what about the tea?

a piece about my time in Afghanistan, 2025.

There is a thing, only whispered about behind the palms of callused hands. Little girls brush the dusty hair away behind their ears to listen. Hush, not too loud or it will find you - legend says.

It hunts down jagged mountain ranges and salty ocean tides, just the same. It preys on large hearts and moonlight smiles. Not a creature, a pebble, may turn in its midst. It comes in many forms, and we hear over the light of a bonfire, how our parents escaped it bravely. There are theories that it yearns for what its targets possess, for the ability to love truly and honestly, to be gentle and warm when winter comes. It is, above all, a thief in the night. We know it came from what it took, for it always takes life and the idea of opportunity. The modus operandi has remained the same for centuries, yet it has never been stopped. We wonder, as children, where the super heroes were. We learn as adults, that the red capes always belonged to places where this monster built its many lairs. In places that still remain the pinnacle of greater good. For this, some people believe it destroys in its envy, some people say it is nothing but a demon. It searches for a certain glimmer in the eyes (it seems), before it strikes relentlessly. For there is nothing of value to take from hatred and falsehood, it pursues a different genus of rich.

Rich in life, in intellect, in culture. It takes from them so that all they have is tea and a platter of fruit. Green or black, cardamom or muddled mint. Are they blood-red pomegranate seeds or softened violet figs, perhaps the secret fortune is golden mangos. It depends on where this anomaly decides to live for now, what will be served once it is gone. It takes, so that all they have left is their vessel, language and traditions. And then, it tries to take that too.

Legend calls this thing, war.

The question that never fails to create a lump in my throat is, what could have been? If survival was not the epitome of life. If war was not created by us, but truly was an other worldly being than we can blame the carpet bombing on. If nobody ever left.

Because when they left, war found them just the same. War has a new name in different places. I watch the long-necked geese cross our imaginary borders, marvel at them, and wonder what rights they have over human beings.

We come back to visit the places that war had once lived, in awe of what was left behind. A mud-house village with many names, with many faces. We find large hearts, bright eyes, and moonlight smiles. We find a pool of tears, nestled in the rubble of someone’s lifetime of work. We find that after all, children everywhere yearn to land on the moon, don’t they? Where do hopes and dreams go when there is nowhere to see them come to fruition? We find that, we were never strangers to begin with.

This time, we visit Afghanistan. The graveyard of empires. Dust is buried beneath fingertips, and bones rest beneath the dust. Bone-chilling cold paradoxes the warmest of people. The mountains whisper prayers and the birds sing a song of resilience through the city below. I have felt home only once before, and being here sent the same sensations down my spine. For in the corner of the spice shop, in valleys of red rocks herding their sheep, in steep alleyways, and resting under the branches of barren citrus trees, there is a love for life I recognized.

a place where war once lived

I recognized it from other places I have visited, where war once lived. I see parallels of tea and fruit. I see parallels of generosity, hospitality, that I have never experienced anywhere else because it cannot exist anywhere else. It is true that the people who have the least will give the most, maybe to be the person they once needed. Belly laughs fill the hazy air, from children who have known pain we cannot imagine. It fills me with deep regret, what it took to realize the beauty of this land. So, let this be all it takes for you. Rewrite the legends to say, be loud, scream from the rooftops. The truth is, the monster can only take if we look away. If we forget.

So do not forget the hands that serve you tea, and refuse to take your money. Whether it is the beating heart of Asia, or the rainforest of the Congo. Whether your cup is filled with the karkade of Sudan or the barrad of the Gaza Strip, the adani of Yemen or gas station coffee of urban America. Do not look away. Our struggle is connected, it always has been.