Excerpts from:

Lucy Shook’s Letters from Afghanistan

Winter 1965-66

December 17, 1965

Dearest Children,

            We arrived here night before last.  Lost another six hours from Rome and have leaped ahead of you twelve hours now.  When we are eating lunch today, you will be in the sack at midnight last night.  How about them apples?

We were met in Kandahar by Mrs. Pinkerton, Mr. Crawford, our houseboy Harullah, and two Afghan drivers in two vehicles.  After the customs people got through hunting all through our luggage for guns, we blasted off with the two Afghans driving and blowing the horns all the way for ninety miles.  As we neared the halfway mark, just before the sun went down, the drivers stopped.  They went down to a stream and washed their feet, then came back, put a cloth down, knelt, and prayed.  Then they prayed again after the sun went down.  They stood and prayed and salaamed three times, then prayed some more and salaamed three more times. After that, we were on our way again.

When we got to Gertrude’s house, her houseboy had a fire going in the fireplace.  It was a welcome sight.  The electricity was off, and we sat by the fire to warm by candlelight.  Mrs. Pinkerton wanted to take us home for dinner, but we were exhausted, and even though it was only six-thirty, we went to bed.

Our Roman holiday was terrific.  We saw all the sights under the careful charge of Aldo, who took us to the airport, too.  We boarded Pan Am and got to Istanbul, where we found that the connecting plane hadn’t yet left London.  We may not get out, they said, until the next night.  Jimmie told them we had to get out or we would have to wait three more days in Beirut to get our connection to Kandahar.  So the agent sent us over to a foxy hotel overlooking the Bosphorus for refreshments, and finally word came that we were being transferred to SAS to go to Beirut.  Back we went and had a wonderful trip on SAS.  Good service and hot food.

It was very late when we flew out of Beirut, and when I boarded I could not believe the plane.  It was an old DC-6, all rickety and oil-slicked on the wings and loaded down with freight. It had two little hostesses and three pilots, I think, and they were wonderful to us.  They made a bed for us out of our seats and the front seats.  I was too scared to sleep and too tired not to try.  I prayed all night and all day, and much to my surprise, we made it to Tehran, Iran, where they loaded more freight and more people. Knowing that Kabul is surrounded by mountains, I began to wonder if we could get over them with all that weight.  But we did.  We flew over the most desolate land I have ever seen, past Kandahar to Kabul.  Then after we took on more freight at Kabul, we flew back to Kandahar.

One of the pilots came out and cooked our breakfast.  That was before Kabul. After Kabul, he came out and fixed us sandwiches.  The entire crew on the old klunk worked like dogs.  The stewardesses checked out freight all night and the pilots checked out their craft every stop.  They were big, handsome fellas. 

I am convinced I will have to stay here forever unless they put us on another plane.  I cannot fly that craft another time.  When I saw all that oil on the wing I asked Jim if he didn’t think the motor needed working on, and he said yes.  So I said, do you think they will work on it in Kabul?  He said no, it would last a while longer. 

The shock of coming out of modern western culture and into this ancient place is almost more than the system can stand.  The houses are small and made of mud like Navajo hogans, only they are built close together within a wall.  The men wear baggy pants, turbans, and toga-like things.  And then, to make it more fantastic, they will put on an American or European coat.

There seem to be so many people here.  Every place we go there are people, roaming around, working away, or sitting.  They are a handsome people and seem proud and aloof.

Today we went by the Kuchie camp out of the village.  The Kuchies are the nomads that travel, and they are also merchants.  They live in black tents.  We stopped as one of them hailed us, and then over came six more men.  One of them hobbled to the car, sat down, and pulled up his pant leg, showing us a horribly ulcerated leg.  Mrs. Pinkerton told him to go in to the hospital at Bost, but he said no.  We went on, but it made me sick. 

We went out to a ruin to explore, and as we passed by a village a little boy was bare from his waist down, and his genitals were all swollen—huge pouches hanging down.  But the people all seem happy.  They pray often, and I am sure our Heavenly Father is mindful of them.  They do not beg.  They are very proud.  Men carry loads on their backs that would stagger a horse.  Little tiny donkeys carry loads that look outlandish.  Camels the same.

The ruins were great and fantastic.  I tried to figure out what each room was.  There appeared to be a sauna bath, a heating system with ducts, a water system throughout the castle, and a spiral staircase.  The phenomenal thing is that it is all made of adobe and dates to 1045 A.D.

I am crazy about our houseboy.  He is only seventeen and his name is Harullah.  Such a nice fella, so anxious to learn and so intelligent.  I will teach him more English, and he can teach me Afghan.  I suppose I will try to make a boy-kid out of him, but I will try to be stern.  He calls me Memsy or something like that.  He is eager, so I imagine we will get along very well.

The gardeners are paid 500 afghanies a month.  That is less than $5.00 a month.  The rate of exchange is 70 afghanies to $1.00.  The houseboy makes more.  No one ever makes more than 900 afghanies.

Mr. Crawford said beef is twenty cents a pound, and I guess lamb is about the same.  The fat-tail sheep are good, everyone says.  They say it does not taste like lamb at home.  Potatoes are cheap, as are pomegranates and citrus fruit.  It costs a lot to go to Kandahar to shop for American food, but we will have to get our butter and canned goods there, as well as flour.  We can live out of the bazaars, I think, as long as we cook everything real done.   There is an experimental farm here, as there was in Alaska, and the vegetables are okay to eat, I have been told.  Gertrude has a big garden with lots of leafy green.

It is four weeks tomorrow since we left you.  So much has happened and we have done so much that it seems an eternity.  I hope everyone is well.  I wanted to call from Rome, but was afraid that I would cry and that would have been expensive tears that I could not afford.  Too, it would have made you feel bad.  If you will write me fairly often it will not be difficult for me.  But I am cut off, I know.  I have been trying to find out if the astronauts met in the expected place and at the expected time.  Can’t find out.  We get news bulletins that are not too old—about three days, I think.  So, I should know soon. You realize, dear children, that all this has happened and I have only been here two days.  We both can hardly believe that we aren’t old timers.  

Jimmie will be working with a young Afghan who is married to an American girl.  They both went to school in Tempe.  I know it will be a valuable friendship.  On Thursday he went to work and I went and looked at the house we are to have.  It is a two bedroom duplex with a wide hall, fireplace, dining room, and a kitchen with a big go-down, which means pantry.  I get to go over to the warehouse and pick out furniture and rugs.  They allow everyone as much as they want.  I am glad of this, as I never have had enough chests of drawers in my entire life.  So many things are provided for us that I am surprised all the time.  The wood for the fireplace is brought to us, and the maintenance crews take care of the houses.  We will have a vegetable garden, and Harullah says he has a gardener for me.

Church is held in the home of the Hoggs.  There is a branch in Kabul, but it is too far to go just to church.  It takes about six hours to drive it, and the roads are pretty rough. But if and when they happen to have a conference, perhaps we can go.  We have to go to Kabul as soon as we can, though, as we have to call on the Ambassador out of courtesy. It is part of protocol. They instructed us in Washington to do that.  Since we do not live in Kabul, we must send our calling cards within two days to the Ambassador and his wife.  Silly, isn’t it?  But we need to let him know that he darn well better look after us.

Jackals come down into town—the four-legged type.  Guess they are wanting food.

I will be glad to see Gertrude, and expect they will be back from R and R in Hong Kong around the fifth of January.

It doesn’t seem like almost Christmas to me, but I am sure it will get Christmassy soon.  I am going to try and fix some kind of holiday for us, but I’m not much in the mood because part of our lives are separated from us by half the world.  But no one told us to come, did they?  I always think of what Ron said to me once, and it comforts me:  What is a few years, compared to eternity?  I loathe to lose the two years in separation, but I do have eternity.

Best I stop and go to bed.  Daddy is racked out already.  This is Friday and Juma, which is Holy Day.  It’s pronounced with a j sound, not an h, with a long u. 

In spite of my occasional flashes of homesickness, we are having a wonderful experience.  Please don’t let the babies forget about us.  Also, don’t you forget about us.  Beeg hugs for everybody.  Beeg squeeze…Mother

Sakhi’s Wife and the American Hag

August 28, 1966

Dearest Children,

I must tell you about Sakhi.  Pronounced Sakhee.  He is twenty-seven and a cook.  He is absolutely wonderful.  Can cook anything.  He worked for MK, and is very proud of that fact.  He just got married and hadn’t seen his wife in six months, so someone brought her down yesterday.  She is in chaderi, a hood that fits over the whole face with a fabric screen over the eyes.  The hood reaches the neck and then hangs to the floor in fine pleats.  You cannot imagine how it is until you see one.  Some of them are shorter in front, even up to the knees, but the drag to the ground in back.  They are fairly full.  The women carry their babies under them. 

Anyhow, Sakhi asked me to take his new wife to the place he has for them to live.  I couldn’t get away, so I sent a Peace Corps boy to tell Jimmy to go get the car and take them.  The bride’s brother is a houseboy at one of the American’s, so they stopped to see her brother.  Sakhi’s wife didn’t raise her chaderi to greet her brother, but kissed his hand through the fabric.  But the American woman made her lift the veil so she could see her face.  Sakhi’s wife didn’t want to, so Jimmy told her he would turn his head.  Finally she lifted her chaderi for the damn American hag, and after she had been looked at, Jimmy said she cried.  I felt terrible when I heard about it.  I asked Gertrude what thing in the history of this country caused the men to hide their women like that.  She said, according to what she has read, that the British, in centuries past, came in and ravished the women, so that the men put them in seclusion.  They took them off the street and covered them all over.  Now they cover them from the time they are ten years old.  It’s such a protection to them that they can’t bear to be seen.  I think one more generation will take them out of chaderi.  But now, most of them wear it.  Even the young women.  This is the only country left that have their women in chaderi.  It’s not the same as the veils that Rachel and Leah wore.   I think it’s different, but I wonder about it sometimes.  So many things are done here as it was done in the Bible, that I am sure they are about 2000 years or more behind the times.

Big-time Contractor

March 10, 1966 

Dearest Children:

           I have to sit right down and tell you this thing that happened before I forget just how it was.  Yesterday a little boy came to the Staff House with Saddrudin (my “System”), and since I had been wanting some fertilizer for my flowerbeds, Saddrudin said, “Here is a businessman you may want to enter into a contract with for some fertilizer.”  So I said, “Of course.”  Well, here stood this little ragamuffin.  I know he had a hundred patches on his coat.  In fact, the coat was made of squares of material put together like a quilt.  It was not a coat, but a toga – sort of a long shirt affair.  Such a chapped little brown boy; he couldn’t have been over eight or ten years old.  He had his turban wound around his head, such a little old man-child standing there.  He would bring his burros with fertilizer, he said, two bags on each burro for seven afs a bag.  He had to bring it three miles, walking behind the burros.  So I said great, bring it on.

Well, this morning I could hear one of the boys saying, “Barro, barro,” which means “Go.”  I went out into the breezeway, and there was this little boy putting up a very good argument.  He had brought the fertilizer, and he had brought three bags on each donkey, and he wanted seven afs for each bag.  Well, Saddrudin wasn’t here yet, and I couldn’t remember if it was seven afs a bag or per donkey.  The gardeners came flocking around, and all the cooks, and they were all going to be darn sure that I didn’t get robbed by this formidable bandit.  The big gardener with the deep voice came and spoke his piece, and since the Afghans are very excitable, you can imagine the din around his head.  By the time I got out there, the poor little chap’s mouth and chin were quivering.  When I spoke softly to him, he broke into tears and was just a poor little ragged boy and not a big-time contractor.  Well, you can imagine it tore me all up, and I dispatched fellas for cookies and said I didn’t care if it was too much, I would pay the price: forty-two afs for half a day’s work for this little man-child and two burros.  He got up before dawn to do this bit of work, and he was a brave little guy.  After we got him calmed down, I told him to go to Gertrude’s.  She’s no tougher than I am, and I knew she would buy some.  Then I told him to come back in two weeks and haul me some more.  Probably the whole family will eat for two days on the forty afs I gave him.  I slipped him a six-af tip, too.  The boys didn’t see that or they would say, “That’s too much, Memsahib.”

           The poverty among some of these people is a pitiful thing to look upon, especially in the children.  He was a proud little boy, and after this houseboy had given him such a verbal trouncing, he’d be darned if he would take cookies from him.  It was only when I told him to take them that he took them in his little grimy paw and almost squeezed them into crumbs.  They were peanut butter cookies and kinda crumby anyhow.

          Love to all...Mother