Lunch with Dr. Forough

Will: Dr. Forough invited Lucy and me to his house for lunch. He works in our clinic. He picked us up in the family minivan, a Toyoya Town Ace (pronounced ‘Tunis’) and drove us back to his mother’s apartment. The apartment is in Microrayon 3. This is the third in a series of fifteen storey Soviet concrete tower blocks. They are much sought after locations and favoured by ministers and MPs. Dr Forough proudly pointed out that they had central heating. They did indeed have radiators and paid $200 a year for the privilege of central heating, produced just across the road by a power station with a red and white striped chimney. Every block we saw was decorated with colourful clothes lines strung out from even the highest windows. The shops are well stocked with fruit and meat and there are allotment and play areas dotted around. Dr. Forough’s mother had moved here from Herat 27 years ago and is the only person to have owned the apartment. Dr. Forough was married in 2005 to Narghiz and they have a 2 year old daughter called Khushi. His brother Farhad came to join us. He is four years younger but speaks very good English and is the country director of Marie Stopes International and travels regularly. In fact he is good friends with Sally, one of Suzanna’s close friends who also works for Marie Stopes. This was a good example of a middle class Kabul family. Dr. Forough is one year from finishing his medical training. The family was not outwardly religious. In fact, Farhad had never been to a mosque until the Taliban forced him to as part of his literature studies at the university. They are big fans of Afghan Star and are glued to it every Friday and Saturday. Dr. Forough’s favourite is a Hazara girl. He has just bought a new Suzuski Jeep and coyly lifted the cover that was protecting it. I understood now why he had asked for a payrise last month! His sister, probably about 16, Tamkina, helped serve the food and did all the washing up.  We were treated to an amazing spread of dupiaza, kufta, kabili pilau, sabzi, coke, and kiwi fruit. Dr Forough explained that the cookies came from Hajji Aziz and are the best in town!  We watched a war film on their cable TV. His mother said that she hates war. She has lived through more than thirty years of it. She said she was beaten twice by the Taliban for not being properly covered. They showed me pictures of the beards they had grown and laughed. For $200 a month you can rent a two bed apartment here. On the way, we drove past an American-Afghan housing project, where the houses were disproportionately large, white, with red roofs. They were advertising two bed apartments for $30,000 and five room apartments for $80,000. When asked if we had any children, we felt it was the one Afghan family who understood why we had not had any yet. Actually when Dr. forough dropped us back at the fort, his brother said, “Just let me know if you need any contraception any time, ok?!”  He said that most of the Afghan religious leaders were in favour of abortion and that now Obama had lifted the funding restrictions, they should be able to get money from USAID to make abortion legal here. This surprised me. They kindly gave us a Maimana kilim as we left. We find it so hard to know how to repay such kindness.