Reblogged from Mary Smith’s Place:

Over the next few days there was a flood of visitors – uncles, brothers, cousins, friends – coming to welcome Hussain. And, they all wanted to meet the foreigner making me feel like I was some prize specimen of wild life discovered under a rock.

Not ‘my’ village but typical of villages in Hazara Jat

The most frequent caller was ‘Engineer’, who owned a pharmacy in Sangi Masha. A student of engineering in Kabul he had returned to Jaghoray when the Russian occupation began. His family were wealthy landowners but farming life did not appeal to Engineer. He became a translator for the French medical teams in Qolijou hospital. After a few months, deciding that his medical knowledge was sufficient, he left to set up his own clinic in the bazaar. Later, he opened a pharmacy – an even more profitable concern, since all his patients bought the drugs he prescribed from his shop.

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