At ‚Royal Hostel‘

Dear friends,

After been so welcomed here it continued that I became more attention. I guess it’s mainly because I am a foreigner. And foreigners are rare here. And secondary that I am walking and working for peace.

24h hours are following where I feel my space is decresing. So many young men here, who like to contact. And how to balance it. My room is somehow in the center of the hostel. In a inner courtyard but outside of the main entrance. Everyone is passing by all the time. It would be the perfect place for a hostel cafe or other meeting place. Students are looking around, partly standing on the door or looking through the window. I am and other people are sitting inside on the ground, so also the fact, that I have to look up to them or that they are looking down is starting to annoy me. And a lot of small talk. Puh. But mainly the situation with Hamid is starting to get out of control. He is really a nice guy, but asking with his behaviour a lot of attention. He wants something from me, but I can’t grap it. He has a annoying sound in his voice and calls all the time ‚Thomaaaass‘ and is not letting go of any comments, as unimportant they are. Shahzad and Faiz are also all the time around. Shahzad is using tabac in his mouth, he told me the night before, that he can’t let go of it. Too much tension in the body, and today I smell some of that around him. Faiz had told me, that he likes to do open a facebook page to make ‚peacebirdsforafghanistan‘ known and that he likes to distribute them. We are folding some birds during the day. But it continues. I feel, they don’t give me any space anymore. I try to continuey communicate the issue, but it feels, they don’t understand. Hamid I give to understand, that he please has to stop…… again and again. I tell Faiz, that Hamid is provocating me more and more until I have to be loud, to stop it. But I don’t want to act like this. It feels more and more like stalking and I don’t know where to go. The hostel is fully packed. In every room 4 to 5 people. Learning and studying. They even sit sometimes in the floor to have some space for learning. Faiz is explaning, that Hamid is just joking……

Finally we have dinner. The cook brought some cooked beans on two plates. We eat the beans with bread. Teasing went on. Inside I feel so misused, still don’t have an idea where to go and avoid this ‚attacks‘. Where is space…. I am talking with Faiz,  exchanging from my side some ideas to stop this….. Hamid makes some more comments, crossing some borders of at least Moslem behavior, I partly still react here and there to try to relax the situation and can’t believe what’s going on…… He has, as I remember just the big knife in his hands and taking it in his fist…. and facing it towards me, and I again think loud with Faiz, of how I can stop him. I guess he just cut something….. but he was not threatening with the knife anymore, when I had the idea of eye gazing could maybe stop him….. but then suddenly he had the knife again in his fist and he clearly faced it aggrassivly toward me, somehow the knife was just 40 cm before my nose. I got really angry to just take the last space of me. I got up and grapped one empty plate and one still half with beans filled plate try to somehow hit him a little with he empty one and put the food somehow on his clothes. Anyway, Faiz stopped me from continue doing so….. They all had to go. In the following hour Faiz convinced Hamid to say ‚ sorry‘ to me, but it was not fully from his heart….. And Faiz tried to explane myself, that even the knife thing is still playing and joking around. Afghanis are also joking with loading guns sometimes, is Attel explaning later. (But also some deadly accidents happend because of that) But this is the situation with some people. I later say to Faiz, that I actually don’t see a root of this kind of behaviour in Hamid. He is such a kind a beautiful guy. Where is this coming from? I ask Faiz and myself?…. Where do kids learn this kind of stuff. Where is respect, dignity, social behavior,  Where is education? How can education fail so badly? Where is social education? Why can Moslem teachings fail so badly? Where are the Imams and teachers in the mosques? Where is there success in this, why did it not influence the people more?……

And in this moment and hours later I am not able to realize, that this behaviour could be still ‚joking, teasing‘?!!!!!…..

It takes more and more hours. And the whole next day to diguest this ‚happening‘ and I also have a little shock.

I think of moving towards the hotel directors privat house and have a look, if his nephew is somewhere in the hotel to find. But it’s Friday ‚tatil‘ he has a free day. I stay a little bit and have with the other employees a green tea.

At 12.30h I am visiting the Hindu Temple. Earlier I saw in the Kabul map, that there must be a Sikh Temple. Only with the help of Faiz I could finally find some days ago the exact location. But it is a Hindu temple, shared with some Sikh. The temple is hosting 10 homeless families. They have ten rooms, each one offered to a single family. Wow. How great. Friday at 12.30h they have there service, lots of singing, very very loud, with loudspeakers in bad bad quality. But it’s nice. Everyone brings some fruits to offer, which got shared after the blessings later on. Most people also give a donation. The temple is located in a old fabric building. It’s a bit grey in the hall. Everything concrete in the hall. To the street side they have grey curtains at the windows. I believe it’s not easy to run a Hindu temple in a moslem country. The altar is colourful decorated with Krishna and some other gods and godess and artificial flowers and fabrics. After the service a wonderful vegetarian meal without onions is offered. Wooonderful. So great. And I like the people. I feel partly released and feel something like 60% of my shock is diguested.

Hamid is showing up the whole day. He offers his ’sorry‘ again and again, I partly take it, but I still needed some more time to diguest. And still wanted some distance. Faiz is not avaible for translation. So we had to wait for the next day, to have a little clearing conversation. And I had also to appologize to Hamid, because if that all was teasing and joking, there was no bad intention from his side, and my glas plate beans issue towards him I had to be excused. 

Breathing out

Th?mas