La Vie Humanitaire – Part 1: Bread of Life

Nân is the staple food in Afghanistan. Afghans eat this with most meals and so it is perhaps unsurprising that the word also applies to food generally. There are a number of varieties such as nân-e-roghanî (pictured above) which is made using oil which makes it sweeter and richer with a taste somewhat like a croissant. This is a generous comparison but when freshly baked it is soft and delicious. However, by the end of the day it is stiff and lost most of its tastiness. Bread is usually eaten the day it is made. However, not for the first time in Afghanistan’s history, many people in this country don’t have a choice and are fortunate to have nân once a day. Nân is indeed their daily bread and the country’s rhythms revolve around the daily preparation or purchase and breaking of bread together. Meals are invariably shared and at a minimum accompanied by tea which is often sweetened with sugar. This round flat bread is baked locally from Mazar-e-Sharif in the north to Herat in the West, and from Khandahar in the south to Jalalabad in the east. Naturally there are regional variations but it is nân that has sustained Afghans rich and poor for centuries. It is prepared and sold daily from small bakeries with wood-fired clay ovens or by the children of widows from woven baskets on street corners trying to supplement their meagre income. In the three years since I was last in Afghanistan there has been much hardship, conflict and inflation largely due to the staggering amount of foreign aid funds which have flooded in, much of it to sustain the US-led military project which began here following 9/11. Still, the price on the street of a nân remains ten Afghanis (the local currency and not a word used to refer to Afghan people). The enduringly low price of bread means that even the poorest people, of whom there are many, can afford this essential food item that gives life to all. I would love to say that today I could walk to my local bakery in Kabul and buy my own nân but I cannot. Working for an international NGO with very restrictive security protocols means I am cut off from everyday life on the streets by explosion-proof, sand-bagged walls and not permitted to venture out for such a simple task as buying bread and talking with my neighbours. This task is done for me whereas previously I knew the baker and happily took the same risks as the chowkidâr (guard) now takes for me. I’m not sure the risks are much higher than previously, although security across Afghanistan has steadily deteriorated over the past few years and more so since American combat troops left in 2014, but I simply don’t have the choice or pleasure of buying my own nân as long as my stay here is mandated by my current employer.

C’est la vie humanitaire.