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AFGHANISTAN DIARY 1970 ... Part 6July 25 - Bazaar at Puli Kumri Today blissful immobility. Not to get up to a bus or a jeep or a truck. Not to sit getting to know the real Afghanis—elbow to knee by ankle. To sleep until the need of it has been satisfied, to stay abed until the urge moves us to arise. Delightful to sit over breakfast of melon and tea and iodine-soaked raisins and to talk or read until noon. Our little group of four gets on well. I am glad of the company of Hans and Ira. The other travelers we’ve met have so contributed to making this trip fun and interesting. We walk to the bazaar, past streaming swaths of cream, indigo and saffron turban cloths drying alongside the road, past water splashing merrily down culverts irrigating terraces of grape vines. We walk buoyed on air redolent with the fragrance of ripening grapes. The bazaar is alive with noise and color. Sumptuous wares greet us at every glance: fruits, especially grapes, beautifully displayed; patient donkeys standing under twin hemp baskets piled high with deepest, purplest eggplants and huge gleaming tomatoes; richly embroidered patterns of the nomad women’s dresses; hanging carcasses of the fat-tailed sheep; multicolored saddles, woven blankets and belts; jingling jewelry and brilliant kerchiefs of the women--when they are not moving like black tents under the draping burkas; the men's pillbox caps woven in intricate rainbows of gold and other colored threads; their ballooning pantaloons protruding beneath the calve-length tunics; clatter of the horse-drawn buggies jiggling green and red tassels as they trot in the heady air beneath the pistachio and pine shaded streets. We inhale smells of roasting meat and oil, and the pungent perfumes of herbs and spices. Lunch is another feast of visions and smells. We climb on to the raised floors of a café where turbaned men and foreigners sit on brightly woven rugs receiving great platters of pilau and omelets dripping with oil and raisins, pistachios, and tasty mutton. Our senses satiated beyond sanctification, we head back to the hotel to rest, read and write. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
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