Afghan Whispers: Cock Fighting, Winter, and Insecure Borders · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Afghan Lord talks about a new sport in Afghanistan, cock fighting. You can watch a video clip of cock fighting on Afghan Lord's blog.The blogger adds,
Morgh Janngi which means cock fighting is a traditional winter sport as is dog, camel fighting and donkey racing. In Morgh Janngi, men (only) come from all over Afghanistan to enter their prized cocks in the Kabul arena. Morgh Janngi is highly complex in its rules, brutal in its savagery and can be expensive for the gamblers involved. Most competitors have a non-formal support group of men who help raise the stakes in betting and argue for or against a decision of which cock wins. The cocks fight until blood is drawn, then the owner will pull his chicken out of the ring, for repairing the animals wounds and refreshing its vitality with a mouth of water, blown into the cocks face.The competition is not cheap, men risk money on the result of each fight, sometimes betting 100,000 to 200,000Afghanis ($2,000 – $4,000 US). Sometimes the betting exchange becomes so heated that groups will bet amount exceeding $5,000.
You can seeseveral photos of cock fighting here.
Onne Parl is a freelance journalist and blogger in Afghanistan.The blogger says that the cold is the main topic among Afghans and internationals as well.The blogger adds,
We suffer together. Afghans don’t seem to know what are double glazes windows, so we covered our windows with plastic. It is a common tradition here.
Recently both Afghan government and United nations rejected Pakistani plan to plant landmines and build a fence in ‘selected places’ along its 2,400 km border with Afghanistan. Notes from the West supports Pakistani decision and says only things goes on, in some areas in the tribal zone, are smuggling goods and drugs. You can see several photos of this tribal zone in his blog.