Grandmother had a distant relative who had been married many years before to a nomad chieftain. This relative had lost both her parents in infancy. Someone in the family had given her away to the barren wife of a Dowlazi (Dowlatzai) semi-nomadic tribesman.

The Dawlazis lived in a village of that name near Kandibagh. She was raised by them and when of age, she was married to the chief's only son. His name was Shaloon, (probably Shah Alam at birth). When he became Chief, his people called him Malik Shaloon.

The Dowlazi clan traveled to Kabul and the cooler mountain pastures to the north each spring and returned to their village in Chaparhar in autumn. They were shepherds and lived off the products of their animals. At the time they were required by law to pay a tax on their sheep. The computation of the tax of everyone's herd was a big problem for Malik Shaloon, an illiterate person. One spring, just before the clan started their annual journey north, he voiced his problem in my parental village and someone gave him my father's name and told him to seek his help.

When the clan arrived at the outskirts of Kabul, Malik Shaloon sought us out, found us, and presented his problem to my father. Father was surprised to hear about the re?imposition of the sheep levy, for he was under the impression that King Amanullah had abolished it several years before. I do not know the details, but it seemed that his search disclosed the sad fact that the tribe had continued to pay a non?existing tax, to an 'agent' who annually came to the tribe's campsite, computed the amount and collected on the spot. The situation required police intervention, resulting in the arrest and imprisonment of the culprits, and the refunding, to the tribe, of what was paid to the so?called 'agent'. Father became the clan's hero.

Grandmother found a long?lost relative who, she thought had died long ago. She was very much alive and the proud mother of three young sons, who personally came to our home with her husband to invite Grandmother for a visit. Grandmother simply had to go visit with her for a few days. But she would not go alone. She wanted me along. Father's vehement objection that I must not miss school was not acceptable to her. She would be gone for a week only and it was only the beginning of the school year anyway. A compromise was finally reached. Malik Shaloon promised to bring us back home on the fourth day.

We went to the Dawlazi tents in an area just east of Kabul called Bakhtiaran. . We had walked all the way from our home and it had taken about two hours. Shortly after arriving at the campsite that first evening, I was bitten by the large Shaloon dog. Luckily, the dog had only torn off a piece of my trouser leg. He had attacked me from behind without a sound, while I had been watching, entranced, as Malik Shaloon's wife milked the sheep. The incident made me very fearful. Maybe that is the reason I am still not comfortable around dogs.

My first full day with the nomads started at dawn the next morning. After waking up, I found my "aunt" again milking the sheep and collecting the milk in big earthenware pots.

When this was done, she placed each pot in turn on the fire and stirred a skin sack into each for a few minutes and then put the sack away. The contents of each pot were deftly and quickly poured into triangular cloth bags with string handles which were already hung on wooden pegs inserted into a wooden post by the tent's entrance. At the end, there was a half?pot of warmed and treated milk left. My aunt placed this pot on the hearth.

After that she baked bread on a huge flat black iron plate. Each round bread she baked was about an inch thick and about twelve inches in diameter. She gave one whole loaf to her dog. She then emptied the hot milk pot into a big earthenware bowl with a smaller round flat bottom and a wide open top. She poured brown powdered sugar on top of it and I noticed that the sugar did not immediately melt or go down into the milk. This bowl she placed on a bread cloth. The family and we two sat around it and were all issued a bread each. We began to break a morsel of the bread, dip it into the milk and,� Oh, Was I ever surprised! The bread did not go in as I thought it should. Instead, I noticed everybody's hand come up with a piece of curded milk on his or her bread morsel. I did the same. It was sweet soft cheese, warm and delicious. I discovered later that morning that what the Kabul shopkeepers offered customers as shore-panare (salty cheese) and we ate at breakfast with our tea, was the very delicious milk food, introduced to me as potsa, that morning at the Bakhtiaran site of the Dawlazi nomads' sojourn cite.

Other nomads joined them and they all went off to Kabul to sell their product to shopkeepers in different parts of the city. The shopkeepers transferred the soft cheese into large kiln?baked bowls, salted it and, later, sold it as a springtime breakfast delicacy to people. By early afternoon, the nomads returned home bringing whatever items their families needed from the big city.

Amir, Malik Shaloon's second son, was a robust young man of about 18 or 19. That morning it was his turn to tend the sheep. He invited me to go along with him, promising it would be fun and that we would be home by the time the other men returned from the city. Grandmother gave me permission on condition that Amir would not keep me all day under the sun.

We led the flock out in the direction of the pasture. When we were gone about half an hour, Amir suddenly remembered that he had forgotten something and simply had to go back and get it. He assured me that during the short time with him I had already learned how to look after the flock and that it was no problem really. The sheep would graze on the spring grass in the pasture and, of course, he would be back in no time. His words of praise swayed me into a feeling of self?confidence. I foolishly agreed. He was gone in no time.

Not far from me the sheep spread out in a long massive line, a couple of hundred yards from some fields. It seemed like a simple task and I thought I would be able to control them during the short period of Amir's absence. I had heard Amir holler at one or two sheep that had strayed toward the green fields, and each time I had observed the sheep meekly turn away. Even I had cried out to the sheep and thought I had been heeded. Amir had told me that the main cause of feuds between the nomads and the farmers was the sheep entering and eating the farmers' fresh crop when shepherds momentarily lost control of the herd. Such incidents sometimes ended in bloodshed between the farmers and the nomads and, in fines, when the authorities got involved.

In a few minutes I noticed several sheep turning away from the pasture and toward the lush green spring wheat fields. I ran after them and was able to turn them around. Soon, however, the line of grazing shifted and came nearer and nearer the fields. Tens of sheep went dangerously close and my warning cries seemed to have no effect. I rushed into the group and, facing them, hollered, beat the ground with my feet and clapped my hands and was finally successful. By this time the pattern had shifted considerably. More and more sheep had reached the fields and were entering them. I could only turn away one or two at a time, while the rest were already eating away the wheat crop which was almost knee?high at the time, but had not begun to form the sheaths of wheat seeds. I found myself shivering with fear. What was I to do if the farmer were to see what was happening? Would he believe me when I tell him that I was no nomad and that I was only temporarily in charge of some dumb animals that I knew nothing about? Frantically I ran along the edge of the field on the verge of tears screaming and hitting the sheep with my hands and kicking them with my feet. I finally succeeded in turning the sheep out of the fields. I did not stop then but continued running back and forth along the field, constantly shouting and throwing anything I could find at the sheep. I feared, however, that sooner or later they would come again, this time in full force, and I would be helpless. The wheat crop was tall and enticing in contrast to the spring grass which the sheep could not easily pick.

The terrain was flat and treeless but I could neither see the tents nor Amir. There was also no farmer in sight. That was some consolation . Once again, the sheep headed toward me, standing as I was between them and the field. Only this time, no amount of shouting and clod throwing was effective. And yet, only a short while ago, they were running away when Amir shot clods and rocks in their direction with his sling or even when he shouted at them from a distance. Fearing the worst, I entered the field and started running up and down its length in an attempt to block the herd's entry, noting that I was now trampling the young wheat crop and would surely be punished if the farmer were to appear on the scene. Presently the sheep entered the field in a long line. An army of two hundred against a lone opponent. I really panicked then. I cried and called Amir's name at the top of my lung power. There was no sign of the man. I was afraid of the sheep, the farmer, and of Amir himself. The sheep hardly noticed me, and if they did, they certainly did not heed my warning shouts. I found how inept I was and, how wrong, when I said I could control the herd just because Amir had told me so. I, a mere child of the city, not very much taller than some of the sheep grazing there, tending some 200 dumb animals! No sooner would I stop a few sheep here than some more entered the field over there. I ran from point to point. It was a battle which I had already lost miserably. Bleary eyed, I ran about doing what little I could. How I hated myself then, I cannot begin to tell you. I wished I had not come out with Amir this accursed day. For that matter, I wished I had never come out to the nomads' camps at all. While I was so utterly dismayed and feared all sorts of evil consequences, suddenly the thundering sound of Amir's warning cry from a long distance ended it all. Thank God ! I was saved. As suddenly also I saw the entire herd raise their heads and start running out of the field. Now, how did the dumb sheep know which way to run, I will never know. They were all out of the field and well onto the pasture, by the time Amir reached me still standing there in the field. No farmer was anywhere in sight. I breathed a sigh of relief and began wiping tears from my eyes and face. Amir patted me on my back for the brave 'shepherd' that I had been and assured me that no real harm was done to the farmer's crop. He informed me, that the farmers themselves cut the heads of the new shoots in order to increase the number of stalks growing out of the ground from each seed.

The sun had risen high by then. Amir made me a make?shift tent using his cane and shawl and a couple of rocks and asked me to sit under the shade and just rest as he tended the sheep. He produced a small package of raisins and roasted chickpeas, my favorite edibles, and told me these were what he had run back home for. What he had done, was out of the kindness of his heart. He really did not know that his remarks about the farmer/nomad feuds would bring about all the excitement, fear and misery that I had suffered in his absence.

Later in the day we ate some bread and cheese which constituted our lunch and which he had tied around his waist in a piece of cloth. The rest of the day was eventless. The farmers had appeared and were mainly concerned with their chores. The sheep were grazing well away from the fields. Amir told me stories about nomad life style and about his youngest brother, Gulajan, who, he said, would never make a nomad. He loved the life of settlers and would, perhaps, marry a village girl some day and settle down as a farmer. As for him and his older brother, Awdelmir (Abdul Mir) they would both definitely follow in their ancestors' footsteps. He loved the vast expanse of the land, God's land, where only he was the boss. God had created the mountains, the pastures, the waters and even the sheep for him. He enjoyed them all. He loved to breathe the fresh cool air of the morning, take pleasure in the warmth of the sun, the beauty of the cool night, the blinking stars and the moon, when a beautiful crescent, and also in its full magnificence. He was a simple man. He did not read or write. He had no schooling. He was like all the rest of his clan. Some day he would get married to a Dawlazi girl and the marriage would be arranged by his parents. He would raise a family. He would begin his married life starting with a few sheep that his father would give them and which they would propagate into a herd of their own. One day his own son would tend the herd while he would carry his own potsa to the bazaar of kabul on the tribe's journey north in the spring. He would also sell wool and sometimes have his wife weave kilims and tent material for themselves and for the market. He would buy things for his family from his sheep products and thank God for all the things God had provided for them.

Such a life was enjoyed by the nomads in other parts of the country. He was told this. He had not been away from his clan's habitat or seen other clans. He said there were many thousands of them and they all traveled north and south, spring and fall and did some trade on the side. They would carry things needed by villagers in one region and sold them at some profit. They would buy commodities produced in that region and sell them in their next place of sojourn. Rifles, pistols and other articles of warfare were among some of these commodities. These were much in demand by the people in the central highlands of Afghanistan.

I was also informed of the very colorful weddings of the nomadic people. Men and women danced separately and all the ceremonies were watched by all. Women did not cover themselves up, like they did in the cities. And they dressed beautifully and put on many items of jewelry, on their heads, noses, ears and necks. Often women's dresses had sewn onto them many hundreds of silver coins to show how rich their household was.

By the time we returned to the tents, I had completely calmed down. I was, in fact, wishing I were a nomad, too. I was not about to tell Grandmother of the terrible, but short?lived, ordeal I had had that morning out in the grazing area of the nomads.

During the few days with the Shaloon family, I found that life around the nomads was really different and tough, but, really exciting! All you had to do was to be at home with your dog, your sheep, the heat of the midday sun and the cool of the starry night. The rest would come easily and in due course of time. You would not need to worry about a lot of things which always bothered a city dweller. Alas, I would never make a nomad, but I would love to spend some time among them every year when they stop at the outskirts of Kabul before they travel into the pastures north in the lush valleys of the great Hindukush range for the summer months.

* * * Then There Was a Safi Revolt in the Nangarhar Province and our family got involved in it. I was still an elementary grade student in Kabul. Father was then working as a clerk at the Royal Secretariat. His office had sent him to that province to cover the news and to report back directly to the Royal Secretariat by way of coded telephonic messages as regularly as possible.

It was summer and we ate and slept on the roof of our house in Kabul. From there we could easily see military lorries winding their way down the hill of Kolola Pushta. some distance to the north. Kolola Pushta was one of the main ammunition repositories in Kabul. These movements occurred under cover of darkness so that the citizens may not be alarmed when they see some military convoys on their way out of the city during the day. I did not know it then, but the newspapers did not report the uprising at all. Mother and Grandmother said that the government was fighting the Safi tribe in the lower Kunar valley of Nangarhar.

Father's office sent word to us once a week about his wellbeing. Once, however, more than a month passed by without a word about him. Everybody feared the worst. I was promptly despatched to Father's office at the Royal Palace to find out why. But I had no pass and could not convince the Palace guards to let me through to the Royal Secretariat.

In sheer desperation, I began to cry with immediate result. An officer heard me and ordered one of the soldiers to take me right to the Secretariat. It was already past office hours when I was ushered in. Two men were sitting in the lobby. I told them who I was and why I was there. In contrast with the soldiers, they were very friendly and assured me that Father was all right and in fact if I stayed until after dinner, I would even have a chance to talk to him on the telephone. I stayed. I was fed a great dinner that came from the Royal kitchen, and fresh fruit. Later, they asked me to lie down and sleep on a desk top, which they cleared for me, as Father would be calling rather late.

I was awakened later to talk to my father. I had never used a telephone although I had seen it. When I put the hearing unit to my ear, I immediately recognized his voice as it came through rather faintly. He asked about us and I assured him we were all right. He said he had been very busy, but he would soon be ready to come home. He asked if I would like to go visit him in Jalalabad. We would spend some quality time together before returning to Kabul. I was delighted at the prospect of a second visit to Chaparhar and my cousin in Kandibagh! I said, "Yes." I knew that Mother would let me go. The school year had already ended and I was on vacation until September. We said goodbye and I told him that our family would be happy to hear the news of his imminent return home.

The officials showed me Father's coded message. It was pages and pages of numbers.

They told me each of those numbers meant something and that they would decode them in the morning and send the message on to the King. They told me my father had done an important job in that province.

Grandmother arranged my trip with some kinsmen of our neighbor who was a bicycle?guard of the king and on whose bicycle I had learned how to ride. These men were commercial lorry drivers and promised grandmother to deliver me directly into Father's hand in Jalalabad. The trip took two days. The entire road was still unpaved and, depending on which way the winds blew, huge puffs of dust would either precede our lorry or blow right into it making our faces and clothes all dusty. City roads were definitely a lot better by comparison, as the Municipality employed saqaws and special men to spray the roads with water a couple of times a day, in order to avoid dust rising and affecting everything. We finally reached Father's rented house in Jalalabad and were told he had not returned from Kunar yet. His housekeeper/cook, assured us that the Safi revolt was over and my father was expected to come in that very evening. He said he had already been instructed to receive and feed me upon my arrival. My companions hesitated to let me stay with the cook, but finally agreed to do so when the man gave them proof that he was truly in the employ of my father in Jalalabad.

It was sheer joy to see Father again around nightfall. His clothes were completely different than what he wore in Kabul. In a crowd of Jalalabadis, no one would ever know that he was a Kabuli. I later discovered that he carried a pistol for personal protection. He said he would return it to the government upon going back to his office in Kabul. He warned me, however, not to mention its existence to the family as they would be concerned. I knew then that he really had been working in dangerous surroundings. How glad I was that it was all over and that he was safe and sound! As for the uprising itself: It was the Safi Tribe in the Kunar region of Nangarhar Province that had revolted. They had refused to pay land?use tax and did not want the conscription law to be extended to their tribe. As both these acts were constitutional, the government had strongly backed efforts toward mediation by various tribal leaders for an amicable solution. It had finally sent in some units of the Afghan Army to deal with them if all other efforts failed. In fact, Father said there had been some exchanges of fire between the army and the Safis before the latter finally agreed to both the issues in dispute.

Jalalabad was very hot that time of the year. Father's rented compound had no trees and, therefore, no shade. That night we slept on the roof. I lay on a straw mat with a very light shawl over me. But sleep did not come to me. Dozens of very small mosquitoes, known as 'earth mosquitoes', crept in between the seams of the mat and began biting me.

Noticing my misery, Father said we would be leaving the city the very next morning for cooler regions where mosquitoes would not bother us.

The next day we headed for the town of Mazeena in the Khoogyani region of the province. We rented a buggy for some distance and then went on foot until we reached our destination at the foothills of Spinghar ( White Mountain, for its perpetual cap of snow). The place was cool at night, thanks to the breeze that came down from the majestic, forested, mountain. We were warmly received by our hosts, We spent several nights there. Our headquarters was the hujra. I, of course, had the freedom of the haramsarai where I would talk to our tenant's little daughter and her mother who happened also to be there for a visit from Kabul. The day after our arrival we were led to the family dera where a bonfire was going on next to a mound of freshly cut corn. There was no need to be told what was in store for us?? Roasted corn?on?the?cob, hot out of the fire.

We sat on beautifully woven kutts of reed rope and enjoyed the feast. For drink we had sour milk. That day I learned that such feasts were common at harvest time, especially when farmers had guests to entertain.

Unknown to me, Father had asked for a musical program to be given by local singers and musicians. I enjoyed it tremendously. Maybe I thought it was meant for me. I stayed up until well after midnight and Father did not ask me to go to bed. The instruments were a rabab, a harmonium and a zerbaghali (a short drum held under the arm). All the songs were in Pukhto. It reminded me of some weddings I had been to except that there were no dancers here and this was a band of male amateurs.

I was to attend, many years later, a friend's wedding ceremony in a village called Childukhtaran near Kabul where male dancers danced till dawn at the all?male part of the ceremony. By then I also knew that in some parts of Afghanistan some people kept young boys as their companions, trained them to dance and then enjoyed having them perform at parties. Such performances were most often free as they were for the pleasure of close friends only. The existence of these male companions was tolerated by the women members of such households simply because there was nothing they could do about it. In rare cases the head of the household would even go so far as to give away his daughter in marriage to his "boy." In the kala, the women treated me very kindly. I was offered fresh cream and butter and parata for breakfast. Our hostess' daughter, knowing how fond I was of paratas, made them for me herself. There was an unab tree in their courtyard and it was full of ripe fruit..

I had never seen this tree before, but I had known of its fruit and knew it was mainly used for medicinal purposes. There in Mazeena I was assured it was all right to eat as many as I wanted. The unab fruit looked like sinjid (oleaster) but whereas the sinjid tree was thorny, the unab tree had no thorns and one could climb the tree in order to collect the ripe fruit. Unab also was larger and rounder than the sinjid which was the size of the first joint of a man's middle finger. It consisted of a hard oval kernel surrounded by an almost powdery flesh which was covered by a yellow reddish skin that easily peeled off when ripe. The flesh of both sinjid and unab had a sweet tang to it and, when ripe, would almost melt in one's mouth. I was to take some home to Mother for use later as an ingredient of some medical concoction.

I also had a swim in a pond near the kala in the company of a boy my age. He swam naked and asked me to do the same. I refused and used my turban as a loincloth for the swim. For a summer day, the water was quite cool and refreshing. I did not know how to swim but it was fun to play in the water. The village boy was good and could easily do the frog kick. Later we got dressed and I had him help me air?dry my turban prior to returning to the kala.

The next stop was Shaikh kala. This was a village very near to my uncle's village of Kandibagh in Chaparhar. Father had decided not to visit his own village but had sent for some of his relatives to come to Shaikh kala. This was very perturbing as I was not able to see my aunt or my uncle and his family. I asked to go there alone. Father would not hear of it. He wanted to return to Kabul and his work as soon as possible. He said if we go to Kandibagh, it would be imperative that we stay there several days for which he had no time.

Again we had a corn?on?the?cob feast during the day and music at night. This time, however, there were two musicians only. An old man played the rabab and a young man the inevitable drum which he had concocted out of an earthenware water jug by very tightly covering the head of the jug with a taut cloth. The old man actually related an epic story of a young man's love for a beautiful princess whose father, the king, laid out very difficult conditions for her hand in marriage to any successful seeker. The story was interspersed with songs which he sang while playing his rabab to the accompaniment of the makeshift drum. The story was fascinating as it had to do with supernatural feats performed by the lover in meeting the conditions and surmounting them one after the other. The tale continued until the wee hours of the morning and I was so excited by it that I never felt sleepy the whole time. The only thing that I did not like was the smoke and smell of hasheesh (a drug made from hemp) which the old story?teller was addicted to and imbibed in, at intervals, throughout the night.