from wood and stone squinted at us and went back to their work. And the camels milled about, munching grass and smiling their haughty know-it-all smiles under half-lidded eyes, as though they were just putting up with us until something better came along. It was all close enough to touch, a whole world that before only existed on the pages of books, or on movies screens.
There is something inside me that falls in love with this world. I think that I, like Phil, am here for the romance of it all. Last weekend I woke up at five and walked for two hours up through a tiny village into the hills, wearing sandals, robe-like garb, and a turban on my head. I sat by myself in the wilderness, listening to the calls of the goatherds high on the hills. I took off my clothes and stood glistening under a waterfall. I lay in the sun until my skin was dry again. I followed the river down through canyons and under stone aqueducts, following goat-trails down between the cliffs and striding through rivers. I feel myself more here. I hear God better. I understand now why my soul has always lifted when God answers Job by describing the wilderness. It’s because God is a romantic too. I love this place for the same reasons he does.
I am sending you some pictures I took at Halim’s house. I also want to tell you that if you wanted to send money for him, but couldn’t meet the deadline – which was admittedly tight – we’ve worked out a way that allows you to donate money until the end of the summer, or perhaps even beyond. So if you were disappointed at not being able to help due to the deadline, be so no more. All the information on how to support this cause is the same. Halim told me yesterday that his family knows that you have agreed to help them. Now, he said, his children sleep - rather than cry - at night. Whatever you do for the least of these….
Peace and joy (and romance) to all,
rjs
posted by rjs | 4:18 PM
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