Lunch

So I am sitting in the restaurant (see below) surveying the menu and the scene. It is a basic restaurant that could be anywhere in the world, with paneling, plastic menus atop plastic tablecloths, and the locals sitting around talking about whatever locals talk about when they are in the middle of a war zone. It is the kind of place that ex-pats surrounded by security guards and barbed wire never get to see, and while it is not normal—only well off people can eat out, and there aren’t a lot of those—it does give a bit more feel to the country than the expat only British-themed restaurant with their guards and razor wire and canned beer and fish and chips.

I was there to meet Faiqa and Khadifa, two Afghan women who I have become friends with. After 10 minutes they arrived. Being progressive, they don’t wear burqas. But as women they also have to play by the rules. I waved them over to the table I had been holding and I thought the waiter was showing them over. As she got to the table, Khadifa said ‘we can sit over here.’ So I found myself leaving the dining room, walking down the hall behind the waiter and my friends, to a separate dining room.

In Afghanistan something as simple as having lunch cannot be done in mixed company. Men and women can sit together as a group—but they must be separated from the ‘regular’, aka ‘men’s’ area.

The meal itself was delightful—roasted chicken, rice, lamb, and pudding. The place even had Diet Coke. But somehow, it just seemed, I don’t know—silly, exasperating, depressing, stupid, fill in a word here—to just want to have lunch with women that are fun and really smart, and to find that your friends have been—and probably always will be—subjugated to this kind of an environment. In the end, I guess I just feel kind of sad.