There was an opportunity to teach English to the many Greek and Italian migrants on board and I offered my services to the Australian Migration Officer who organized all the documentation for them as well as giving English lessons by the use of English proficient travellers. My group was about thirty or so of Greek men and women and their children. I knew I had a knack for teaching and was often accused of acting as one, you know the type, always trying to give opinions, wanted or not. At the same time I joined the ship’s chess competition and during those few weeks slowly climbed up the chess ‘on board hierarchy’. It was rumoured that the ship’s doctor was a bit of a ‘master’ and remembering the reverence I had for my uncle in Amsterdam I thought I would be lucky to reach the level high enough and play against him.

The English lessons were going very well, if there is one thing that I learnt about Greeks is that they love laughter. The English lessons at the beginning,  was mainly by pointing out items or persons and saying the word in English and then writing the word on a black board. Apart from ‘stavros and mavros’, I did not know much Greek at all. So, pointing to a female was ‘woman’ after which ‘she’ would be ventured. A man was ‘he’. They were quick witted and soon understood and laughed uproariously when pointing to a girl and asked if it was a ‘he’.

The next lesson was about people having different trades or professions, carpenters, nurses, butchers, typists etc. Greeks are very capable and when coming to the word ‘painter’ and imitating the slapping of paint brushes against a surface, several hands would fly up indicating they were painters. Amazingly and very funny was when the trade of butcher was explained, many of the painters hands went up again, they were both painters and butchers. However, when nurses came up and I went to the previous bi-capable tradesmen to ask if they were nurses as well, the whole lot went into convulsions

They were the most responsive group of people I have known. I wonder now, forty years on, what happened to all that enthusiasm and cheerfulness. No doubt many are grandparents, many might have passed away and many have children who became doctors, professors, wealthy entrepreneurs and some might have returned to Greece. That is life, and I won the chess competition as well.

Story and Digital Waxadry by Warrigal

With satellite imaging showing the Arctic sea ice to have retreated to its lowest extent in living memory, reports are now coming in from Tuktoyuktuk, an Inuit settlement on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, that locals on Polar Bear patrol have rescued a man from floating pack ice. The man, diminutive of stature and wearing an improbable green and red outfit, said he was an “Elf”, a tribe unknown to locals, and said that his name was “Rollout D’Barrel”. When this name seemed to confuse the Inuit he explained that where he came from everybody had funny feelgood names.

“Whale meat makes me feel good.” A young local whispered to his little friend on the edge of the gathering.

D’Barrel somewhat incoherently claimed to have been trapped on the floe for some time and only survived by eating the contents of a Fortnum and Mason Christmas Hamper which he claimed was meant as a gift for an expatriate English family in Chicago, but he thought they wouldn’t mind given his circumstances. His story was proven when empty wrappers and a pressed metal tin containing the crumbs of consumed water crackers and an unopened jar of Ballachung was discovered on the floe after the rescue. D’Barrel said he had feared for his life when his floe had drifted close to a larger floe on which two trapped and starving polar bears where eyeing each other with gluttonous intent. D’Barrel said he believed that his outfit made him look like a ripe tomato and that the bears, being carnivores and unfamiliar with tropical salad fruits, decided to ignore him.

During a short stay in the settlement’s rudimentary hospital where he was rehydrated and encouraged to take some hearty seal broth, D’Barrel became agitated and said that a great catastrophe was working up at The North Pole. After being calmed he began the full telling of his story.

Rollout was team leader on “Wheeled Toys” and he and his crew had been out on the ice engaging in a team building exercise when the ice had cracked and he had drifted away from the others.. The locals being unfamiliar with “wheeled toys” and “team building”, then sought to discover just what he had been doing out on the ice and why.

D’Barrel was flumoxxed by their questions and becoming agitated again, replied testily, “I’m an elf, get it!? Wha’d’ya think I was doing? Where do ya think it all comes from, every year, year after year!? I’m talkin’ Christmas!!! Hain’t ya ever heard of Christmas?”

The locals, perplexed and feeling that their traditional hospitality may not be working, replied hesitantly that they didn’t have a “Krismus” but that if he really needed one they could send down to the capital, Iqaluit. They might have one.

“Santa?” Rollout asked, “Anybody?” “Your know; fat jolly old bloke in a red suit; naughty and nice; shortbread and mince tarts; the holly and the ivy, anybody?” They just looked from him to each other, some shoulder shrugging and looked back. “Is this Santa your headman?” One asked.

“Now ya talkin’! Yes, he’s my headman! Look he’s in big trouble. The summer ice is breaking down and it doesn’t come back as much in the winter. We figure we’ll have to relocate the entire operation within the next few years or the whole shebang will just sink to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.”

“Shebang….?” There’s no cognate or equivalent in Inuit.

Well you can imagine it went on like this for some time. The questions flying over their heads and the answers dying in the air between them but finally Rollout managed to convince them that he wasn’t mad and that starving Polar Bears and melting tundra would be the least of their worries if Santa and the rest of the Elves were not rescued and the entire “shebang(?)”, packed up and crated to a new location. This “shebang”, the locals came to understand, apparently manufactured or warehoused an enormous variety of toys and treats that were then deployed globally at the height of the northern winter in an attempt to maintain the balance of global happiness and as a celebration of the peoples way of life. It sounded like a crazy idea to the Inuit.

“It is like whale meat!” the little fellow whispered to his friend.

Confusion still reigned as the people and Rollout prepared the canoes for the long journey to the North Pole. They offered Rollout a seal skin suit but he said that his red and green would keep him warm and off they paddled. It was a long way to the Pole and they had to overnight on some of the bigger floes. As they got closer the sea ice was packing up and they would soon have to changeover to the sleds. The dogs never liked travelling in the canoes.

When they finally arrived at the Pole there was nothing there. Well nothing they could see. Rollout produced a small device from his pocket and after entering a very long alphanumeric code, he punched the big red button in the middle. Suddenly it began to snow and sleigh bells could be heard in the air, holly was spontaneously popping into existence across the facades of several rather grand and elaborate ginger bread houses. The Inuit were most surprised. Their houses were good for keeping your meat but a house you could actually eat…, that was something else!  All at once the scene was filled with small people similarly attired as Rollout, all rushing about as if all charged with some desperately urgent task. Somewhere a lugubrious and somewhat tuneless voice was singing about the weather outside being frightful.

“Look, let’s get inside and I’ll take you to meet Big Red.” Said Rollout to the startled Inuit

Rollout walked the stunned troupe up some stairs to a set of very large biscuit and icing doors. He ushered them through. They found themselves in a vast hall filled with production lines, rotary moulding machines, furnaces, the entire panoply of industrial equipment all chugging away to produce teddy bears and tricycles, dolls and domino sets, water pistols and Wii’s, everything and anything a child could want. Not the children of the Inuit of course. They would have little use for most of this stuff.

Crossing an overhead gantry above the ceaseless production lines the group entered a large and comfortable office and were surprised to find a big man with a most impressive hairy face. The Inuit, not having much facial hair, where particularly interested in the man’s snowy beard. He was stripped to the waist, wearing a pair of particularly lurid board shorts and trying to keep his balance on some sort of machine that was seeking to tip him off an equally lurid piece of foam and plastic, sharp at one end and with two fins descending from it’s lower surface. The Inuit didn’t think much of the thing. It was too small for seal hunting and it provided absolutely no cover from the wind.

The big man jumped off the machine and swiping up a nearby towel began to dry the perspiration from his vast pink body.

“Ho Ho Ho”, the big man laughed and seemed to be really enjoying himself “After it’s all over this year I’m going to take my holidays in Tahiti. Thought I’d get some big wave action in at Teahupoo. Just boning up on my drop technique.” It was then that he noticed Rollout and bounded over and embraced him in a sweaty hug. “Rollout, my dear boy. We thought we’d lost you. Things haven’t been rolling as smoothly in “wheeled toys” since your little adventure,” Santa winked, “and you’ve brought friends. How charming!”

Santa, looking this way and that, took Rollout aside and, sotto voce, whispered in Rollout’s ear, “Well Rollout, you’ll be happy to hear we’ve solved our little location problem in your absence. Done a deal with Denmark. We’re going to Greenland! Top of the ice. Should be safe there for a few years. The cloaking technology will have to work overtime but it’ll give the folks in Copenhagen time to get their act together and maybe in time we can move back to the Pole. Bit of a bugger with tradition and all but what else can we do? There’s going to be no ice to sit the whole shebang on in a few years. We worked it out with that nice boy Fred and his charming wife. She’s Australian did you know?” Rollout said that he knew. “Anyway, they were very understanding. Their kids were thrilled having Santa about the palace. Fred told me that Demark had done a similar deal with some Tuvaluans and some Bangladeshi’s. This global warming thing has got everybody from low lying areas on the move. It’s playing hell into our location database and the whole “naughty or nice” vibe is going through some necessary changes. Did you know Rollout that it seems there are people who are actively frustrating the whole amelioration business on purely political and ideological grounds?” Rollout said that he hadn’t known, and that the whole science thing had never been his strong suite. He left that sort of thing to the scientists. If they said it was so then it was so. What did he, an elf in “wheeled toys”, know from climate change. “Well,” said Santa, “they haven’t been very nice and I’ve a good mind to just give them more of the same, another hottest year, more catastrophic fires, more class five hurricanes and maybe a “six” or two for good measure! It’s the kids I’m sorry for. Their mud minded parents condemning them to a world without ice and snow. It’s a tragedy Rollout, a rolled gold tragedy. All those carols will have to be rewritten and the cards; they’re all going to have to look like those joke cards from Australia.” Santa seemed then to notice he was still wearing nothing but board shorts. “See what I mean!?” he said throwing his hands out.

During this discourse the Inuit had been inching closer hoping to catch the drift of what was being said. It was evident that the panic had been cancelled. What had been immediately urgent was now simply highly prioritised.

“Look, we’re neglecting our guests Rollout.” said Santa and pulled on a tee shirt that didn’t quite cover his ample girth and left his pink navel exposed above the board shorts. The hibiscus design on the T seemed to confuse the Inuit even more, tropical flowers not being common or popular north of 70 degrees north.

“Ho Ho Ho” Santa let off another blast of laughter that sent the Inuit scuttling. He gathered them together with much mirth and said that he was so tremendously grateful that they’d rescued Rollout and was there anything he could do for them.

The Inuit withdrew to a huddle in the midst of which matters of great moment were being decided. After much toing and froing the Inuit had decided that what they really wanted was more sea ice, so the Polar Bears, a central totemic animal, could continue to hunt and the seals would thrive. It seemed a small request to them and, given that anything seemed within the gift of the Great Santa, they believed he would have no trouble with a few thousand square kilometres of sea ice. It was just frozen seawater after all.

Suddenly the mirth that had twinkled Santa’s eyes faded. He became very serious. “If only it were possible, I’d do it in a moment. But I’m not as powerful as I used to be. The boffins tell me it has to do with “believing”. Apparently the power of this place is all based on “believing”. Not enough kids believe in me these days and that saps our energy. It makes our workload lighter, not so many gifts to make what with the non believers harassing their parents through the malls spending money they can’t afford on gifts that’ll be discarded by new year. It’s a shame really. The gift of Christmas was never about the toys, it was supposed to be about the giving.”

“You know, I remember this one little boy, it must have been some time back, a long time ago anyway. He lived in what was essentially an orphanage, not a lot of love there. Anyway this one Christmas he’d been particularly nice all year, and believe me in that place that wasn’t easy. All he wanted was a wooden truck. Well he’d been so good and the truck would have been easy but I had a better idea. The maintenance man at the place where the boy lived was a lonely widower whose own son had long since moved away. I won’t bore you with the details but we managed to get the old man to make the boy the truck. We had that kind of power then. Anyway, they became firm and lifelong friends and their friendship helped them both endure the difficulties of their shared situation. Now I was particularly proud of that Christmas gift and we didn’t have to make a thing.”

“That boy’s now in his sixties. I saw him last Christmas Eve, he was snoring on the couch as I transported in. He’d wrapped that truck in gay paper and the tag said, “To the Gas Tacker, with all my love, Poppy” He still had the truck after all those years! You see that truck was love itself and I bet that that boy’s grandson loves it more than any gleaming plastic and chrome brand toy. I know because he’d been really nice that year too, and we knew that he really wanted Poppy’s truck. We really piled it on for him that year.” Santa seemed to lose himself in the reverie. The Inuit gathered around Santa, each one gently laying their thickly gloved hands on a shoulder, an arm. Rollout was particularly distressed. He’d never seen Santa without a smile. The rest of it was all news to him.

Santa, I never knew….” Rollout said uncertainly.

“Oh yes. That’s the truth of it. We used once to be able to do all manner of wonderful things but these days it’s more difficult. Not enough believing,” Santa suddenly became aware of the Inuit once more, “or maybe it’s the kind of believing. And that’s where your sea ice comes in. You see for a long time a lot of people believed that oil and coal were cheap and risk free. Now we know that to be false but not enough people believe that there was a problem in the first place, and even those that agree there’s a problem often can’t agree on what the problem is and how to attack it so you see, not much has happened. Not enough people believing a solution is possible and believing they can do something to help. We’re bamboozled by believing, but we’ve lost empathy and love.” Santa shook his head. “We can make all this stuff.” Santa dismissed the entire production hall with a wave of his arm. “Stuff is easy. People believe in stuff alright! It’s love and empathy that take a little more. I’m afraid that I can’t give you any more sea ice. Not enough people believe in sea ice anymore. You see my problem.” Santa opened his empty hands to the Inuit.

As if on cue the doors to the office opened and in marched a formation of tray carrying elves. “Ah, refreshments!” cried Santa, his former gloom instantly replaced with a beaming smile as he handed round the eggnog and hot chocolate. “Mince Tart anyone?” Santa was full of bonhomie. “You see there is an upside to all this but I just can’t get a handle on it at the moment.” Santa paused and looked momentarily perplexed. “Still it’s Christmas. Can’t be gloomy at Christmas!” he turned to the Inuit again. “Sorry, no sea ice, but is there anything else you may want?”

The Inuit conferred briefly again. “No, there is nothing we need from you. We’re just happy to have found Rollout and come to this place and seen all these wondrous things. It’s sad about the ice but we’ll manage. We always have.” The Inuit all gave Santa and Rollout their best happiest smiles, their big white teeth dazzling in the middle of their ice burnished brown faces.

“Well let me at least see you safely and swiftly home. Rollout, get Comet hitched up. He’ll get them home right enough!”

As the elves gathering on the steps of the production hall parted to let the Inuit through, the Inuit saw the most improbable craft they had ever seen. Not unlike a great canoe with skids where the bottom seal skins should be. Their gear, sleds, all the dogs, canoes, everything, all stowed and roped down in the back while up front a very toey reindeer, just one, was tearing at the ice with his hooves. Piling in under the furs provided, the Inuit once more graced Santa and the assembled elves with another terrific symphony of smiles as everyone promised they’d meet again.

In a trice Comet, the sled and the happy Inuit were gone.

Santa, putting his arm around Rollout’s shoulder said “What do you think little Inuit boys and girls might like for Christmas?”

“I’m not sure Santa. Do the Inuit even have Christmas?” Rollout was still uncertain as to where this whole episode was leading.

Santa laid a finger up the side of his nose and winked at Rollout. “Well I think we can safely say that when our new friends get home they’ll tell their families and those families will believe the stories and in the people in them. Oh yes, Rollout. I think we’re going to need to know about those children; who they are, where they are, whether they’ve been naughty or nice and what they want. I can feel the believing beginning.”

And with that Santa rubbed his hands with glee. “Lots to do Rollout, lots to do! Christmas comes but once a year!”

Well, I thought I’d seen some pretty cynical bastardry in my time, but today’s Email in-box had the cake-taker of the year.

It read “This year, instead of spending money on posting out Christmas cards, we decided to donate the money amongst three of our favourite charities”.

Which, on first thought seems reasonable enough.  Second thought “ah, yes …. and get a 100% tax deduction … with no accountability for how much actually IS donated”.

But there was a rider …. As the recipient of the Email, I was asked to pick amongst three worthy charities by clicking on a link …. and thereby helping their marketing people update the database – revealing amongst their clients and suppliers, who was still alive and paying attention to their Emails.  Click on that link – get spammed to death !

I think this piece of scroogality really alienates people at Christmas and turns generosity into a cynical tax dodge and marketing exercise.  Instead of opening a nicely hand-penned card that joins us for a moment with our friends and which we put up on the venetian blind or on the TV stand as a warm reminder, we get a soul-less poisoned Email.

Bah, humbug to them !

Taureans are known for their tenacity and ability to concentrate.  More so than lesser signs – those are known more for their eight-acity – or nine-acity.  This week will be a big one for Taureans – which is lucky for the bigger bulls out there.

As the moon enters your house, you will more than likely need to close the blinds to get a decent sleep.

Taureans are also known for sleeping through their lunchbreaks and missing out on tucker – which makes you really cranky all afternoon until your hapless Piscean partner cooks dinner and you wash it down with something sangrian.

Your lucky numbers are 0-9 and a-f (hex) or 0 and 1 if you fall into a binary loop.

Taureans will continue to enjoy a fulsome love life – particularly when their partners come into heat, roughly around September 2014.

Fortune will smile on Taureans and all the other signs as the stars rise over your stable relationship and a distant relative will relinquish the leadership of a major political party in an apparently bloodless chicken coup.

This week’s favourable colour is red and you should expect another good run in Pamplona next year.

Your long-range ‘scope suggests that you will meat a tall handsome chap in a blue and white striped apron hanging around the block, amidst sawdust.  More than that is uncertain, but if I was you, I’d steel myself for some cutting remarks.

Astral Wally

Cosmic Seer

 

The moment I began writing about the Iranian lady the other day, the very moment I had put down the first word, another lady’s face also came to my mind and, with it, the need to write about her also. I brushed that need away until Mrs At read the story. When she finished reading it, she looked up at me and asked, “what about Mary’s mum? You said she also shocked you like that, remember?” Then that need to talk about her as well, became a must and so, here I am, writing about another woman whose face had also trashed my brain but for an altogether different reason. Mrs At. knows about Mary’s mum not because they had met but because her daughter used to come to our house often, after school, particularly during the breaks when I held rehearsals with my young theatre group. “Theatre Tricks.”

During those days, our house –quarter acre plus, if you don’t mind!- was jam full with students and the barbie would be going full bore, rain, hail or sunshine. Mary was also in my English class. Year 11. Beautiful, very beautiful kid but an unbearable prima donna, in class and out. She certainly was a great actress and had taken the role of Blanche in Streetcar, with everyone’s happy approval. I used to always run two casts who’d play on alternate nights, plus a few understudies and a whole bunch of directors and assistant directors, make up artists, hair dressers, floor managers, you name it –we had it. I wanted to occupy as many kids as possible –but that’s another story.

Mary was certainly intelligent. Stunning memory, learnt her lines within a couple of days and she was as sharp as a tack. But she was an absolute bugger of a kid to keep attentive in class. She was a thespian through and through. Exasperating. Couldn’t sit still. She’d walk around the class, taking over the lesson –a teacher’s nightmare. Midway through term one I caught up with her in the yard one day and asked her to tell her father to make an appointment to see me. “Nah. He won’t see you sir.” “Why not, Mary?” “Coz he’s a bastard and he’s left us.” “Oh, sorry to hear that, Mary. Well, tell mum then please, mate because we need to do something here…” “I know, sir, I told you I’m trying.” “Still, it won’t do any harm if we all sat together and had a little chat.” “She won’t come either, sir.” “Why not?” “Coz…” “Mary?” “She won’t come, I’m telling you. She…” “What?” “Nothing, Mr T. She just won’t come.” She looked into the distance, into her mind’s eye, for a moment and then said, “bastard left us three years ago.” “I’m sorry to hear that, Mary. Is mum still very upset about it?” “I guess so but that’s not why she won’t come, Mr T. You could call her though. She’ll talk on the phone with you. She’s always on the phone.” “Mary I need us to sit together and talk.” “She won’t come, sir. Have you worked out who’s playing Stan, yet?” “Mary… OK, let me have your phone number.” “Helen (my daughter) has it.”

So, the parent-teacher night came and I was looking forward to meeting Mary’s mum. Mary had told me during the day that she had convinced her mum to come. But parent followed parent until the last parent came and went and the room was empty of parents. The other two teachers got up and left. Mary’s mum was nowhere to be seen. Eventually I, too gave up and began to gather my books. That’s when I heard the footsteps. Mary came in first, stepping quietly, lest anyone would hear her. “Mr T, mum’s here. Are we too late?” “No, no, Mary. Where is she?” Mary walked out of the room and a minute later she walked back in with her mother. At first I thought the woman was mad. She was wearing sunglasses for goodness’ sake! In the middle of the night, in a dark classroom. Tall, slender, long shiny black hair like Mary’s. Another actress, I thought. That’s where Mary got her diva complex from. They both walked gingerly to my desk and sat opposite me. Mum leaned as far back as the chair and protocol would allow her; but I could sense it was a fearful gesture. She was hiding something and it was obvious that what she was hiding was behind those large dark sun glasses. I had to see what it was and I must have made this need obvious to her; and to Mary, so Mary explained nonchalantly. “Mum had a stroke three years ago, Mister T and her face is gone a bit funny. That’s why she’s wearing the goggles.” That was when the bolt hit me. Stunned. Couldn’t utter anything coherent. I could see the distortion now quite clearly. I understood her dread. The whole right side of her face had become a grotesque mass of shrivelled flesh. I could barely distinguish her eye from her cheek. I mumbled. Suddenly, my little problem with Mary had become a shocking reminder of the pettiness of it.

I didn’t want to bother this woman with my petty whines about her daughter. But I had to tell her something –after all I had insisted on her making this enormous sacrifice for me- but what? What was so important that I couldn’t have sort it out by myself, or with just a phone call? But whatever went on in my blurred brain it wasn’t utterable. I left it to Mary. She took over the conversation. She was great at it. A born actress. I had no idea what went on during that conversation. I remember little of it. None of it really. Only that I was still shocked well after they had left the room. During the school break we had the usual rehearsals and the usual Op Shop hunting, looking for costumes and props. During one of those days Mary told me quietly, “she’ll be right, Mr T. the docs reckon her face will get back to usual in a couple of years.” Streetcar was a brilliant success, thanks to Mary –as well as my daughter and a whole lot of other kids and parents. I haven’t seen Mary or her mum ever again but I’d love to know how they’re both going.

The thing that circles around my mind is the idea that one can be stunned with beauty without the “falling in love” bit just as one can be stunned by ugliness without the “falling in hatred” bit. I hadn’t “fallen in love” with the Iranian woman just as I hadn’t hated Mary’s mum. Is this “stunned” bit then, an emotional or an intellectual experience?

Sagittarians are well and truly on the cusp of Scorpio tomorrow – with dire consequences.

As bold and impetuous types, you will make a really effing huge mistake and, under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol and recreational drugs, you will get a tattoo.

Mars will not get the chance to rise in your fourth quarter until well after the swelling goes down.

Which might take a week at the least.

You will be so pissed off you’ll wish you hadn’t made that smart arse remark to the tattooist about Virgos.  On a brighter note, the next door neighbour’s 14 year old smelly cat – the one that sprays on the Chesterfield you have out on the porch – will finally cark it in an unfortunate accident with a pit bull disguised as a garden feature.

A traffic infringement officer will have  a heart attack while writing out a ticket for the car immediately before he gets to your expired meter.

Your lucky number is one.  Not that one, the one without the tattoo.

Astral Wally,

Cosmic seer.

The Afghan Cafe was the opposite of ‘The bitches Milk-bar’.  She was so beautiful, it made grown men weep.  She could be seen above her counter at the back of her small cafe, in the semi darkness of a cosily lit up area. She was Afghani, dark skinned with large kohl eyes which would look out and scan the passing scene for possible customers, or possible future husband. It was situated on a very busy street but away from the main shopping centre. We were told by a friend of a friend that her brother had put her there in the business to earn some money and hopefully also find a suitable partner. At the time, around the late eighties the only connection to Afghanistan were the thousands of Afghan camels roaming the North and North West of Australia as a result of those early goods and telegraph services between Southern Australia and Northern territory by camel trains led by their Afghan camel drivers. We knew of course that the development of outback Australia would have been very difficult if not impossible if not for those early Afghans coming to Australia as early as the 1830’s.

Whatever the motive, the beautiful eyed single Afghan lady sat in this restaurant cafe from late afternoon till the last of the customers would leave. The restaurant’s fare was genuine Afghan dishes. They were always tasty but not too spicy, more sweetish than chilli with raisins and dates, much use of lemon juice and yoghurt.  The cafe- restaurant was small and seated perhaps not much more than twelve or fifteen people. We loved going there and then all of a sudden it was closed and it became a laundry. She would have found a partner. This is what we all thought and hoped. She was too beautiful to be sitting there forever. Or did she go back to Afghanistan?