There I experienced something severe, which the little bastard on my shoulder wanted to warn me about for quite some time.
I heard him laugh.
The fact was that we had to drive to India. We did not have much time to take it out of the country. The vehicle had the threat of customs custody and a possible auction. We did not want to travel to India or even to Europe. We also did not want to give the car to the customs.
Then Chitra came up with the idea of giving the car to the temple. Not that she had become very pious, but perhaps a tiny temple would certainly carve her name in marble. That was something that turned her on. No, not to a Christian dignitary - he did not have enough influence.
It had to be a Buddhist.
We were able to contact the highest Buddhist dignitary through people known to us and invite him over to our villa. That was not so easy but he really wanted to see the car.
Since I could not go to the temple, he had to come to us. As far as I can recall, his name was Thero Hamuduru Amerawanza. But even this attempt was not successful because our minister was unable to import the car. The car had to be taken out of the country.
My frustration grew over a certain level. What kind of shit had I fallen into once again? We moved from the villa to Chitra's mother to her small coconut farm after a lovely year, out of necessity.
She always spoke of her "Coconut - Estate".
We somehow arrived at the “Estate” driving in our Mercedes through this undergrowth jungle and dirt track that was fit for a jeep. The much praised home of the Fernando family turned out to be a semi-dilapidated hut in an overgrown garden with coconut trees, banana trees, papaya trees towering into the sky and an extended monitor lizard family. Of course we were frequently at the Tropicana and I also had met Salim, my predecessor with Chitra. I had to show him my Mercedes of course. The bygone era was over and why should I be angry with someone?
We drove rarely into the city. I had to save, because we knew that the journey to Germany was definite - or I could sell the Mercedes in Afghanistan. But at that moment we were in Colombo and this time we wanted to have a Chinese meal. The mother and the little girl stayed at home. "At home" sounded in the national language as follows: Viharakale Estate at Mugunuwattawana, Chilaw, Negombo, Ceylon. And the Sinhalese name of Fernandos was Warnakulasuria. That was already something of a tongue twister.
My favorite Chinese restaurant was in the interior of the city of Colombo, right next to the Clock Tower, a remnant of the British Empire.
After a year’s stay, we were very well known in the Chinese restaurant and they already knew what we would order. We sat right next to the big, wide-open window, which was opened by repeatedly pushing the window. Just a few steps separated us from the sidewalk. So we were able to watch the action on the street.
We had just gotten our food, a Buffalo Steak for Chitra and a Chop Soy for me, when a guy came and yakked with Chitra in Sinhalese.
I did not understand much but from the conversation I could filter out that it was about a white man and a hooker. I could make sense of the rest of it. I also understood the word "Mahatte", which means as much as husband. But then I was too slow, I heard only the scream of the guy and he waved a bleeding hand around in the air.
I had registered that he had banged the ashtray upside down on the table in front of Chitra. But it had escaped my notice that Chitra had stabbed him with the fork.
But I saw the fork, which he still had stuck in his hand.
He pulled it out and fell over Chitra, which he should not have done, because it was now my entry into the scene.
I remembered what my coach had told me during the time in those days in the boxing club: He exhorted us to be fair and not to attack certain areas. But exactly these points were my goal. Next, I pulled the bird onto the road.
There was a colleague of mine standing, a life-sized cook made of carpentered plywood. I took this cook and whacked this guy on the head but the guy was tough, so I had to use the cook once again as a tool to make a sweeping blow.
Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered as spectators and as arbitrators but we both did not listen to anyone.
Suddenly a police van arrived and some of the small policemen tried to hold me, which they did not succeed. But on my own I stopped dealing with my opponent because he babbled something about him being a policeman. I had not been paying attention, I was a little distracted by his drivel and I already had handcuffs on my wrists.
I was taken to the nearest police station in the police van and was put in a cell. My fighting companion was also there already but not in a cell, but at a desk. Chitra was not to be seen, which surprised me very much. Shit, I had beaten up a policeman because of her. This son of a bitch was a cop, well, that's all I needed. Before the interrogation began, Chitra came in with a man to the police station.
He was not an ordinary man; he was a very well-known lawyer. The good man managed to make it possible that the whole nightmare was over in ten minutes. My name, which was in Chitra's passport and my passport were compared. And lo and behold, someone had messed with my wife and had called her a "prostitute" and even worse. Of course it was a defeat for my policeman, who was a criminal police officer and even bore the title of a national champion in karate.
Later I learned that they had transferred him to Jaffna.
The very next day, this little brawl was mentioned in the "Colombo Times". It said that a German tourist had gone berserk and had knocked down the Ceylonese champion in karate. Such an exaggeration! It was not a big issue or event that was of any significance to me. My problem was of a different in nature. The money was almost over and it was not possible for me to sell the Mercedes. The time of the "carnet" had also expired. Something had to be done and that too, very quickly.
I really did not want to drive back by car. I got news came from Chitra: A relative of hers wanted to go to Germany in order to buy a car.
We were to take him along, get him a visa and also take care of him otherwise, then he would pay half of the costs. This announcement came from the father of the boy we were to take along. We did not think very long but agreed because it would give us the opportunity that we would bring the car out of Ceylon and be able to possibly sell it in Afghanistan.
For two days we checked if there were other options but there were none. So was decided that we would travel back on land.
Chitra's mother and our daughter stayed in Ceylon. They would not survive another trip like that. We promised Nancy that we would get her to Germany as soon as possible.
So the three of us with the same car got on the small ferry to India. Colombo-Madras was a stone's throw away, when compared to what we had before us. I had left the car in the Mercedes workshop in Colombo to be checked once again. Now it should not have or make any problems. Our new traveling companion’s name was simply Lal, it was an abbreviation of the correct name of course because the Ceylonese normally have longer names. That was fine with me. Lal even had an international driving license from Automobile Association of Ceylon. But that did not mean that I would let him drive, perhaps later or in case I would not be able to drive for some reason. The journey through India was an adventure in itself, but I managed to drive all the way without making any major scratches or dents to the car.
Once I had overlooked a herd of elephants in the dark. Not that the elephants had been so small, it was already dusk and it was foggy. So I saw the living wall too late as such. Who expects such a size on the road?
The view usually goes stubbornly into misty nothingness and suddenly there is something unexpectedly gray, almost as big as a factory gate - that definitely frightened a person!
My bumper caught on the hollow if his knee and the fellow made a quicker step forward; if he had stepped forward out of sheer fright, my hood would have a barbecue. So we and not just the elephant escaped with a fright from it all.
The Khyber Pass and the Pashtuns
My friend, the duty officer at the India-Pakistan
border was quite surprised when he saw us again, this time by car and that too in the opposite direction.
Normally people come from Europe come in a vehicle. And not like us from the Asian side and without having entered into the country earlier in this vehicle. But one look at the papers was sufficient and he knew why and where the car came from.
We had to drink a cup of tea with him. After all we were old friends, he said.
We picked up our Afghan visa in Peshawar and now we were able to drive to the famous Khyber Pass. I had imagined the Pass to be much more dangerous.
The route from Syria to Turkey and then to Iran along the Iraqi border were worse.
Directly on top of the summit of the pass there was a market place or rather a small village, where we wanted to buy some fresh fruit. This was a no man's land, nevertheless it was part of Pakistan, though the Pashtuns had their own government, on which Islamabad had no influence. The wooden shelves, similar to the ones the fruit and vegetable merchants have in market stalls, were not made for these farm products.
There was a different kind of products here, which were offered for sale. I was disappointed that there was no fruit. But everything you are not allowed to buy were available here. A Kilo of green Pakistani hasish was available there for twenty dollars upwards.
There was also unprocessed opium base, hemp pollen and some other illegal stuff. The Pashtuns in the no man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan, above at the Khyber Pass, absolutely wanted to sell something to me. Whether I wanted to have pistols, rifles, grenades and just explosives.
I thanked them very politely and got back into my Benz.
The people here did not just appear wild and scary in their half-uniforms with their Kalashnikov slung over her shoulder or cartridge belt but they definitely would not hesitate to use their decorative firearms. Now the journey went downwards in the infamous Khyber Pass, passing military fortifications built by the British and which was now abandoned and then towards Torkham to the Afghan border crossing point. I had to drive on the right side of the road again. Via Jalalabad, along a riverbank to the Kabul Gorge, which was a very steep road carved into the rock, in the direction of Kabul. I thought that this "ascent into heaven" would never stop. The weather had been very mild from Ceylon and throughout the whole Indian subcontinent thus far. We all wore just flip-flops, shorts and T-shirts.
When we arrived here in Kabul, it was bitterly cold. I was totally exhausted and tired. We looked for a cheap hotel and were pleased that this hotel named "Mustafa" also offered Italian cuisine. The Spaghetti Bolognese was fantastic but the tomato soup was a special soup made of boiled tomatoes, ketchup, spices and water, which we somehow had to get used to. The room, in which there were two beds, was very sparsely furnished, but I didn’t care.
I saw only the iron stove in the middle of the room, with a long stovepipe that went through the window outside. I had to pay a few extra Afghani for firewood. But the heat, which this boiler oven gave was worth the money. I was satiated with spaghetti and drank a bottle of red Afghan wine. Well, I took my little wife under the covers and slept through until morning.
The fire in the iron stove had gone out because the firewood had not been added later and when I woke up, I was glad I was not frozen. Chitra did not want to get up. She said that the cold was to be blamed. She added that the window had frost patterns and that she would not get up till they were not gone.
I went into the cozy, warm restaurant and wanted to wait until the sun would warm the air a bit. The waiter told me that it had been up to -20 ° C in the last few days and that they were now waiting for the snow. Then it would not be so cold.
After my breakfast, I could grasp the entire situation only very slowly. I also now thought that this extreme would not agree with my car. In recent months, yes, years it was driven without frost protection! My Mercedes 230 stood outside the hotel and as I wanted to start it, it did not really get going. It would not start, then it started running but not for long and I could hear the gentle lapping of water - oh no, not that!
What I had feared had arrived. The engine block had a crack.
My fate, karma, luck?
Destiny was my interpretation of what others called as luck. Should I call it misfortune? There is no such thing as misfortune or expenses. There are only costs. And I was the only one who was going to incur those costs. So it was our destiny that we were stuck here in Kabul in the largest village in the world, which had mud huts.
If you have a problem, there are a lot of nice people who will be with you with advice and less of deeds or stand in your way. It was the same here. The hotel manager had the best idea. There was a café, it belonged to the wife of ex-mayor of Kabul and their son. Originally they came from Germany and they had a wealth of knowledge about who, what, where and everything in general. If anyone wanted to know anything, they would contact this family.
We found the Café quickly and the nice lady served me an excellent apple strudel with hot vanilla sauce. It was the best strudel east of Vienna, I'm quite sure. She sent me to Chicken Street. She said that there was a restaurant there and the owner had a brother named Dahoud and he had a workshop.
Dahoud could really help me.
It did not take long and four Afghans pushed and two of them pulled with me at the wheel of the Benz through half of Kabul, up to a workshop with the inscription "German Mechanics and Werkstad Auto". I did not have much trust when I saw the workshop. But what could I do? They promised me that I could pick up my car in 6 days in top condition.
The city of Kabul however turned out to be very interesting. You just have to accept a city like this one, as it is. You should not want to change it or its residents - you can't do that anyway.
Different countries - different customs, as the saying goes. And there are just other customs here. You should, or rather you must respect it. The simplicity of the people and cleanliness, which leaves a lot to be desired for our European standards. The simple mud huts, which are built up high in the mountain slopes, the fact that only men are on the road, the open butcher shops that open kebab and chicken barbecue stalls - all this needed getting used to!
But there was also another side to the Afghan people; for me, there was no prouder people, from what I had seen so far and also probably the most frugal.
A people, who survive with so little, who are so unassuming, yet lives with such a happy heart and is still so seriously believing and religious. The English wanted to add the country to their crown or Genghis Khan wanted to. Even Alexander the Great failed. You cannot subjugate Afghans, they do not need much, but they would not give up their independence and freedom because that's the only thing that they have.
No one can change the Afghans or even force them to rethink, although they cannot even produce a nail on their own.
I am only wondering how they got such a good wine. Either they learned from the Italians or the French. I’d like to know more about this. The king had received a railway and a few meters of track from the Germans. The loco is still to be found in front of the former palace. A beautiful monument.
We had to absolutely go to the bazaar because we had no warm clothes to wear. For 400 Afghani, about 20 DM, Chitra, Lal - our current funder - and I were able to completely clothe ourselves. We bought from shoes to winter-proof headgear, anything not to freeze to death. We were amazed because almost all the clothes were from Germany. There were even German police uniforms there.
You could see the pressed bales of clothes, and even the sign of the Red Cross on it. I always thought that the old clothes were collected voluntarily and were only for poor people. I had completely forgotten that indeed all Afghans, with few exceptions, were poor. They had to pay a small amount for them, otherwise they would abuse this.
Dahoud was a very nice and friendly Afghan.
He organized a jeep and we drove to the three mineral-rich lakes. Then we went to Mazar-i-Sharif and Bamiyan, to probably the largest Buddha statues located, which are
crafted by human hands from rocks. Too bad that the statue had no face. Dahoud explained that God has no face in Islam. So some religious fanatics had removed the face of the statue, as they thought it depicted God.
I believe that the same thing happened to the Sphinx in Egypt. But even without face this statue was a huge monument. It really is dramatic that the Taliban have destroyed these unique works of art in 2001.
Dahoud also told me that the best lapis lazuli were available here in the country. He made chessboards made of lapis and white marble. The figures were made of ivory,
with one colored black and the other left in natural color. Would I be interested in it? I was told that the size of the boards was normal and the white marble and the blue lapis insets were a work of art.
Dahoud also revealed to me a secret, as to why I should buy it.
There was a kilo of good, black, hand-pressed, Afghan hashish within the frame of the board. Through the carved marble filled with shit, the specific weight would be in the normal range again. He mentioned that he sent his works of art to the whole world. Very interesting but firstly, I had no money and secondly, I did not want to haul this stuff over so many borders, even if our car was put in order. Now I knew why so much friendship was being extended to me.
No, thank you! I had somehow guilt feelings when I thought of Beirut, that I had not done something right.
Chitra and Lal could not wait to vanish from Kabul to disappear as soon as possible. For them, these minus degrees were hell, since they were accustomed to only tropical weather. They hardly went out of the hotel. I set out to the workshop, but without Dahoud.
There I met some French people, who also had a Mercedes and who told me that they too got their car inspected, since they placed particular importance to making sure that their car was still in good condition. Nice for these people.
My Dream to Be Free Page 19