Pigeon Games

Let me share my yesterday afternoon stroll with you. An American businessman friend, James, and I walked through Babur Gardens, around the mountain from Kabul, near the University. Air temperate and comfortable, much like a later afternoon in Denver, about 55 degrees, warm in fleece, walking, talking, enjoying space and time away from the thick pollution that smugs the rest of Kabul. Am not going to write some didactic macro history summary about Babur, a 16th century Moghul emperor from India who insisted on being buried here in a non grandiose manner, writing, "If there is a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here." Neither will I try to describe the quaint and proportional marble tomb and mosque, whose intricate archways create such a beautiful sense of motion as you walk by. Nor risk the words to fall short of the marble ribbon watercourse that bisects the gardens, trees, rose bushes (some with leaves and half emerged blossoms waiting just a slight sustained upturn in temperature to burst), and large grass lawns that form descending terraces down the slope of a mountain. A few Afghans shared the park with us, walking about peacefully. Instead, let me project what was going on with the pigeons.

Envision multiple flocks of pigeons flying about, not directly above but off to the side of the gardens over the high wall that separated the garden trees from the houses that escalated along the contour of the rising slope, stadium seating if you will, where the garden is the stage for the neighbors on their roofs and balconies. The pigeons circulated about the homes on the northwest side of the stadium. What caught our attention was whistling and then flag waving that accompanied the flights of the pigeons. James soon recognized this as a game that Afghan men play late in the day this time of year. Various pitched whistles, different colored flags moving back and forth like metronomes, the launch and gyrating flights of birds from separate balconies, morphing patterns of wing flapping specks forming new rounding flock shapes, expanding and contracting, now dense now rarefied, turning and turning, landing then launching again with a flag wave, each flock flitting around the most beautiful pigeon. Indeed the game centers on this pigeon. Looking closer, each had a central pigeon whose colors distinguished her: browns, creams, and whites in unusual patterns. In the market, a prize pigeon can garner between US$5,000 and US$6,000, James advises.

The goal of the game is to garner more pigeons for your flock with the beauty of your pigeon. The human element comes in when they land on your balcony and you tend to them, feeding them, caring for them, treating them well. The ultimate score is for the beautiful pigeon from another flock to join yours and end up on your balcony or rooftop so you can nurture them. I don't think it's a game where one Afghan neighbor gets in his neighbor's face or talks smack about how his pigeon kicked butt on another the night before. Rather, it's a game of gathering, in the end, uncontrollable birds flitting about in the late afternoon wind, treating them well such that the beauty within chooses to nest on your rooftop or balcony. Unlikely this game would ever catch on in the West for how does a human control how a pigeon perceives beauty? And without more control over the factors at play, how can there ever be fair competition? James and I watched, fascinated, for some time. Then we heard loud dog barks and growls accompanied by human cheering which told us another Afghan sport was at play: dogfights. We moved on.

James drove me back to the embassy through teeming crowds in multiple markets and chaotic traffic circles of Kabul, people running out right in front of us, traffic jams, pot holed streets between dilapidated and bombed out buildings left standing, spiral staircase skeletons reaching to nowhere, bullet pock marks in the walls, everything and everyone stained with a particular Afghan look, rugged and surviving, can't call it unclean or dirty because the beauty of these people is that they continue living through all of it, not giving up. They do not smile. They look back squarely and state their hope by continuing to live.

Am back on the plane, bound for Camp Leatherneck, about to land and return to work after three weeks of being with family and friends and love in Colorado, Jordan, and Bahrain. Tears well up in my eyes as I think of home, you, our mountains and the beauty of our mutual lives, how precious in this world of ours, how blessed you and I are. Am grateful for this job, pleased to no end that this power of emotion which has brought me to tears connects me with you through time and space, allows me the privilege to sign with genuine Love,

Tim

p.s. below is a picture in front of the library at the University of Kabul with my Afghan friends, Syed is to your left and Shuja is to your right.