The Afghan Queen: A True Story of an American Woman in Afghanistan

by Paul Meinhardt

  Airport brokers handled all international shipments, including insurance, official inspections, clearances, taxes, and, of course, baksheesh, or gifts when needed. These shipments might consist of a dozen large aluminum coffin-size trunks. Often, large rugs, kilems, and wall hangings were shipped in heavy canvas or burlap bags, like military duffle bags.

  As we neared the Iranian border, the beautiful Mediterranean climate gave way to cool mountain air. That last night in Turkey was spent camping beside Lake Van. It was strange how the temperature had dropped causing the whole caravan to put on sweaters and heavy socks.

  After a few days, the caravan took on a timeless quality. People would go out of their way to avoid asking the time or being pinned down to a specific hour. We would say, “Let’s get started right after breakfast. We’ll meet at noon or sunset at the ruins,” but seldom was a specific time mentioned.

  Each day began to roll gently by with new timeless vistas, new timeless friends, a little business, some loving, and much partying. Always, the time flowed more or less pleasantly and we went with the flow. Each overland trip became more pleasant in terms of everyone getting along.

  With each trip we’ve gathered more women power. After these years of caravan trekking, we women insist that the men take more responsibility for our ever larger communal meals and sanitation. These responsibilities are written into our travel agreements, and all trekkers must sign these agreements before the trip.

  One of the Swiss came up with a truly innovative way to clean food utensils: first, everything was covered or scrubbed with sand to get off most of the grime; then, sand and ash from the campfire were rubbed on everything. Finally, a little soapy water and a rinse got everything squeaky clean. This was a satisfying method as it lent itself to production line cheer.

  By the end of last September, we were more careful in sharing both work and food. A few in our caravan had not learned the fine art of scrounging food when on short rations. This became an important skill when Ramadan daily fasting was in effect in the Muslim world and when food became less available as we traveled in rural areas.

  In what was to be the last year of my Afghan adventure, checklists were carefully maintained and little was left to chance. Our ‘old girl,’ the bus, performed admirably considering all the mileage, wear and tear she survived. Dharma thought this would be her last year; the last year of the bus. At the end of the year she planned on getting a new vehicle.

  Even the most laid back in the caravan worked with a will to earn a place in our communal meals. Most food shops in rural Turkey displayed little variety. Nevertheless, we learned to live adequately on eggplant, tomatoes, onions, yogurt, olives and rice. These became staples together with local bread and eggs.

  At first we made stews, but how much stewed veggies could we eat? Then we roasted tomatoes and eggplant stuffed with cooked rice, onions, and spices. Great omelets were concocted almost daily.

  As we approached Iran, the Turks seemed to act more like Iranians. Near the Iran border we found the people increasingly unpleasant. There was a cold welcome in Iran, to say the least, which was expected, but not in Turkey.

  The next day, still in Turkey, a couple of our men were filling water jugs from a stream when an elderly villager shouted at us with rage in his voice. We could not understand what was bothering him until he sent over a boy on a bicycle.

  The boy explained that his grandfather did not approve of the water bearers being shirtless. The boy was obviously embarrassed. He went on to say that the old folks considered it disrespectful to show bare skin or smoke in public, especially during this holy time of the year. Dharma listened and nodded as the boy explained.

  Dharma was furious and turned red as a beet. She smiled at the boy and pointed out that everyone else milling about wore proper attire. Then she picked up a broom and led the boy to the stream where the two men were sunbathing with only their shorts on. Without a word, Dharma began beating them with the broom.

  The men were shocked out of their reverie. “Was gibt?” What’s up? They shouted curses as Dharma chased them back to camp, swatting them with the broom all the way. The boy followed on his bike. She asked the boy to tell his grandfather that the men had been punished and would be more respectful. By this time the other caravaners had gathered to see the commotion.

  Both men were cowering under the bus as Dharma began shouting at them.

  “How many times were you told to cover your body in Muslim areas? You’re lucky it was just one old man who objected. You could have been stoned like you were in Iran last spring. You endanger yourselves and everyone in the caravan. If you ever step off the bus unclothed again, you will be dropped off at the nearest bus stop.”

  She wasn’t finished. “You damn bankers’ sons; son-ofbitches are what you are. Such arrogant disregard could get us killed. I bet you learned this attitude from your fathers, if you bastards had fathers, that is. I’m not going to allow you to endanger us. Get fully dressed with hats and go fetch the water jugs. I’m not finished with you!”

  When they returned with the water jugs she told them, “The next incident you cause, I’ll dump you, baggage and all right at that spot. It’s time you grew up. I’m not your mother.”

  These hints of trouble were just a prelude of what was to come traveling through Iran. A deep expression of hostility to Westerners was spreading throughout Iran. Primarily, this hostility was centered in the rural Muslim centers, spreading among older, poorer, and farming people. Much of the hostility was attributed to the Shah’s draconian westernization.

  It must be said that the spearhead of the Shah’s whims were the not-so-secret police, Savak. The police terrorized the Iranian people for decades in the name of progress and westernization. Unfortunately, police terror had come down especially hard on Muslim hardliners.

  We in the caravan understood this and tried to rush through Iran showing a minimum profile. But, how can you minimize a caravan of strange vehicles? We encountered minor incidents of insults and occasional rock throwing. We acquiesced in all these events, smiling as much as possible and saying as little as we could.

  A few times we were stopped at road blocks. As our papers were checked, we casually mentioned the hostility we encountered. The guards were apologetic, explaining the instability. The officials insisted that Iran welcomed visitors who were respectful of their nation. Once they sent along a vehicle escort, the stoning became worse.

  When we were free of the officials, our caravan was largely ignored. It became obvious that while our caravan was seen as an unwelcome symbol of western imperialism, the most virulent anger was directed at the police.

  Western excess was not tolerated. Iranians were especially incensed by uncovered flesh. We dared not leave our vehicles in shorts or short sleeves. All the women wore scarfs wrapped around their heads and necks when stepping off our vehicles. The men wore baseball caps or other head covers. Some draped colored towels over their heads and shoulders.

  Before leaving Istanbul, a married couple from Atlanta joined our caravan. They had purchased their VW camper in Germany and spent a few months exploring Europe. I was immediately attracted to Tom and Julie. They spoke English, and that was enough for me. Also, being from Atlanta provided a living link to my husband, also from Atlanta. They had the same accent.

  In many ways the couple was like Paul and me. Most appealing was the low key care and affection they displayed for each other. They had been together for ten years, having met at the Communicable Disease center where they both worked.

  Of course, there were some loving relationships in the caravan, but, by my standards, these were shallow hippy posturing. I disliked the show of gushy exhibitionism, typical of some of the Sannyasins. Such dramas did not play well in the Middle East and that presented a danger for us all. Most Sannyasins acted out more as takers than givers.

  The only other North American in our caravan was Mack, a lean, almost handsome, fortyish, ex-psychotherapist who had ‘dropped ou
t of the system’ a few years earlier. He was constantly smiling, laughing and joking.

  Mack traveled around the world on a ‘search for meaning,’ as he put it. To me, he seemed like an actor passing through a constantly changing world stage. He was searching for his authenticity, as he often reminded us. As far as I was concerned, the only authentic part of him was the real world scenery around his posturing.

  For a time, it was mildly entertaining to talk with Mack. His only serious pursuit was sex, and that was what he was selling; I was not buying. This guy was essentially a teenager in his forties. He was quite wealthy; at least he acted that way. Often he insisted on buying the camp provisions or gas for the bus, and the generosity was much appreciated and praised.

  Mack propositioned most of the women in the caravan, including the married women. Dharma and Versant were royally annoyed with Mack. He had made passes at all four of us. We talked about Mack’s ludicrous approach to us. Dharma slammed him beautifully. She told him that he sounded like her ten-year-old, when he wanted something he couldn’t have.

  She said to him, “Look, we appreciate your cash contributions, but that does not mean you have bought our bodies. I can’t understand how you managed as a psychotherapist, but I’m starting to understand why you left the profession. If anyone complains about your absurd advances, I will be forced to throw you off the bus, understood?”

  Angelic, beautiful Versant, with her incredible talent of always being herself, reacted most intelligently to Mack’s advances. We asked what happened.

  “I had just finished replacing an outer bus window when he grabbed me about the waist, “To help you off the ladder,” said he. I turned my head, shaking it furiously and said, “Remove yourself, now and forever.” He bolted backwards, fell down, and I walked away.”

  That was sad, but funny. I told the women about my one and only reaction to his approach. “For some reason, he came on to me while I was writing an aerogram. Most of the caravan people seemed to straddle the real world, with one foot in reality and the other in Never-Never Land. Except for a few business types, they came off like Wendy’s and Peter Pans on a road trip.

  There had been too many trips with these people; it was enough. From that point on, I would fly to Kabul. I know I kept saying this but kept on coming back. It was like being with a family on wheels; repelled and attracted at the same time. They kept saying they needed and loved me and I was a sucker for their soft soap approach. It must have been the eternal mom in me.

  How could we feel a part of the real world, when we seldom stayed more than a couple of days in one place? Camping grounds were just an hippie oasis on the road to nowhere. Traveling through Iran provided some grounding in the real world, as much as we would have preferred to avoid it. Iran was just plain scary and dangerous. We traveled through as rapidly as possible.

  It amused me to think about my husband complaining about how little change there was in our lives. Of course, Paul meant his life, not mine. There was always plenty of diversion in my life, and still I craved more; but Iran was one diversion I could live without.

  I don’t know why, but I had a vivid daydream about babies swimming in the womb, in the amniotic mother sea, and then as toddlers drawn to the sea, yet cautiously retreating as each wave tickled their toes. I was reminded of how Paul and I would watch our boys at the shore, gleefully running back and forth as small waves chased them and retreated, laughing in primal delight with each new wave.

  Similarly, I saw myself stepping into a zone of danger and then attempting to retreat. I’m getting to be like my husband, generalizing as to the human condition, embracing the new and exciting, but retreating from the threat. Life is not confusing, but we surely are.

  Paul is still like that; chasing adventure, but retreating when it might change his life. Early on, he considered immigrating to New Zealand, Australia, revolutionary Cuba, and then back to medical practice in the U.S. These and other adventures he chased, then retreated. On the other hand, he stands rooted like an oak to the family, the kids and me.

  There is a polarity between Paul and me. He refers to it as a loving dialectic. While he is happy for my success and is my staunchest admirer and supporter, he envies what he calls my “special courage, practical enterprise intelligence and soft toughness.”

  Most important is the strong passion we have for each other. Each time I return home from business in Afghanistan, it’s better than our first honeymoon. The great thing is that I can laugh at him and we can laugh at each other and love it.

  He persists in a number of different pursuits, especially graduate studies and writing. Over the twenty years we’ve been together, he has never taken a step backwards.

  The only thing I worry about is his impatience with himself. He grows increasingly reluctant to accept the status quo. I believe this impulse will finally push him over the edge to find his own path, while preserving our relationship. But there’s not much I can do to support him. He’s the type of person who must do these things on his own, at his own pace.

  While I work my business, it’s a fascinating struggle I see Paul going through. Tenaciously he builds his business stature while becoming more of his own person. Using our aerograms to each other, he’s begun drafting a book about my Afghan travels. I feel proud that he is doing this. In addition to the aerograms, I put as much of my life and thoughts into my travel journal.

  He works daily on bodybuilding and keeps-up his work as house husband. It’s his many pursuits that make him exciting to me. He’s built a greenhouse attached to our back porch and raises rabbits for meat in the garage. Paul makes sure he takes the boys out on weekends.

  Dan, our student family caretaker, has become like a third son. He plays the big brother to the boys, two or three nights a week while Paul travels throughout North America on corporate business. Paul fancies himself a partisan fighter within the belly of the corporate beast, as he puts it, propagandizing and agitating for progressive change.

  While encouraging and supporting me in his aerograms, he also tests his theories and writings for my reaction. In his writing, Paul is striving to do for women what the civil rights movement is doing for racial equality. He views the struggle for family and household as an economic campaign to free families and especially women from the serfdom imposed by the market economy.

  In a recent aerogram he wrote, “They occupy our minds, our culture, our humanity, as well as our families, in the same way Nazi propaganda occupied Europe.” So much of what he says is posturing and pontification. I have trouble sorting out what he believes from his “put-ons.”

  The fantasy world he creates in his writings is enlightening, entertaining, and exciting bullshit. These creations of his make me wonder if he sees any difference between nonfiction and fiction. His immersion in German literature is influenced by “Till Eulenspiegel and His Merry Pranks.”

  Most difficult for me, and for him, is dealing with his efforts at building a commune. The crux of this is his attempts at establishing sexual links with women he’s attracted to. On the other hand, he is loving and constant with me and the boys. Paul insists that I should feel free to do whatever pleases me, as long as we remain together.

  This is easily the most difficult part of our marriage, his effort to build a tribal society based on sexual relations between people. His goal is to build a network of loving friends. Paul has spent years studying ancient and prehistoric society and convinces himself that those primal societies achieved the golden age that Greek philosophers (all men) recorded.

  Now, his pet project is to rediscover our tribal heritage. He argues that the only real links between people are bonds of blood kinship and sexual bonds. Paul believes that loving relationships can renew the golden age of bands, clans, tribes, and tribal confederations. The key is to start by loving your neighbor, both literally and figuratively; fat chance of that.

  His ideas trouble me. “What must we give up?” I ask? He says, “Can we learn to cast out jealousy, owni
ng each other? I believe love means caring about people, like you care about our kids, your mother, and me, just as I care about you and our family. But love must also include a degree of freedom. How this works out in reality, I’m not quite sure.”

  He wants us to be free, which is nice, but I’m jealous of him. I have affairs, but they are short and sweet. Never have I prolonged these to the detriment of our family. Long affairs are nothing but trouble. “If we really care about each other, then we care about our freedom and independence,” says he. “Marriage provides enough freedom as it is,” I say.

  You cannot love someone as a real and free person while controlling their sexual needs. Only the perfect person can be perfectly satisfied and satisfying, sexually or otherwise. And none of us are perfect. Paul and I love each other and still have brief affairs. I think it’s like an escape valve on a steam iron. We need to escape occasionally to keep the iron hot.

  We still don’t know ‘what comes naturally,’ if anything. It takes nature and nurture, mothers and society to produce us. Paul talks about one of the earliest household rules, mating outside the kinship group, or exogamy, to seek a diversity of genes. That may explain why women and men seek diverse, multiple mates.

  In the beginning, women and children were the center of the human household, with men outside providing support and protection, in exchange for mating rights. This was the case with most primates and persists with people. This is the extent of my feminism.

  Typically, men provide support by means of an outside job. Increasingly, women are assuming the role of family support and protection, as well as mother, outside and inside the household.

  We’re not a typical family. At this time, my husband and I spend lots of time supporting the family outside the home. However, Paul provides most of the household nurturing and upkeep.