Conditions in Kabul were reasonably peaceful, in spite of the murder of two ministers and the attempted murder of another; the population continued to be harassed. Many put their trust in the foreign soldiers who patrolled the streets. ‘Without them civil war will start up again,’ they said.
I have written down what I saw and heard, and have tried to gather my impressions of a Kabul spring, of those who tried to throw winter off, grow and blossom, and others who felt condemned to go on ‘eating dust’, as Leila would have put it.
Åsne Seierstad
Oslo, 1 August 2002
Migozarad! (It will pass)
GRAFFITO ON THE WALLS OF A KABUL TEAHOUSE
The Proposal
When Sultan Khan thought the time had come to find himself a new wife, no one wanted to help him. First he approached his mother.
‘You will have to make do with the one you have,’ she said.
Then he went to his oldest sister. ‘I’m fond of your first wife,’ she said. His other sisters replied in the same vein.
‘It’s shaming for Sharifa,’ said his aunt.
Sultan needed help. A suitor cannot himself ask for a girl’s hand. It is an Afghan custom that one of the women of the family conveys the proposal and gives the girl the once-over to assure herself that she is capable, well brought up and suitable wife-material. But none of Sultan’s close female relations wanted to have anything to do with this offer of marriage.
Sultan had picked out three young girls he thought might fit the bill. They were all healthy and good-looking, and of his own tribe. In Sultan’s family it was rare to marry outside the clan; it was considered prudent and safe to marry relatives, preferably cousins.