TANG DUNAND

Continuous composting toilet

2012-01-06T17:33:00.002+04:30

After moving in, we began using a Joseph Jenkins-style batch composting toilet system, but soon found that it wasn't the right fit for us, especially as it would not be safe to build a large, open compost pile (with human waste) in an area located in a vast floodplain. We were not inundated in the late-2011 floods that washed across Thailand, but we do have torrential rains during the monsoon, so having a compost + toilet waste pile in such an environment doesn't work.

We looked through many, many plans online and in a book called the Barefoot Architect, and drew up plans to build a continuous composting system instead. This is the view of the outdoor space below our bathroom. When we built the house, we asked the builders to put a hole in the bathroom floor, which can be seen in the ceiling in the image above.

An engineer neighbor/friend helped us start the walls so they would stand strong.

Landry drilling holes to put in a ramp for the initial droppings.

And a few half-pipes below to maintain air in a pile if it is compacted.

Above, the ramp is in, and part of the front wall is in. We recruited our construction-savvy neighbor, Uncle Preecha -- who was one of the main guys on the team that built our house by hand -- to finish the masonry and stucco for a clean look.

The door is attached, walls stuccoed and painted, and a vent pipe above, to keep air flow throughout the system. The vent pipe is painted black to heat the air, lifting the air up the pipe and creating a vacuum to pull air in through a lower vent on the side. It gives the needed oxygen to the composting waste and also keeps the system odor-free.

Taking root

2012-01-03T05:33:00.002+04:30

It's time for a recap because our house has changed so much since we moved in. As a reminder -- we purchased our small plot in November 2009, started construction in April 2010, and then officially moved in in July 2011. We've been here about six months now.

Above is a glimpse of our house from the "main road" in our neighborhood, a small sidewalk where neighbors on motorbike, tourists on bicycle and kiddies on foot pass each day.

Our massive front window, and the kitchen downstairs.

Landry has learned how to work with cement, so he put some traditional Thai tiles -- leftover from our bathroom -- at the bottom of our stairs outside. I lay a brick-lined gravel path to the kitchen.

Landry and I also finally put our back balcony railing up so that we can put laundered clothes out to dry without fearing a tumble into the canal below. One of the trees growing in front of our shower is a mangrove, called a "kak," which has great roots for preventing erosion. Its "fruit" are shaped like small torpedoes and drop from the tree, floating along in canals until they poke into a bank and take root.

We decided to take advantage of this southern exposure to plant directly under the back balcony a few enormous tomato plants that have nearly blocked Landry's office window. They live in a bed with a small brick wall that was Landry's first masonry project. To the left are birds of paradise that are watered when we shower.

The solar water heater is working well, but needs a clear cover to hold heat around these black pipes, as well as insulation around the water tank to keep the water warmer after sundown.

Our back balcony from inside.

Our living room furnished and well lived in.

On a shelf in our living room, a Buddhist monk statue from a relative in Thailand, binoculars from Bangalore, India, and a wooden yogurt container and a tapestry from Afghanistan.

Ultraman by our friend, ceramic sculptor Juan Santiago. Pink papier mache from Vietnam, just outside Ho Chi Minh City near the Kuchi tunnels, and his Afghan police hat from a market in Kabul.

A fan from a market in Bangkok, and cabinet from Beijing.

Another fan from a Thai market.

Downstairs, our kitchen shelves, where most everything is well used.

We keep most of our dry ingredients -- rice, sugar, flour, beans -- in glass jars, and lately, we've been making our own homemade banana jam, chocolate pudding, applesauce and tomato sauce. The brownish-gray bowls on the left (bottom shelf) are from Seoul. The teapot-cups set in the center is from Ho Chi Minh City. The rest of the ceramics are from my dear friend Takako, who was clearing out decades-old dishes from her home.

Thanks to Alisa's brother, Van, for some of the above photos.

New park near home

2011-12-18T16:34:00.002+04:30

Decades ago, the government purchased a lot of land on the island from the villagers, so they could go buy farmland in less flood-prone areas -- or so our neighbors have told us. The government then built a dyke around the island and stopped the flooding. Our island would be kept green and lush and was dubbed the "lungs of Bangkok."

Now, several large swathes of government-owned land are being developed into a nature education center, with fruiting trees for humans and for birds! One area (not pictured here) has already been finished and has a lovely boardwalk through the jungle, with signs about our flora and fauna. Now another area, pictured above, is being turned into a park as well. Our house now has a park on either side of it, and if this park-building trend continues, we will be surrounded on the entire western and southwestern sides of our neighborhood by parks.

Solar water heater

2011-11-19T19:16:00.001+04:30

Thermosyphon solar water heater

Landry designed and installed a solar hot water system for our shower, which is perfectly situated on the south side of the house with the blazing afternoon sun exposure. We wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing, so designed v1.0 with the pipes hidden between the two layers of the turquoise siding of our shower.

However, it was not hot enough, so came v2.0.

Landry found a lovely frame at the wood recycling shop, painted it with a clear varnish, and put reflective metal sheeting on the back side.

The pipes then went inside the box. We're happy to report warm water by about 11am, hot water all afternoon, and then lukewarm water by 9-10pm.

He also built the storage tank for the solar heated water, but we mistakenly thought that since we're living in the tropics, it would not have to be insulated. Insulation will be part of v3.0 -- we're losing too much of the heat by nightfall.

He painted the tank and pipes black to make it gentler on the eyes.

And after this pic, he pieced the shower back together, so this water storage tank is hidden behind the wooden shower box again.

The whole project was cheap and simple (so says the wife), and Landry says he'll post plans online soon. I fail to understand why so few homes in tropical Thailand use solar hot water systems. Go solar!

Around the island

2011-11-19T18:56:00.001+04:30

This is the "talad nut" -- the fresh market where we get most of our fruits and vegetables, and occasionally, seafood.

Open Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Our island is about 5 km in diameter and surrounded on about 75 percent of its perimeter by central Bangkok. The views to the west and northwest of the island are the skyscrapers of Bangkok's central business district and main shopping area.

On the north side of the island is Klong Toei port, where ships -- emblazoned with the names of far-flung places like Panama and scripts from Korea and China -- park and unload their wares. These giraffe cranes move shipping containers around like they're Legos or Lincoln Logs.

Our island shot with an old Russian Horizon camera

2011-11-04T16:30:00.000+04:30

Here are pics taken by a camera Landry bought when we were living in Afghanistan.

A view of the back of our house, with the shower on the back balcony.

One of the many sidewalks through the jungle on the island.

Betel nut palms, tall and lithe.

A bamboo grove.

Coconuts.

Duckweed in an irrigation ditch.

Surrounded by a swollen river

2011-10-31T09:15:00.000+04:30

Landry has been volunteering with our district authorities, who monitor the low-lying points of the island as high tide approaches and then rush to fix any breaches -- literally battling back the swollen Chao Phraya river.

Another truckload of sandbags.

At the Bang Ko Bua temple on the northern tip of our island.

Pumping water from a low-lying point on the left of the above image over the dike protecting the island, into the river on the right.

Lots of fishermen are out and about these days. This guy has a battery pack in the recycled Pennzoil can on his back, and uses his two zapping prongs to knock fish out.

As for our home, we are still dry. We have had occasional problems with our water supply, which was contaminated and rationed for a spell, but it all appears to be back to normal. We have a water filter, but are boiling as well to be on the safe side.

To flood or not to flood

2011-10-14T18:11:00.000+04:30

Our island, formed by a large loop in the Chao Phraya, was long ago quite prone to flooding. As the neighbors tell it, the inundations used to come chest high one or two days per year. Perhaps a decade or so ago, they say, a dyke was built around the island, to protect against the rising waters.

That said, this year Thailand is seeing the worst flooding in half a century, and today, the Chao Phraya river reached a record high. Some parts of the country are under 2 meters of water, and while every effort has been made to save Bangkok, areas to the north have been under water for more than a month.

There is supposed to be a high tide tomorrow or sometime over the weekend, and with waters being released from northern Thailand to ease the worst flooding, our village is expected to be plunged under water. Local authorities are not sure whether or not we'll be flooded -- perhaps knee deep, they say, but you never know.

Our neighbors, who have lived here for generations, don't seem too worried, so we're hoping that we will stay dry. Still, we've moved all our art and electronics up to higher ground, and prepared dry foods and drinking water.

I've been writing about children preparing for floods and landslides for a photo-video-text package I put together for British NGO Plan International in time for Oct. 13, Disaster Risk Reduction Day. Needless to say, I've been wishing that Plan disaster management people would come to my neighborhood to give us a few lessons. The girl above was helping only by providing good cheer.

The waters in our neighborhood canals are quite high now, and each day, we are doused in hours-long torrential rains. The thunder last night made our entire house rumble, and I nervously got out of bed much of the night to glance at the water level in our backyard canal (or klong, in Thai).

To ease our minds a bit, over the past few days, Landry and I have visited the disaster management team at our sub-district administrative office, where they are preparing sandbags.

Yes! Children were helping, too -- which, I write in my story for Plan, gives children a sense of control over a situation in which they might otherwise feel helpless. Two boys, 10 years old, and one 12, helping to tie the sandbags shut.

Landry, leaning inside the truck, volunteered with the disaster management team, which passed out sandbags to villagers most at risk, living near the river banks.

We are not among the most at-risk areas when compared with our neighbors, but when compared with Bangkok, which surrounds our island, it looks like we're going to be hit hard. On that map, our island is underneath 355 million cubic meters of "water/daily" [sic]. Actually, it was a peninsula, but one of the royal irrigation projects was the Lad Pho canal, dug across the narrow southern end so water could be rushed out to the Gulf of Thailand.

The team then headed down the road to some houses that were flooded because of heavy rains last night.

We went down a lovely wooden path...

to this house, whose ground floor was under water.

The team was pumping water out from a villager's yard...

up and over the dyke that protects the island.

Baby's got a brief respite from the rain, but still needs an umbrella as a parasol.

The hood

2011-09-30T09:03:00.000+04:30

We live in a neighborhood where most people live off the land, gathering their coconuts, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and fish from the orchards and canals on their land, or even on government lands that they keep manicured and rich with fruiting trees in exchange for a few ingredients. The villagers here actually organize their land into irrigation canals with planted mounds of coconut, mango, banana and other trees. Some canals are overgrown with duckweed. The sign above says "no fishing."

Above, a lily in our little pond. It blooms in the evening and closes around the time of the late-morning sun.

I love this deep bluish-green bamboo grove. Our fledgling bamboo (which we transplanted from our last home) is a rich gold, with streaks of green.

We call this the green path because no one sweeps it regularly, so it is always overgreen with moss and covered over with a soft layer of bamboo.

The monitor lizard gets a bad rap because its Thai name, "hia" in Thai, is one of the greatest insults that can be hurled at someone, along the lines of f***er. So the polite name is "thua ngeun thua thong," which means the "silver and gold one," or voranus, which is its scientific name.

It lives on land and in the water. The old auntie who lives by herself next door calls it "ai kay," which can be translated to "that gator." It has apparently nabbed several of her cats.

We see about one monitor lizard a day. It's a shy animal, always dodging into the forest as we approach. It's quite cute when it's taking a leisurely swim (like above), tucking it's arms neatly at its side and gently swaying side to side, like I might do if I were pretending to be an underwater torpedo. When it is scared, it goes pretty deep underwater, and you can only follow it by following it's trail of air bubbles on the surface of the canal.

Visitor

2011-09-26T09:49:00.002+04:30

A visitor >>>>

from the phasmatodea family ( if you know the specific name let us know)

With a baby on its back

Bathroom

2011-09-20T14:52:00.001+04:30

After months of mulling how to put up our sink, we found a nice cabinet with mirror at Wat Suan Kaew (an antiques market temple that supports homeless people) and then punched a hole into to fit the sink. The plumbing took Landry a good day of tinkering around with pipes.

Our toilet is half finished. The brick throne, with the wooden cap that Landry built, with a nice heavy toilet lid... which was surprisingly not easy to find in Thailand. Many affordable toilet seats here are light, cheap plastic. So we are now awaiting a stainless steel pipe that will connect from the throne to the 200-liter composting bin below. The idea is to use a bin for a few months, then switch out for an empty bin one, allowing the contents of the filled one to compost.

Moving forward

2011-09-09T16:36:00.002+04:30

Oh ho, Dave's picture again, with a little marker over our little cabana.

The counter on wheels goes where we want and need. The schoolhouse doors that we bought at a reclaimed wood warehouse got a fresh paint of turquoise, mixed with a touch of black to give it less bop, more gravity... or gravité, if you want to be really grave.

We bought a bunch of mason jars to keep sugar, flour, granola, rice, lentils. We have to dump the toaster -- the timer is broken, and it is an ugly, one-use only appliance. Frying pan does the job and is cleaner.

A big green plant in the back corner of our house one day sprouted these pretty precious things! Alas, they toppled during one of the big rains. We look forward to seeing them again one day.

Rain, rain, go away: Monsoons end Nov. 1.

Dinner table

2011-08-26T20:13:00.000+04:30

We needed a pretty dinner table and still had leftover wood, so this was another Landry carpentry project.

Chisel & jigsaw.

Uncle Preecha, our neighbor, helped build our house and is master of the jungle. Any questions about plants, reptiles and such, we ask Preecha. He helped Landry with the table.

Voilà la table. The five pieces that make the tabletop were once one long piece of wood. Landry loves his circular saw.

This picture doesn't capture how the I-shaped beams at the bottom fit snugly into the chisel-cut legs. It's my favorite part of the table.

Granite kitchen counter on caster wheels

2011-08-17T17:18:00.001+04:30

Our good friends gave us a slab of granite or some such stone that was left over from their kitchen renovation. We often sat and stared at the stone slab over the past year and wondered how we would put it up. We decided to use the leftover wood from homebuilding for our remaining projects.

K. Ting is one of the guys who helped build our house, and he just told us recently that his specialty is woodwork -- he builds traditional Thai long-tail boats. Landry had built counter 1.0 himself, but then decided to enlist Ting's help for version 1.1. Landry can now chisel.

Counter 1.0 was painted white, but we decided to go back to the natural wood color with an oil stain to even out the various wood tones. Washing off the white paint was a dumb, unnecessary job, but at least we gave the white a try.

Landry did most of the work, but I was remiss in taking pictures.

Counter with the shelves for pots and pans on the bottom, and a drawer with smooth-as-silk ball bearing rails for the silverware, serviettes, etc.

Kitchen sink

2011-08-15T18:51:00.003+04:30

We recently got a Black & Decker laser level, and were happy to find that we somehow managed to get the shelves up straight, even though a water bubble level doesn't help give an exact indication of what's straight.

The sink was also a pain to get straight, but we cut the pipes needed and it's good. We got a water filter for drinking water, and we put the wooden frame up to give the taps a home.

Above the taps, next to the drying rack, are two "pintos" -- which is how Thais call bento boxes. They are traditional Thai lunch boxes, one layer filled with rice, and the others with meats or veggies to eat with.

We are back

2011-08-14T17:01:00.001+04:30

After three months abroad for work and play across five countries, we are back in Phra Pradaeng, the lush green in the center of the above photo (our friend Dave took this while landing at BKK airport).

Cats on our neighbors' urns that collect rainwater for drinking. The cats hunt everything around, including the snakes. One of the cats got bitten by a snake, and his face swelled up like a mooncake.

The coconuts in the backyard are low -- I can walk up to the tree and just chop one for a sip of the sweet nectar. Great root network to prevent erosion, but the mango tree, alas, does not have the roots for the banks of a canal and fell in after a week of heavy rain. More mangroves to come.

Kaffir lime next to our front door.

Coconuts in the front yard -- this is the view from our glass front door, and the first thing we see when we sit up in bed.

Glass kitchen and outdoor shower

2011-04-21T10:24:00.001+04:30

We designed a glass enclosure for our kitchen downstairs to keep out mosquitoes and other unwanted slithery critters. A crew arrived just around 8 am for the window installation.

For the front door of the kitchen, we designed a double sliding glass door. The sides are also double sliding glass doors to allow for cross ventilation.

At 6:30 pm, they were more or less finished. The two thin trees in front are called moke, and are used around Bangkok as a nice hedge, with fragrant white flowers that dangle downward. We planted them a few days ago; let's see how they look in a few months after the monsoons begin.

And finally, after two visits to the metropolitan waterworks office, we got hooked up to the water main.

Finally, a shower, making our house comfortably livable. We'll add a few finishing touches to the outdoor shower, and will also try to create a simple solar water heating system to up the temperature of the water just a notch.

BangChak

2011-04-15T20:21:00.003+04:30

Click

Shelves

2011-04-15T07:48:00.004+04:30

We're building storage space now, and starting with a little organization of tools and materials so we do less searching and more building.

The closet and shelves for our clothes.

Preparing the lower level of our shelves, attaching the pipe stand.

Lower tier done.

Attaching the top tier.

On a tree in front of our big glass window, the little crook of a branch to the far left is a lookout perch for our bright blue kingfisher friend, who visits regularly. We plan to buy books on the birds and flora of Thailand. In our other house in central Bangkok, the only birds we see or hear are magpies, sparrows, pigeons and the koels. In our jungle cabin, in addition to the kingfisher, we've seen a green-billed malkoha (like this here and the second and third pictures here, too).

Building a box for the shower

2011-04-12T21:09:00.000+04:30

Phase II

2011-04-07T13:39:00.003+04:30

The picture window in Landry's office/darkroom.

Our shrunken pond here, with some dirt filled in around the periphery.

For the time being, we have an outdoor kitchen.

We may hang bamboo screens for privacy. The plan is to glass it all in, with sliding glass doors and mosquito screens.

Our composting toilet barrel will go here.

The cement foundation under the stairs cracked because the side of the ponds was eroding, eating away at the earth around the foundation.

We have some mangroves with good roots along the canal in the back to hold back the earth, and we need to plant lots of grasses -- lemongrass and vetiver.

Also, speaking of strong roots... At our place in Bangkok, we raised a sickly little bamboo plant that grew quite large and healthy over two years. It took us several hours of digging, tugging, pushing, cutting and scraping to unearth the bamboo rootball, but we did it! Our lovely gold bamboo (with delicate green streaks) will move with us to our jungle cabin.

Outdoors and under the house

2011-04-06T16:11:00.001+04:30

We have started phase II of construction at our cabin in the jungle. We are shrinking the pond with a retaining wall, which we will cover with some vines or some such. The pond (here are some pictures from last May) did not have a lot of plants around it to prevent erosion, so erode it did, doubling in size over the past year of rains and threatening to steal away the earth under the stairs at our entrance.

We have a six-meter footbridge, so we no longer have to sneak in through the neighbor's bridge or inch along the muddy sides of the canal to get home. Now to grow hedges and plants to better define our grand entrance.

And (drumroll)... we are building our traditional Thai kitchen under the house -- the area known in Thai as the "tai thoon." Most Thais living in homes on raised stilts keep their pigs and chickens in the tai thoon, as well as their outdoor cooking area. When their kids grow up, the pigs move out to make way for the adult kids' room.

The tai thoon, underneath the house, is typically cooler, and it is where Thais spend the hot tropical days. Also, as I learned from the Barefoot Architect, it is typical in the tropics to build the upper floor first with a good sturdy roof to protect from the rains, and then when budget permits, expand under the house with a floor and walls.

2.40m Desk

2011-01-16T19:28:00.002+04:30

Old wood, new bathroom sink

2011-01-08T12:24:00.000+04:30

A little over a year ago (before we bought the land for our house), Landry walked by the neighboring recycle guys' shophouse and saw a bunch of old wooden window shutters. We bought about 17 from him, used several for the house, and had one leftover. Deciding that we wanted to try to use as much reclaimed and recycled material as possible, we used the last shutter as a countertop for the bathroom sink. The back of the sink is leftover rosewood (also reclaimed) from our flooring. We're now hunting for some elegant legs for the bathroom counter.

Our builders are homebuilders, but not furniture makers, so when they made the bench at the bottom of our loft stairwell, it looked raw, unfinished. We trimmed and filed the edges of the bench and then put a finished edge on it.

Sinks

2010-12-12T20:07:00.000+04:30

We are in the process of figuring out how to put up our kitchen and bathroom sinks and we would welcome any advice. I have always wanted a ceramic kitchen sink and thought I would only be able to find overpriced antiques. Fortunately, we found one on the sanitary goods street near Chinatown. It was made in Thailand and measures approximately 30 by 50 cm and about 30 cm deep.

We're thinking of putting the kitchen sink on a simple metal frame, so we can show the ceramic body, and then put the tap into a small extended counter-like area that would jut out behind the sink and would serve only to hold the tap.

Because our house has only one layer of wall, we do not have a place to hide pipes or to hold taps. This is also why we chose the metal piping for the electricity.

We're looking now for a solar water heater. We plan to have hot water for the shower and the kitchen sink.

This is our bathroom sink -- small and simple. It's light enough to hang from the vertical beams of our walls, we've been told, but we're still thinking of adding some sort of pedestal.

We're trying to do this on our own, but it often feels like we're trying to reinvent the wheel. Any tips or advice? Add your comments.

Piped water coming

2010-12-12T19:24:00.001+04:30

Our neighbors have always bathed with the local groundwater and drunk rainwater, but all that is about to change. The municipal water main is coming. Just yesterday, the superstrong worker dudes used long poles with cylinders on them to dig deep holes into the clay (Bangkok earth is clay) next to the "road" next to our house (actually a sidewalk-sized road that permits only pedestrians, motorbikes and bicycles). They then hoisted up these 6-meter long cement polls and dropped them into -- ploop! -- into the holes.

With the cement pole balanced perfectly on this cart like a seesaw, it is rolled into the forested inner reaches of our neighborhood from the main road (a real road for cars, about 150 meters from our house).

These were not here Friday and were all dug and put in place Saturday morning, before noon, which is when we arrived. The workers will then pour a cement block with a half-moon cradle for the water main pipe to rest in.

Painting finished

2010-12-10T19:25:00.005+04:30

All the wood surfaces had to be painted -- for aesthetics and to protect it from termites and the monsoon season mold. For the months when it rains a lot, our laundry does not want to dry on the line, and everything gets moldy, even framed artworks.

A view of the back of our house.

Alisa's birthday at the house

2010-10-24T20:04:00.004+04:30

This weekend we celebrated Alisa's birthday at our house. Takako brought beautiful homemade kimonos ...

We brought the camera obscura

2010-10-15T12:03:00.002+04:30

Putting up the fan and electric system

2010-10-10T15:54:00.006+04:30

October 9 was a big day for us -- we got our first glimpse of our ceiling fan up. We actually bought this fan before we planned the house and designed the house around it (see here, our balsa wood model of the house as we were still in the planning phase). We were staying with an antique fan-collecting friend in Vietnam and fell in love with his Dutch chrome ceiling fan, so we ended up with this small souvenir.

Trying out the rotor.

Because many traditional Thai houses have only one layer of wall, they have nowhere to hide cables and electricity systems. Most have white electric cable stapled along the walls and ceilings, but we opted for metal piping.

Light fixtures from Chinatown in Bangkok.

The switch panel for the fan was another Chinatown find, but this one was sitting in the window covered with dust. The shopkeeper showed us a new plastic one, and we opted for this metal box instead -- high-tech with four fan speeds. We went back to the shop a few days ago, and the ghostly dust footprint of our fan control panel is still in the shop window, amid all the other electric switch knickknacks.

One of the bathroom lights.

Alisa playing with Folk and Fah, the kids who live next door.

Interior paint

2010-09-07T08:39:00.006+04:30

And we filed the floors

Ceiling

2010-07-26T11:08:00.006+04:30

We have added ceiling panels to hide the insulation

Bathroom tiles down

Exterior walls and windows painted with teak oil

Our first weekend in the cabin - บางกอบัว

2010-05-31T12:02:00.003+04:30

Big glass front door

Neighbor

Composite image of the bridge on the ride back to central Bangkok

Lilypad Grove?

2010-05-22T20:00:00.010+04:30

We are a writer and a photographer building this house, and clearly until now the photographer has kept up his end of the house blogging better than the writer. Here, I'll explain more about our beloved little cabin in the jungle, but let's start from the very beginning, again.

We stumbled upon this lush green area during a bike ride to the Gulf of Thailand. The village we first found in the Phrapradaeng Peninsula was Bang Nam Phung, which caught our interest not only because it's an oasis but because my Thai nickname is Nam Phung -- which means Honey.

Some definitions here: Bang Nam Phung means Honey Village, though "Bang" actually means a district on a waterway. Furthermore, locals say the old name for the Phrapradaeng Peninsula is Koh Krapoh Moo, which means the Pig Stomach Island -- lovely. When you cross the one bridge on the southwestern tip of the peninsula over a narrow rivulet, it certainly feels more like an island. Pig Stomach Island -- which is surrounded by Bangkok metropolitan area -- is also known as the "lungs of Bangkok" because it is mostly green plantations and jungle. Other than that one bridge, the island is only accessible by boat or ferry... or a brave swim in the Chao Phraya River.

We fell in love with this area and kept biking back, getting to know locals and we connected eventually with the residents of one neighborhood, not in Honey Village, but next door in Bang Ko Bua, or roughly, Lily Cluster Village. (If you can think of a more poetic translation, let me know.)

Our slice of heaven is only accessible by foot or bicycle/motorbike. The nearest road is about 200 meters away, our idea of a peaceful, fume-free home. We are a 10-minute walk from the Bang Nam Phung Floating Market, which is packed with Thai tourists on weekends. We're about a 15-minute drive from Bangkok's central business district, across the bridge and up toward the north of the island, and about a 30-minute bike and ferry ride from, say, the Emporium shopping mall, where the neato TCDC library is located.

We have a small klong (canal) on the southern side, and a fish pond in the middle of our yard. Before the building of a protective dam around the island to control flood waters, our klong used to be an inlet for boats to come and go, and next door to us was a boat parking lot.

We designed the house ourselves, opting to make it as small as possible, yet comfortable, airy and livable. Knowing that we would spend most of our time home indoors, away from mosquitoes and other jungle critters, we decided that 40 square meters would be spacious enough -- 10 meters long, 4 meters wide.

We drew, debated and leafed through lots of books and web pages, and then the artist half of this couple made a balsa wood model, so we could consider what it looked like and where we would want windows and spaces with respect to the tropical winds and sun. Our friends at Site Specific, who design and build environmentally friendly homes and shipping container homes in Thailand, helped enormously with the technical drawings and tips on building in the tropics.

We then shopped around -- a lot -- for reclaimed wood. Many Thais are taking down their old wooden homes, built of strong hardwoods, to replace them with modern cement homes. We wanted wood because it is cooler, aesthethically gentler, and it blends in with our neighbors' homes. Reclaimed wood means we won't chop down another forest, and the wood has already stood the test of time, shrinking, expanding with decades of tropical weather.

Our neighborhood does have electricity (mainly for playing good ol' Thai country "luuk thung" music), phone lines and water, though our neighbors have for decades collected rainwater for drinking -- tastes immaculately soft and pure. We plan to do the same, though the enormous old urns that Thais use are much harder to find these days. After extensive research, we designed a dry composting toilet -- a standard toilet seat on a brick throne in our bathroom that lets into one of two or three sawdust filled bins, which we'll rotate as they fill and let sit to compost fully before use in our garden.

Yes, we'll have wi-fi internet. No, we don't and won't have a TV. Yes, we will still host movie nights -- projections on our silver screen in the garden.

That gives background on our project, and the pictures speak for themselves. I'll write more details -- things like our classic Thai design tiles, and the window shutters we bought from the trash dudes -- later.

Looking for a 4x4m door

2010-05-21T20:13:00.005+04:30

stairs-bench

(curvy composite photo)

Thai "boran" (antique- or traditional-style) tiles ...

now we need a BIG door

May 20

2010-05-20T17:11:00.003+04:30

Vents up. Bench up . Windows set. Moving in soon?

View from bathroom.

Crossing the river

Going back to the sea...

Stairs to the bedloft

2010-05-18T10:44:00.002+04:30

Stairs up to the mezzanine bedloft

Spotting snakes

Flowers in a flower ...

Our house is here

2010-05-17T08:59:00.004+04:30

Walls for the outdoor shower

2010-05-16T14:00:00.004+04:30

Neighboring house

A kind of "cha ba"

The pier at Wat Bang Nam Phung Nok

May 12

2010-05-12T12:20:00.008+04:30

wood working bench - will be where we have the kitchen counter

putting up the walls of the outdoor shower

Our neighbors shot with landry's afghan camera :

Sunset and views from the neighborhood

2010-05-10T11:29:00.009+04:30

Main road at sunset

Backstreet

Reclaimed windows

2010-05-05T10:05:00.002+04:30

The reclaimed windows

Kitchen windows

Four walls, an insulated roof, a stroll...

2010-05-03T13:37:00.004+04:30

Alisa and Tomoe in the bedloft

Neighborhood

Front door view

The way to the Bang Nam Phung Floating market (5-minute walk from home)

Stairs and walls

2010-04-29T08:15:00.002+04:30

The craftsmen

2010-04-27T12:03:00.001+04:30

Chang Sompart & Ah Preecha, taken with Landry's camera obscura

panoramique

2010-04-21T11:03:00.002+04:30

2010-04-18T12:01:00.000+04:30

HOUSE CONSTRUCTION from landry on Vimeo.

Laying the floorboards

2010-04-17T16:06:00.002+04:30

roof and insulation

2010-04-17T09:51:00.002+04:30

Building the house

2010-04-09T17:44:00.004+04:30

Pilings

2010-03-29T21:03:00.002+04:30

The very beginning

2010-03-17T18:43:00.000+04:30

Ms. article in full

2009-05-30T09:15:00.003+04:30

For those who wanted to read the full text of the Ms. article but couldn't find it online, here's a link that will provide an automatic download of the article.

Meantime, I've got another Ms. article on Afghanistan in the works, hitting newsstands in a month or so.

Enjoy the read.

The deaths untold

2009-04-29T10:16:00.005+04:30

I never met Jamila, but I feel like I knew her intimately. She was the embodiment of the many victims of abuse I had met in Afghanistan, and the primary key to their suffering was being born the wrong sex in a country that disdains women.

An expat living in Afghanistan will rack up stacks of anecdotes of sexism, misogyny and vicious acts of hate against women. One friend told me that an Afghan colleague in her European governmental aid organization felt that if a woman in his family committed a dishonor, it was his duty to kill her. Girls are traded to settle murder disputes among men – the killer’s family gives a daughter or sister in marriage to the family of the male murder victim, after which society believes justice has been served. It is a society that does not want to sever a hand for a hand, because they have seen revenge killings that continue for generations, so by marrying off a girl, they can mix blood to end the bloodshed. The girl, meanwhile, is beaten, left to sleep in a cage, or killed, for in her veins runs the same blood as the murderer’s. The family sees in her face the eyes of a killer, but her death is never avenged. It is seen as the cost of settling the dispute.

I once attended a large meeting in eastern Afghanistan with dozens of bearded tribal elders, in hope that they would introduce me to a girl who had been traded for murder. The elders assured me that a girl in such a situation is treated with utmost respect – telling me that after all, Afghan women, once married into a family, are given a seat of honor. I told them I was pleased to hear that women were treated well, even though they were used to settle blood crimes, but when I asked to meet these women, the elders demurred. Their schedules were packed; it wasn’t convenient that day.

There may come a brief moment when an expat suspends criticism after Afghan male friends offer assurances, as my own colleagues did to me, that in fact, Afghanistan has great respect for women and holds them upon a pedestal, which is why the men so fiercely protect them, why the women “do not have to work” and “can stay at home” – as if these are privileges bestowed upon a superior race. But then we shake our heads, denying these untruths, for we witness and we come to know that Afghan women are treated like chattel, bartered or sold like beasts of burden.

I interviewed so many women in Afghanistan – victims of child marriage, forced prostitution and rape. I wrote about infant and maternal mortality rates that make Afghanistan one of the worst places in the world to be a mother and a baby. But never had I heard the story of one woman who had suffered every single one of these problems. That was Jamila.

I don’t know her full story, but after a few years of hearing the stories of countless women, I can come up with some basic assumptions: She was likely forced into an arranged marriage at a very young age, as most Afghan girls are – that way the husband-to-be could be sure that he was marrying a virgin.

Rights workers told me that Jamila was then forced by her mother-in-law into prostitution. In fact, in many cases of prostitution in Afghanistan, the relatives and even the husbands are the pimps. One women’s rights advocate told me of a prepubescent girl who was living in her sheltered for battered women: The girl had been married off to a young boy, and then pimped out by her father-in-law, who ran a child prostitution ring. A 2005 report by the German aid group Ora International said that 39 percent of the sex workers interviewed found clients through their relatives – including 17 percent through their mothers and 15 percent through their husbands.

Jamila finally made the very difficult decision to run away from her abusive home, landing in a women’s shelter in Kabul, which told me her story. However, it was too late for Jamila was already pregnant. She lived in the shelter, came to full term and then some, and at a week after her due date, she started bleeding. She was taken to one of Kabul’s main maternity hospitals, but her cervix did not dilate, so the doctors decided to perform a cesarean. They botched it and killed the baby. It was a Sunday in March.

I arrived in Afghanistan a few days later, and while meeting with several different women’s rights advocates, I met with friends who were rushing to save Jamila’s life. She, too, had been butchered, and had fallen unconscious. Her organs were failing. We called all the doctors we knew to get her transferred to another hospital. Later that night, a few days after her baby had died, she followed. She was 18.

The hospital performed an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Government officials investigated. She and her baby became statistics, filed away in anonymous charts and reports.

There was no funeral, and other than the NGO that gave her refuge, no one cared. I write this so that you could meet Jamila, that she could be remembered.

Where foreigners who die in Afghanistan are buried

2009-04-21T18:17:00.009+04:30

The British Cemetery, seen here in center of this photo at the bottom of the hill, is a grassy walled plot adjacent to a Muslim cemetery (the green-roofed structures and green flags on the slopes of the hill).

The entrance is located on a dusty side street in central Kabul. This is the caretaker's son.

It is a peaceful, silent retreat, where I could walk freely without being stared at or suffering cat calls.

The oldest graves date to the 19th century. In quotes below are excerpts from some of the signs.

"The British Cemetery in Kabul is believed to contain the graves of more than 150 British soldiers, casualties of the 1st British-Afghan War (1839-40), the occupation of Kabul (1840-42) and the 2nd British-Afghan War (1879-81). Over the years, the grave markers of these soldiers have gradually disappeared to the point that in 2001, when British troops once more returned to the city as part of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF), only ten remained. These, as you can see, were rescued and have now been collected together and set into the southern wall."

About Lt. Charles John Rumball Hearsey, age 23: "On 11 December 1879 he took part in a brave but ultimately futile cavalry charge when 220 British and Native cavalry attacked 10,000 Afghan tribesment who were advancing on Kabul. He was shot in the heart."

There lie citizens of many nations -- soldiers, missionaries and hippies who died in Afghanistan during the various wars that have plagued this country and in times of peace.

有一位中国人。
Born 1934. Died 1982.

Soviet, 1923-1946.

Un des français enterrés içi.
Died in 1978, just two months shy of her 65th birthday.

Born in Prague, 1882.
Died in Kabul, 1942.

On the stone of William Joseph Jahrmarkt, who died on 1-30-72, during the hippie heyday of Afghanistan: "BILLY BATMAN LOVES Joan Jade Hassan Caldoania & Digger."

I found an interesting excerpt on Jahrmarket at this web site.

Your thinkings in front of eyes

2009-04-21T15:04:00.003+04:30

Afghan indeed: Tea and kebab.

Bathtub on the sidewalk.

The best slogan for a sign shop:
"Your thinkings in front of eyes"

Soccer, kind of

2009-04-13T09:49:00.002+04:30

I took my first walk up swimming pool hill, with an Olympic-sized pool that dates to the Soviet era (ca.1980s). Reportedly, the Taliban once used it as an execution site, but it's now used as a soccer field, complete with burqa-clad cheering moms sitting on the edge of the pool.

The kids use empty plastic soda bottles instead of soccer balls, and when the bottle goes out of bounds (ie, into the deep end of the pool), they run down the slope to retrieve it, set it upright and then kick it in.

Perhaps there's a need for more soccer balls. However, kicking balls is a delicate matter in Afghanistan: In 2007, the U.S. military handed out soccer balls that was decorated with flags from around the world, including Saudi Arabia, whose flag has written on it the Koranic declaration of faith, "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God." The Afghans protested, taking offense that the Westerners wanted them to insult Allah and Islam by kicking the holy phrase around on the ground. U.S. forces later apologized: The "distribution of soccer balls was done in the spirit of goodwill, something that we hoped would bring Afghan children some enjoyment," said Sgt. Dean Welch, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition. "We regret any disturbance that was caused in this case. If we hurt one person, that is one too many."

Blending in with the locals

2009-04-10T22:44:00.005+04:30

An Afghan-American friend was renting a white Toyota Corolla station wagon. Behind the wheel, he looks real local, and to look local means less risk of being seen by the dangerous evil enemy. On every road in Afghanistan, at every corner, at every stoplight, one is surrounded by Toyota Corolla station wagons and sedans. The Corolla is the national taxi, and most international organizations in Kabul probably have at least a few staffers who drive Corollas. It’s also the car bomber’s vehicle of choice.

My friend, who sports a big beard like most Afghan man (to not have a beard is to be a woman or a boy), says he blends in so much that Afghans try to wave him down. He jokes about picking up a few fares to make pocket money, and maybe he’ll buy his own Corolla, “trick it out” with a “Mashallah” sticker – praise be to Allah. A lot of cars are decked out with decals of Bollywood starlets like Aishwarya Rai. Yeah, we cruise along, heading to a weekend soiree, convinced that we ride as if invisible, blending in. No one will notice us.

As we approach our friend’s well-guarded fortress, we see a light at the house flashing off and on. We think, aw yeah, party straight ahead… and then a monster SUV slides out of its parking space and pulls out to block the road about 30 meters in front of us. The doors open and four beefy Western security dudes pile out, automatic rifles drawn, pointing straight at us. One guy, holding a handgun, signals with his palm outstretched before him to stop. I stare incredulously, wondering how Western guys can come in such large sizes.

My mind races. The Blackwater shooting spree in Iraq… the cars that drove too fast near U.S. and Nato military convoys and were gunned down by nervous soldiers… all those U.S. and Nato military press releases about suspicious vehicles and civilian casualties… the incidents flood my head, and I hold up my hands to the windshield in surrender. I’m wearing the grey boiled wool hobo gloves that my Brooklynite designer friend made and a Patagonia cap, and I wonder if the beefy mercenaries can see that I’m a woman? Can they see both my hands up and the hip fingerless gloves? “Uh, stop, uh, we gotta stop, uh, that means stop,” the idiotic words spill out of my mouth.

My friend presses the brakes, and with his left hand, slowly rolls down the window… at which point Amadou Diallo with his wallet, not a gun! flashes alive among all those memory archives. Forty-one bullets fired, courtesy of the NYPD, nineteen of which make contact with the suspicious black man. Poor Amadou. I'm terrified of excessive force and impunity. I'm scared that if I die, no one will notice. I'm just another Asian, and there are so many billions of them in the world. But no, "I'm American," I tell Afghans as they eye me suspiciously when I tell them where I'm from. "Like Obama," I say, and they shrug, knowing that it's true. We come in so many shapes and colors, but do the security dudes know that there are Afghan-Americans among the international community in Kabul, too?

Keep your hands up at the windshield, I order myself, but then can they see past my hands that I’m a woman? But I’ve got dainty fingers. But shoot, why did I cut my hair so short? But I always wanted to look ambiguous like androgynous Pat so that I could walk Kabul’s streets free of the Afghan man's oppressive glares and catcalls. The curse of being a woman in Afghanistan, but how I wanted so much to look like a woman in that passenger seat.

My friend bravely leans his head out the window – surely the gunmen see beyond his beard, his electric blue eyeglasses and a knit cap like a Sabrett hot dog vendor wears in the winter. “We’re here for the party, man,” he says. Was his drawl thick enough? Did the scary security dudes catch the American accent? I can barely breathe.

“Sorry,” one of the dudes says, and they point their weapons back at the ground. They tell us they received reports of a suspicious white vehicle on the tail of the VIP foreign embassy convoy that had just arrived at the party. Get the sirens roaring. Red alert: Suspicious white Corolla station wagon approaching. Bearded Afghan driving. Did you see the two passengers? The suicide bomber goes it alone.

The scary security dudes let us drive past and park the blending-in car, the one that looks like almost every car in Afghanistan. We slowly get out of the car – no fast moves, don’t make the gunmen nervous – and make a beeline for our friends, the music and drinks. Never did tipple taste so sweet.

Trying not to look shifty, but worried that my effort makes me look shifty, I turn around to glance at the dudes with the guns – my friend tells me they’re Blackwater – and though a voice in my head rages, my lips are too scared of their itchy trigger fingers to scream:

Jeez Louise. Get a grip.

Meeting up with old friends

2009-04-10T18:04:00.007+04:30

This is dear little Basmina, a former street beggar, in a picture I took in December 2008. I had originally written about her on May 14, 2008 ("The Sweet Here and Now"), after she had been hit by a jerk of a driver. Her femur was broken, and worried that her family wasn't there to look after her, I went to the hospital to hold her hand and tell health care workers to be gentler as they grabbed her hands and feet to move her from stretcher to x-ray table and back. I was worried that she wouldn't walk normally again, but after meeting her in December and having her take a few strides before my incredulous eyes, I realized that some Afghan doctors are capable of healing after all. However, I'll revisit this topic later with a grim story that paints a better picture of the reality people face in Afghan hospitals.

I originally met these two munchkins last year in Pul-e Charkhi prison while writing a story about children who live with their mothers in prison. These boys' mother had been jailed for adultery. She has finished her jail term, so the kids and mom are now free, but mom is still seeking a proper divorce so that she can re-marry. The husband-to-be is her nephew: The boy on the right was fathered by her current husband, and the boy on the left, by her nephew.

Lastly, I'd like to revisit my little buddy Edie (the one that looks like a guinea pig, not the guy), whom I found in a pile of trash in December (See "Pup in the dumps"). She was yet a newborn and could barely walk or open her eyes.

And here's Edie four months later, a very sweet and clever girl, during a Friday stroll around Kabul. Most Afghans are scared of dogs and will cross the street to avoid her. They're also baffled as to why anyone would go to the trouble of walking a dog on a leash...
as if we love her.

Spring in Kabul

2009-04-06T10:04:00.001+04:30

Cloud over Kabul, view from Intercontinental Hotel.

Foot traffic on a bridge near Ferozhgah bazaar,
and a glimpse of the Timur Shah mausoleum,
which dates to early 19th century.
It was restored with help of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture
between 2002 and 2005.

Peacocks on Shar-e Naw --
the kebab and ice cream parlor street.

Woodworkers in the yard

2009-03-31T10:19:00.000+04:30

For about a week after I came this time,
my housemates and I were sharing the yard
with incredibly skilled woodworkers,
who were carving and piecing together ornate screens.

Finding Happiness

2009-01-27T08:50:00.005+04:30

Beaten by her father, she escaped from home and landed in a shelter that helped put her life back together and find a new family...

Too poor to afford a traditional marriage, he went to the Afghan human rights commission to ask for help in finding a wife... and he found her.

Through the shelter, they found each other and happiness. The above pictures are from their wedding day: in the first, she says goodbye to friends as she starts a life with a new family. In the second, as the couple arrives at the wedding party, a man slaughters a chicken in a tradition for which I have yet to find the meaning. Please let me know if you know the significance of this act.

I'm currently writing this story; more to come.

Meanwhile, stop by your newsstand and pick up the winter 2009 issue of Ms. magazine, featuring my story about the lives of Afghan women amid rising violence and a resurgent Taliban movement. (You can also order the magazine online here.) The latest Ms. is a special inaugural issue, with a picture of Obama on the cover in the role of SuperFeminist. Check it out.

A bloody day in Kabul

2008-12-08T21:05:00.006+04:30

The "gutters" of Kabul (yes, that narrow dirt ditch you see above is a gutter) ran red with blood today, as families across Kabul slaughtered sheep and other cattle for Eid al-Adha -- the festival of sacrifice.

The pile of blankets next to this bloody streamlet is a sleeping homeless man. He's also in the first photo above, the little hovel in the shadows by the pillar on the right.

Here I nearly stumbled into torrents of blood. The source...

... was a big cow that was still kicking when I walked through the door to have a peek. This was obviously the home of a man with money because not only did he buy a fat cow, instead of a cheaper sheep, but also because he also owned a phat Lexus SUV.

Furthermore, he had two more sheep waiting in the yard.

But the butcher was just starting on the still kicking cow. Families will buy their cattle live, keep them in the yard for a day or two, and then hire a butcher to come over with all his equipment for the halal slaughter.

Now back to part two of dog vs. sheep -- oh, poor sheep. (See dog in background.)

Pup in the dumps

2008-12-07T21:34:00.004+04:30

I found a pup!

Background: In Kabul, trash is dumped in certain known areas on the streets. For example, say there is a dumping spot on 1st street between avenues A and B, then each family within a few blocks will load a wheelbarrow of trash each day and then some young chap in the family will haul it over to that street dumping spot. Shepherds then pick through the contents of the trash bags and pull out leftover goodies for their flocks of sheep and goats to munch on before they head to the slaughter -- which is on a street aptly named Butcher Street.

My friend and I were walking to this yummy bakery when we passed one such street trash pile, in the middle of which I spotted a pathetic shivering little pup. I immediately exclaimed, "A puppy!" And then, employing increasingly pathetic whines myself, I said, "Oh, poor puppy, it's so cute! Poor little thing!" knowing full well that my friend has a mega-soft spot in his heart for dogs and would take her home. He scooped up the filthy thing and took her home. Afghans, who think dogs are dirty untouchables, stared at us along the way and commented in shock and awe, "A dog!"

My friend named her Edie -- after "Eid" (Eid al-Adha), the holiday weekend when we found her, and "Eidy," which is a gift given on said holiday. Home from the rubbish dump, she immediately got her first ever bath. She then got her first ever clean meal. Then her first ever hug. Then her first ever nap in a warm place -- her mattress was a warm jacket in the Heineken box in a supposedly dry country. Three cheers, hurrah!

dog vs. sheep

2008-12-06T22:17:00.000+04:30

The Muslim holiday of Eid is upon us, when families buy sheep to slaughter and to give the meat to the poor. This is the sheep my neighbor bought, and a friend's dog taking it on.

Dog loses.

She gave out a horrible yelp and limped around for a few minutes, but she then went back for some more kicking around later that evening.

Betty Crocker in Kabul

2008-12-05T20:53:00.002+04:30

I wrote a nice simple story for the Abu-Dhabi based newspaper, The National, about two women who started a bakery that caters to expatriates in Kabul. They learned the trade from an American woman, and for their business, A Taste of Home Bakery, they use recipes straight from a 1970s Betty Crocker cookbook, seen in the foreground of the above photo. In the background, a huge batch of cookies. I've been known to eat almost a full dozen date bars within a half an hour.

They also make excellent breads.

My First Afghan Wedding

2008-11-27T22:09:00.000+04:30

Queen's Palace at Babur Gardens

2008-11-22T22:28:00.002+04:30

The Aga Khan Trust for Culture has completed another incredible project, the Queen's Palace at Babur Gardens in Kabul. This complex was a bombed out skeleton of a building before the restoration started, and it was rebuilt to its former splendor. An interior shot below (with some site specific paintings by a Pakistani artist on the floor).

Traffic jam... shopping burqas

2008-11-22T17:12:00.005+04:30

Some boys caught in a traffic jam...

with their horse-drawn cart stuck next to the cola truck and the U.N. vehicle.

One of my favorite places in Kabul is the old city bazaar. I love witnessing the shopping frenzy, which has become even crazed with the big eid holiday coming in early December. There is about one burqa-clad woman for every 50 men in this bazaar, except in the area with the pretty fabrics and notions, where the women outnumber the men.

Giving Afghans something else to think about

2008-11-14T17:48:00.005+04:30

A friend put together a fantastic contemporary art show at the lovely Babur Gardens in Kabul. It featured works from Iranian, Pakistani and Afghan artists. When I visited, dozens of Afghans were milling around, and it occurred to me that for this brief moment in time, their minds were off the daily turmoil.

Outside in the garden, sits this jolly pomegranate vendor and a satisfied customer.

Obama on a Kabul TV

2008-11-05T09:59:00.001+04:30

I was watching the tube until we lost our Kabul electricity at 11:30 p.m., then went to bed. After some anxious zzz's, I woke up at 2 a.m. when the juice kicked in again and surfed the web. Polls in the U.S. weren't closed yet. Watched CNN from home, then went to a friend's place at 4 a.m. for a gathering of a few dozen people in front of this cable TV you see above here. This image was taken when the cable was working well. Sometimes the screen went to white fuzz altogether. Sometimes we could just hear the TV talking heads; other times we squinted at the TV to try to read the electoral vote scoreboard at bottom half of the screen. "How can you read that? Wait, is that 207 or 209?" Despite the TV glitches, we shouted, pounded our fists in the air and cried with the rest of you out there.

More Karzai

2008-11-03T09:52:00.001+04:30

Another image from Karzai's meeting with women leaders on Oct. 29.

Horse... mud huts... an Afghan camerawoman

2008-11-02T13:18:00.007+04:30

A guy on a big pretty horse moseying down my street.

Some Kabul architecture.

An Afghan camerawoman -- one of a handful -- covering Karzai's speech before the country's women activists, advocates and leaders.

Back in Afghanistan

2008-10-16T12:37:00.008+04:30

Again after a long break from Afghanistan, I'm back in the life of little electricity and a lot of dust. I spent the first hour trying to brush dirt off my clothes and then remembered, ah, yes, after a few weeks, my clothes will all be tinted a dusty light brown from the dust in the air, and my hair will be more than a little grimy.

So it's back to evenings with generator electricity, and breakfasts in one of many beautifully-manicured Afghan rose and sunflower gardens. Summer is quickly winding down, and the autumn chill descends in the evenings.

This is Basmina in a picture that I took in May, just after writing about her in a post entitled "The Sweet Here and Now." I don't know where she is, though I'll do a little searching and let you know. Here she is in a Kabul hospital, about a week after being hit by a car, with her broken femur being "treated" by putting her leg on a traction. Some expat doctors who work at this hospital told me that those who have money get their broken bones treated immediately, but those without the funds are put on a traction and fixed later -- like my little street urchin Basmina.

Children in Prison

2008-09-23T08:58:00.005+04:30

I took this photo in Pul-e Charkhi prison outside Kabul while reporting a story about children who live behind bars with their convicted mothers. The little one was born in Pul-e Charkhi, as are many children of women jailed for moral crimes; often they have married the man they wanted instead of the man chosen by their family. The boy holding the baby has been in prison since he was a year old. The mother of the boy on the right had divorced her first husband and remarried; her first husband then accused her of cheating on him and committing adultery.

I lent him my pen.

In the absence of playpens, unruly children were tied to bed posts to keep them out of trouble.

These girls lived with their mothers in a prison in the western Afghan city of Nangarhar, where I went to meet Rukhma, a woman I wrote a story about who was kidnapped and raped, and whose son was beaten to death before her eyes. The perpetrator was jailed for murder, and she was jailed for running away and adultery.

The girls left the women's prison at the same time that I did. They were delivering packages from their mothers to their fathers, who are in the men's lockup next door. The girl in the red has on her head her father's freshly-cleaned clothes: It appears that the traditional role of the wife washing the husband's laundry adheres even when they are incarcerated.

Band-e Amir

2008-09-04T21:57:00.006+04:30

We took a side trip to Band-e Amir, five bright blue lakes hidden in the mountains northwest of Bamiyan. It's another bumpy ride along slivering unpaved roads in the desert. This was our first glimpse of the lakes.

The lakes are large tiered pools that spill one into the other, as can be seen in these small rivulets from the light green lake that pour into the larger bright blue one. These are the actual colors of the waters, which seem too saturated to be real.

We hiked from one side of the lakes across to the other, stopping for a brief dip in one of the shallower pools, which were extremely chilly.

One of the larger falls between two of the lakes.

Where the Buddhas once stood

2008-09-04T08:59:00.005+04:30

Two days before leaving Afghanistan, we took a very bumpy eight hour trip north of Kabul to Bamiyan, once home to enormous 1,400 year old Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban in 2001. The Taliban claimed the Buddhas were idols and forbidden under Islam. On the roads leading to Bamiyan are several ruins of towers and castles.

Barely visible here are more ruins, set atop a mountain in the center of this photo but in the shadow of other mountains in this photo.

A glimpse of the village of Bamiyan, its farmland and the niches where the Buddhas once stood. There is an eery feel about the place, all at once peaceful, yet overwhelmingly sad because of the Taliban destruction of the statues and murder of ethnic Hazara villagers in the region.

The bazaar on a street in front of the Buddha niches were destroyed when the Taliban raided the area.

A guide took us on a tour of the cave complexes around the Buddha statues. This is one passage way that leads into the rooms that once contained frescoes and statues.

The site has also been raided by looters involved in the illegal trafficking of Afghan artifacts, but there are still remnants of paint on the wall, giving a glimpse of how colorful and ornate the ceilings and walls once were.

Part of our walking tour takes us on a narrow path that would once have looked out over the Buddha's head.

After the dawn calls to prayer

2008-05-21T16:31:00.008+04:30

Landry woke up and went out with his cameras in the pre-dawn darkness. As he left home, I could just hear the calls to prayer begin, first the trickling sounds from the mosques far away, then closer and closer, until the muezzin across the street from our house roused our neighbors for their wake-up splash of ablutions.

After the morning prayers, the sky started to brighten at 3:50 a.m., twilit by the sun as it climbed toward the mountain peaks that ring Kabul. At 4 a.m., the nearly full moon set behind him, and at 5:05 a.m., dawn peeked her rosy fingers over the mountain ridges.

This is a digital collage of five images Landry took the same morning.

The sweet here and now

2008-05-14T22:16:00.007+04:30

Basmina, an adorable little street urchin who begs in front of my office, has been a little brightness that greets me each day at work. I've seen her perched up in a tree as she plays with her brother. I've given her leftovers to quench her hunger. I even go outside and pretend to be a grumpy old lady now and then when the kids are shouting loudly on the street. "Yar! Yar! Yar!" I mimic their voices. "Why are you making so much noise?" Basmina laughs at me.

This morning when I arrived at work, Basmina and her younger brother ran up to say hello. I pat her head, noting that she cut her brown bobbed hair and now looks like a "bacha" -- a boy. She flashed her toothy smile, her brown freckles dotting her cheeks. Clutched in her left hand was a mini-bouquet of various weeds and grasses: She and her little brother were walking down the street picking the weeds because there are no flowers. I breathed in her warm smile again before heading in to work.

About a minute later, as I was settling into my desk, I heard her screaming. I headed outside to play the curmudgeonly old lady again, prepared to pretend to yell at the kids, but Basmina wasn't there. Her little brother was standing there looking rather forlorn, surrounded by several adults, as an SUV sped away. "What happened?" Basmina had been hit by the SUV while picking her weeds. The vehicle was taking her to the hospital. I looked at the spot where I had left her on the sidewalk next to my office, and her bouquet of weeds was lying there where she had dropped them.

I went to visit her in the hospital. She had a splint from her foot up to her waist. Her femur was broken. She screamed in pain and cried aloud, but spilled no tears. She begged me again and again for water. The doctors said no water, perhaps a rupture in the abdomen. I told her the IV saline was special water. She pleaded with me to go home. I told her she needed to stay in the hospital. She speaks decent English, enough to beg from foreigners on the street, and in her wounded, confused daze, she turned to me -- wanting water, wanting to go home -- and accidentally blurted out instead, "One dollar!" Even with her broken femur and the bleeding pain in her abdomen, we had a brief giggle. I leaned close to her, touching my cheek to hers, so that she could hear my breath as I tried to fill her with a slow calm.

She was a good girl today. I had her small hand grab my thumb and told her to look me in the eyes as doctors inserted the IV. Despite the pain she was in, I managed to get her to smile at me more than once. I went back to work, then returned at 5 p.m., about eight hours after the accident, and she had just been wheeled in for surgery. I worry that she lost too much blood. I worry that in a country like Afghanistan, the operation will go awry. I worry that she will not heal well in this war-torn, impoverished country and will be handicapped forever.

I only knew Basmina from our brief encounters, but today I felt so intricately linked to her. In the longed-for before, I saw a bright and happy young girl with the possibility, no matter how dim, of a decent future. Later, as I tried to keep up her spirits in the hospital, her tiny little frame on the hospital gurney, I grieved deeply. Basmina was the drop that made me overflow.

As these events tossed about my head all day, I learned that Basmina means "fragrance." I don't have any pictures of her. I took for granted that her freckles and smile would be there to greet me tomorrow.

When life becomes unbearable

2008-05-12T21:59:00.002+04:30

This Thai woman was imprisoned for 7 years in an Afghan prison for drug trafficking. She could get out if she paid a $6,000 fine, which she can't afford. She cries every time I meet her. She doesn't speak much English, but she has learned Dari, the Afghan dialect of Farsi, during her time in prison. She has pleaded with me to ask Thai authorities to transfer her to finish her sentence in a Thai prison.

She is miserable and has started to hurt herself. Last week, she cut deep gashes into her hand and foot. She says she also tried to overdose on painkillers. When I first met her this winter, she was suffering from the bitter cold. The second time, she had shaved her head because she caught lice. This time, the cuts.

To pass time, she strings tiny colored beads, transforming them into decorative covers for pens, cigarette boxes and lighters, as seen in this photo. She tries to maintain her sanity with the beading projects, but her mental will is failing her.

Punishing the victim

2008-05-05T23:19:00.000+04:30

My latest story tells of women who dare to flee and complain about rape or domestic abuse, and are then jailed themselves, accused of adultery. Most Afghans believe that a woman who has run away has inevitably committed adultery because they assume she has fled to be with a man. Therefore, the Afghan justice system often charges women runaways as adulterers.

This article caused much heated debate as I reported it. Several Afghan men I spoke with (including an Afghan guy who is a human rights lawyer) insisted vehemently that it is illegal for a woman to leave home without permission from her husband, even though several other lawyers and legal experts said it was not illegal. The government has even printed a pamphlet that details women's and girls' rights, including snippets like "It is wrong to sell your daughter to settle a murder dispute," and "Running away is not illegal." Hundreds of these pamphlets were printed, but they have not been distributed because some government officials believe that the "running away" bit will encourage girls to run away.

Many Afghan men I spoke with, including lawyers, believe that more Afghan women are running away and seeking divorces because of women's rights that are being peddled by the pesky international community.

Read the story here.

What kids play with when there's no electricity

2008-05-01T15:49:00.003+04:30

The cemetery and grounds around the Sakhi shrine in Kabul are a popular picnicking area on Fridays. There are a few ferris wheels, this one run by the guy in the red vest. Electricity is scarce in Afghanistan, so this ferris wheel is actually powered by him. He spins it by turning the turquoise wheel, similar to how a wheelchair works.

In the Asheqan wa Arefan neighborhood, we ran into this guy with the white scarf on his head, who carts around his portable merry-go-round! The kids climb into the seats and grab onto the black steering wheel in the center to turn themselves round. Another self-powered ride.

Poles are another useful form of electricity-free entertainment...

as are paper airplanes.

We asked this girl what her doll's name was, and she said it was "doll." When I suggested Najiba or Massouda or Shafiqa, she nodded her head yes to each one. She then settled on Najiba. We met the little bunnies on our way up to the Kabul wall.

They are just about 100 meters away from their house, which overlooks the city.

Around the City

2008-04-25T15:21:00.000+04:30

Darulaman Palace, built by Afghanistan's King Amanullah in the early 20th century, sits on the edge of western Kabul.

A small structure we stumbled upon while hiking down from the Kabul Wall into the old city neighborhood of Asheqan wa Arefan.

The beautiful carved wooden windows are part of the renovation in Asheqan wa Arefan completed by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. They have repaired at least 11 homes in the area, plus a shrine, mosque, bathhouse and several little allies, like this one below.

Paintings by Afghan Women

2008-02-29T17:08:00.006+04:30

There is an exhibit this week in Kabul of paintings by young women, many of them students in the arts faculty of Kabul University. The show is really remarkable because until the fall of the Taliban in 2001, figurative art was forbidden, and women were not allowed to work or venture outside their homes alone without a male relative. It's not clear to me if women were even allowed to paint under the Taliban.

Afghanistan has been locked in civil war and strife for the past 30 years, and the society remains very conservative, placing many restrictions on women. Although these painters were allowed to create what they pleased, much of the imagery related to war and weaponry...

confinement or entrapment, as with this fetus locked up behind barbed wire...

and suicide or hopelessness.

Many of the painters depicted women in burqa -- the all-encompassing cloak many women are forced to wear before stepping outside their homes. Many men will say that women want to wear the burqa, but women complain it is uncomfortable and makes every day a bad hair day.

Men want their wives, sisters and daughters to wear the burqa so that other men cannot see them, otherwise those men might want to marry the women or rape them. One reason women wear the burqa is to avoid being harassed by men, but why can't the men just behave and not make cat calls?

This painting evokes entrapment and hope.

This painter describes her work: It shows how a person can have two sides -- appear perfectly normal when veiled, but maybe absolutely mad underneath.

The young women shown here spent two weeks weaving out this piece, showing the order of the world outside Afghan borders; when that foreign order enters Afghanistan, it stirs the country into total chaos, as seen in the messy ball of strings the colors of the Afghan flag.

This piece reminded me of the Taliban campaign to destroy figurative work, slashing and tearing countless paintings, many of which are still on display in a cabinet of artwork ruined by the Taliban.

This was my favorite work of all, only because of the story behind it:

The painter pulled aside my Afghan male colleague and asked him what he thought the image depicted. He said it shows the respect that men give women by letting them ride on donkeys on a long and arduous trip.

She responded, "Not quite."

She said the work shows how women are not allowed to choose their own paths, placed on donkeys that are guided by men. If the donkeys (or the women) go out of line, the men have sticks to beat them back into their place.

This anecdote perfectly depicts the divide between the Afghan sexes: Afghan men will often tell me that women are afforded a special pedestal in society and are greatly respected. The women, on the other hand, will tell me countless tales of being physically and psychologically oppressed.

Refugee Camp in Kabul

2008-02-10T21:32:00.000+04:30

I visited some refugees living on the outskirts of Kabul to see how they were faring this winter, which has been described as the worst in 30 years. The lowest recorded temperature was -30 degrees Celsius.

This was one of a few children who was not wearing pants. I don't know why -- go figure.

Twin girls...

who, like many children at the camp, were traipsing around barefoot in the freezing mud and snow. I, meanwhile, was wearing two pair of ultrasuperwarm hiking socks, fleece long johns, wool trousers and four layer on top, in addition to my wool scarf and cap.

This boy's t-shirt says "Born to be Wild -- Afghanistan" and the little cartoon figure is wearing a dogtag that says "OEF" -- Operation Enduring Freedom.

Kabul's Old City

2008-02-05T15:23:00.000+04:30

I wrote about the old city of Kabul -- with its quaint maze of narrow alleys and beautiful mud and thatch houses with carved wooden windows. When standing in the courtyard of these houses, it feels like you're standing inside an intricately decorated jewel box. The slide show with the story includes amazing historical images. (Here's another link to the Old Kabul story on a web site called "Happy News," though it has dubious url links highlighted throughout the story.)

This neighborhood, Murad Khane, was stacked high with mud and trash, which can be seen behind the children in this photo.

There was a massive clean-up, and for a while, this family's door was left suspended in mid-air because its entrance was built after several years of mud and trash had piled up. Their door has since been repaired, but the plastic bags and trash can still be seen on the wall next to their door.

Afghanistan from a Black Hawk

2008-01-16T13:10:00.000+04:30

Went for a trip outside Kabul. Here are some pictures of some villages and stunning scenery along the way.

Afghan Ceramics

2008-01-13T18:21:00.000+04:30

Stroll in the Snow

2008-01-11T17:00:00.000+04:30

I got a visiting friend decked out in proper attire and took her for stroll in the snow outside Kabul.

We met a majestic little donkey...

and a boy with a branch of pine cones.

Landry also got a chance to try out his new Iranian rubber boots, which are very popular among Afghans.

A view of the area from a ruined building.

A river near town.

Suicide Vest

2007-11-21T17:52:00.000+04:30

This is a photo, taken over my shoulder, of a defused suicide vest at a news conference. A suicide bomber had been trying to board and attack an army bus, but he was spotted, kicked to the ground and arrested.

There was dramatic TV footage of him being held with his hands behind his back by one sole policeman, who kept peeking inside the man's shirt to see the vest and wires. Other officers in the area stood a good distance away. Then another policeman came to cut the wires.

During the news conference, as police were describing the mobile phone he could have used to detonate the bomb, the tell-tale tick tick and buzz of a mobile phone signal could be heard through the speaker system in the conference room. The sound nearly made me jump out of my seat and run out of the room, I was so worried the cops had failed to properly defuse the bomb.

Hiking the Panjshir Valley

2007-11-10T19:14:00.000+04:30

Going out of town eases the claustrophobia of our cloistered lives in Kabul. I went with the roommates to the Panjshir valley, a few hours north of Kabul. After a brief meeting with men from the area, who were watching my roommates' road safety film (basically a public safety announcement), we had a typical meal of nan and kebabs, and then went for a walk by the river.

The tomb behind me is where Ahmad Massoud Shah, commander of the Northern Alliance, is buried. Massoud, who fought against the Taliban, was from the Panjshir valley. He was assassinated in a suicide attack on Sept. 9, 2001, by two Arabs posing as TV journalists who were interviewing him. It is said that the last question he heard was, "What will you do with Osama bin Laden once you have conquered all of Afghanistan?" Enormous billboards of Massoud, wearing a traditional wool pakol hat and looking as if he is earnestly contemplating something, are plastered around Kabul and the northern provinces.

Golfing in Afghanistan

2007-11-09T18:02:00.000+04:30

Landry, kicking up a little dust, on his first time ever swinging a club.

The Kabul golf course, on the outskirts of town, is a dusty, desert course, with far more rough than green. The hazards in this course include the many toilets -- as Afghans and their sheep use various parts of the course to do their duty.

Alisa's first round of golf (well, seven holes) since the mandatory golf lessons she suffered as a pre-teen.

Our relaxing Friday afternoon on the course was disrupted by two helicopters passing overhead, while an abandoned tank -- not an uncommon sight in Afghanistan -- stood sentry over the course.

Each shot has to be teed up because there is no grass, and the plastic tees barely sink into the drought hardened land. The course was basically abandoned after the Soviets took over in 1979, and was outlawed under the Taliban. It opened again in 2004, and some friends of ours organize a Kabul Open tournament each year.

The so-called green is covered in a thin layer of black sand. Our caddies accompanied us through the seven holes we played, while the ball boys stand right in the line of fire to make sure we can find our shots. The other two holes were apparently being occupied by picnickers.

Green fee: $20. Tip for the caddies and the cute 9-year-old ball spotter: $20.

Young and In Love?

2007-10-16T08:03:00.000+04:30

This is 3-year-old Sunam in her bridal gown and with her 7-year-old fiance/cousin Nieem.

I began working on this story about engagements when a friend told me about another woman, 22 years old, who has been trying for the past eight years to end her engagement. She has been beaten by her family, her fiance and his father, who are trying to force her to marry him; and the fiance has threatened to kill her if she leaves him.

At the same time, I heard about a female journalist who was killed, possibly for family reasons and an engagement. I chased this story at her workplace, but to no avail. I could not figure out why she was killed or by whom.

So as I was leaving the journalist's office, I asked her female colleagues if they knew of anyone who was engaged at a very young age -- a good finisher for the story -- and one woman told us of her neighbors who engaged their 3-year-old daughter with her young cousin. I got their address and went to their home, where the ladies of the home were wonderfully warm and welcoming, as Afghans are. Sunam and Nieem became the main focus of my story.

Our Little Neighbors

2007-08-20T19:10:00.000+04:30

We decided to go for a short stroll outside our house to give you a glimpse of our lovely neighborhood. In a country where the average family has seven children, kids are everywhere and their little voices chirp constantly throughout the day.

In front of the gate of our house with our guard.

Landry plays ice cream man. The ice cream vendors usually have cute little jingles that they play as they pedal around the streets here, but one of them has the theme of the movie "Love Story" -- not the cheeriest ice cream music.

Popsicle girl enjoyed hamming it up for the camera.

A little neighborhood stroll -- a common sight around town.

Almost every evening and all day Friday (the Muslim holy day of Friday is the weekend here), we can sit in our yard and see dozens of kites flying in the air. It's mostly boys flying kites, at least on the streets. Here are three kites in the above picture, and below, one boy tries to launch his kite made of a simple plastic bag. It's not as easy as it looks -- my roommates have broken many a kite just trying to get them off the ground.

Home Sweet Home

2007-08-18T17:58:00.000+04:30

We live in a two-home compound with about a dozen roommates, a lovely garden and two dear cats.

Landry's Sanity: Stop Motion Animation

2007-07-25T18:24:00.000+04:30

Landry bought this Chinese-made doll set at a busy market in central Kabul. It was in a box labeled "Sumptuous Dinner." Click on the video link below to see how Landry busies himself at home in Kabul, where we're sometimes at a loss for entertainment around town.

Girls as Currency

2007-07-20T21:30:00.000+04:30

My latest story stirred a lot of sentiment and an outpouring of generosity from dozens of readers wanting to help a teenage girl, Malia, who was given away in marriage because her father could not find the funds to pay back a loan of nine sheep.

Drug Widows

2007-07-08T15:27:00.000+04:30

WIDOWS VILLAGE: While working near the Iranian border on a story about Afghan migrant laborers, I heard about a village that has hundreds of widows. Their husbands were killed during decades of war and strife, and by the latest plague to hit this village, drug smuggling. For lack of any other jobs in the area, the men in Bunyat turn to the lucrative, but extremely dangerous job of carrying drugs across the border into Iran. Several smugglers are killed each year.

Tales from Afghanistan

2007-07-02T12:13:00.000+04:30

Some of my latest stories...

MIGRANTS DEPORTED: At one border checkpoint between Iran and Afghanistan, I met several Afghan migrant laborers who were being forcibly deported from Iran. Many complained of abuse at the hand of Iranian authorities _ one guy said he was beaten, thrown into the trunk of a car, then held at a detention center before being kicked out a week later.

WOMEN UNDER FIRE: Farida Nekzad began receiving menacing calls on her cell phone a half hour after arriving at the funeral of a fellow female journalist assassinated by gunmen. "'Daughter of America! We will kill you, just like we killed her,'" the caller told her as she stood near the maimed body of Zakia Zaki, the owner of a radio station north of Kabul. Part of Zaki's face was blown away by three attackers who entered her home and shot her seven times with pistol and automatic rifle fire in front of her 8-year-old son this month.

And a bright color story on BURQA FASHION: Some women have decided to doff their burqas for more comfortable, lightweight scarves, but many families still want their women covered _ to maintain the family honor, lest she is seen by a male stranger.

Tiles at Herat's Blue Mosque

2007-07-01T08:57:00.000+04:30