give me my top

got my visa today. The five hour ordeal involved trips to two different ministries and four different offices. By afternoon I was ready to eat the carbon paper. Finally we got the various stamps and signatures and we drove across town so I could pay the $10 fee for the visa itself. The bank is a dimly lit old building inlaid with marble and mahogany and dust. My teller had blocked off his window with a newspaper; looking closer I saw it was the NATO propaganda paper. I had nothing to do but wait and read the tortured syntax: "After long periods of suffering and destruction, Afghanistan is moving forward, not the least of which, economically," began the lead article. The next article was "Taliban Kill Hostage." Then there was something about kids in a library.



Then I heard a voice from behind the newsprint. I stooped down to the little slot and eyed the teller, whose suit matched his gray moustache. "Give me my top," he said again.

"Top?" I said.

I shuffled through the multiple thin sheets of paper with dari script I was clutching. It was only when he used the arabic word bakshish that i realized he was asking for a tip. I just laughed and he laughed and he gave me another thin sheet of paper with scribbles and I left, having paid my $10 and no more.

I think what surprises me about bribe-taking in afghanistan is not how common it is but how half-hearted. I've been asked for bribes dozens of times but they always back down pretty quickly. Unlike in the former Soviet Union, where they rarely ask outright for the bribe but god help you if you don't pay something, or know someone, because you will dribble half your life away waiting for fairness on the cold tile under the fluorescent bulb.