Power cuts and traffic jams

Yesterday I witnessed fantastic traffic jams and chaotic junctions tied in knots as cars push forward despite red lights. The middle of the junction becomes a free-for-all jam of cars and nobody can move. I watched an ambulance stuck in the jam; nobody moved aside to let it pass, and it didn't venture onto the wrong side of the road to get ahead, maybe it wasn't in a hurry; then five minutes later, a police convoy went through at speed, everyone gave way. To pick up my passport from a downtown travel agency 3 miles away, took 2.5 hours round trip. The house guard here, (they're very friendly, two students alternative 2 hours awake/asleep from 7pm until 12noon watching the house and the cars), helped find a taxi for me, there and back cost 25SP = 6.25GBP. The driver had glasses even thicker than mine. With my GPS I was able to give directions to the taxi. When I got in the taxi for the return trip, it wouldn't start, key turned but nothing happened. With a screwdriver somewhere under the side of the van the driver somehow hot wired the motor, and we were off, at speed of less than walking pace again. I saw a totally knackered car on the road, it had been patched so many times it looked like it was held together with yellow paint, the lights were out, it hung down slightly to one side, and clunked and creaked.

In the afternoon the power went off. The house has a big generator, but there was about 30minutes without power. The generators stayed rumbling until late at night. And this morning they're on again. But it looks like, at least while the generators are on we don't pay for the electric, as the meter is also dead.

Coffee shop last night, dusty 30minute walk with traffic, cigarette smoke and big screen football upstairs, downstairs a white familiy, and local girls wearing trousers (thats punishable by 40 lashes) and makeup and without their hair covered. Outside a guy sat alone with a serious face, the image of an Afghan fighter (minus AK47), with a white ring turban, beard, incongruous to the shiny European coffee shop, and I imagined, in disapproval of the frivolous scene, but maybe he was just quietly enjoying his espresso.

Someone I met yesterday told me that there is a visible trend toward more liberalism. He told me they saw two local girls, with hair uncovered, dressed provocatively and drinking beer from direct the bottle - which are a series of sins - you wouldn't have seen before. I hear also that things here have improved, because basically they couldn't have got any worse, the state, and the police had annoyed so many people that they reached saturation point, they hassled and annoyed absolutely everybody, and from there things could only get better.

But it is also still normal here for local families to genitally mutilate both their daughters and sons. Though they themselves remember the pain and suffering, they still subject their own kids to the same pain and disfigurement. The social pressures are very high. If a girl isn't mutilated then she cannot be married off. Prior to the wedding there is a ritual where the bride has to squat above a fire of a certain type of wood smoke in order to dry her insides and tighten her muscles, so that subsequently sex will be as uncomfortable as possible; and already mutilated it is guaranteed that she will be incapable of physical pleasure. In some cases she is sewn up to ensure virginity, and has to be surgical opened up just prior to marriage. These accounts come from a good source who has talked to local women. It is beyond my comprehension. But we humans are capable of all kinds of things.