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"Kabul, Afghanistan." ?Posted by devon on Wednesday, June 9, 2004
It has been brought to my attention that I havn't been posting enough and considering that I'm stuck here with nothing to do, spending my days holed up inside my hotel room playing guitar, there isn't much of an excuse. Well, one excuse might be that the experience of going outside feels like having a symphony orchestra explode in your face. Swap a few violinists for gunmen and Tuba players for tanks.
Afghanistan is such a miserable place, and there is so much information needed to understand why, I dont even know how I'm going to go about explaining it. It would take a week to do it properly. Regrettably, I may just be here for that long, so I'll do a post a day and try to get up to date. But before I start, a quick update.
I'm still on ice waiting for my Iranian visa (bastards) here in Kabul. Thanks to some friends of mine, I was able to get off my ass today and head down to some of kabuls bombed out slums to take photographs. Most of which were pretty uninspired but still a step out my doorway. As a result i'm exausted phsycialy and emotionally, but in just the mood to write.
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To understand the full picture of my arrival in to Afghanistan, I must turn back the clock to a dusty morning in western Pakistan. I awoke in a dingy 5 floored excuse for a lodging, named with ironic ambition: "Five Star Hotel". My location was Peshawar, an infamous fronteir town that lies just 80 clicks from the Afghani border and sits more or less on the boundary of pakistans tribal areas. The moniker of "tribal areas" given to the land is the nice way of saying "there be no law in yonder lands". Its controlled by the Pashtuns, who guard their autonomy ferociously. I had packed the night before, so when I sprung up at 7 AM and took what I knew was going to be the last shower for a few days (weeks?) I was ready to go. The boys downstairs put me on a bus out to the smugglers bazaar (named for a reason) where there was a vague implication that busses could be had out to Torkam, the border town. I watched Peshawars dusty streets roll by as I sat in a pathetically familiar nervous anticipation.
I could have done more planning.
I always put myself in that position. A vague plan with complete and utter reliance on local sympathy to get me to where I need to go. Its a complete and utter miracle that I have come this far across the globe in this manner.
Unbeknownst to me, the streets I watched go by would become a lot more familiar to me in the next few hours. Some teenagers got on in the back and sat next to me. I tried as hard as I could to ignore them, but one of them finally got through and I realized their english wasnt bad at all. I found out that at least I was on the right bus. When the line ended I was sent packing off towards a minibus station that was ominously vacant of activity. A van rolled by and when I said "Torkam", they seemed surprised and gave me the impression they were heading that way as well. They told me to get in and I did.
They werent going anywhere. They stopped oustide a bus companies office and called over a few taxies who suggested astronomical sums to take me to the border. I had spend most of my last week on busses and my patience was very very thin. I puffed myself up and aped that I was very very angry with the minibus men for fooling me untill they were in all appearances guilty, then marched myself into the office with a taxi driver towing along behind.
In the crazy world out here, things dont work under the same rules as they did back home. Prices are as big or as small as you want them to be. Permission depends on who you are. Obsticles appear or dissapear depending on how you look at them. All these nebulous truths make day to day life in the third world depressingly hard, and its up to you how you tackle them. I dont have much to work with. I travel alone, I'm young and look younger and I'm foreign. I'm painfully aware of my handicaps coming into any tough situation, and I deal with it by inflating my personality to god-like proportions. I pretend that I am the worlds most important person, and play up the act with whoever I am dealing with to the last detail. The most important characteristic is invincible and unshakable self-confidence and bravado. I often throw in a hint of arrogance or humility where its needed. The act is a loathsome activity for me, and the longer I have to put it up, the more miserable I will be at the end of the day. Sadly, I have to say its been an awful necessity for this poor little boy all by himself in the big nasty world.
I walked into the office in character and was almost immediately deflated by the nice man inside. He layed out the situation in full, taking time out of his day to help me. There were no busses going to the border. The minibusses had all gone early in the morning and regardless of anything. I wouldnt have been allowed past an imaginary line that lay just 500 meters down the road. Foreigners are not allowed into the tribal areas or to the border without two things. A permit and an armed guard. When he told me this I had to crack a smile. I had two options. To try to get through to the border illegally in a cab, which would have cost me 600 Rupees (10 dollars) or have the same taxi man take me back and get the permit and guard at 700 Rupees. I realized when the bus operator told me this that he was truly helping me. That was a very cheap price. The drivers outside were quoting in the thousands. I felt like an ass for my first few minutes of pompousness but I really wasnt expecting any real help. I thanked him warmly for his help and payed the taxi driver an initial 300 rupees for his service.
This was all good news. I was going to pay more than I had expected, but I was going to get across the border that day, which was my main priority. The driver had been given directions to the political office to pick up the gun-man. I couldnt believe it. I was getting an armed guard to escort me to a border. The concept of going through a dangerous area didnt occur to me. I was quite confident that it was just bureaucratic nonsense that required me to get the man and permit. Once we got to the political office I walked through the big stone gate and found that the "office" was basically a prison for political individuals. I was led to the man to talk to, and found out from him that I needed the permit before I came there. According to him I wasnt going today, I was going to come back tommorow with the permit. It was a holiday and no permit would be issued. In full character I told him that this was absolutely impossible and I had no time to spare. My bombast worked and he sent me to another office where he said one control room would be open where the permit could be issued.
One down, one to go. I now knew that I could get the gunman without any hitches, but the permit was another challenge. I knew it was going to be another gambit and didnt let the tightness in my shoulders relax or my delusions of grandeur drift back to the reality of my small, insignifigant self. After a few wrong turns and winds we arrived at the ministry of Tribal Affairs and my taxi driver waited outside as I strutted in as if I was on a gilded chariot. I knew right away it wasnt going to be easy. There were only two men in the building, and when I entered the office, they were both lying on the floor, watching T.V.
They really wern't joking about the holiday thing. The control room that I had mentioned was indeed open, but was basically just a telephone that was manned incase the shit hit the fan and somebody important needed to be reached. The two men were very insistant that nothing could be done and I should come back tommorow. They wern't happy about it, but somehow I got one of their bosses on the phone. I could hear kids in the background and a lot of noise. He was definitely at home.
This wasnt going to be easy.
I wont give away my secrets of diplomacy, but the conversation began with "Salaam, alaykum!", had the man whining "what do you want me to do, what do you want me to do!" in the middle, and ended with a frustrated "Alright!, I'll see what I can do".
I had really pushed my luck here, squeezed through without an inch on either side. But I won my round with this man. There were still the other employees around so I couldnt put my head in my hands and shake my head just yet. They phoned him again and I could tell by their deepening frowns that they were being told to accomodate me. They were very friendly all the same, gave me tea and juice as I waited for something to happen in the other office, with the television. At least while I was sitting, without having to talk (they didnt speak any english) I didnt have to pretend to be anything, so I retreated quitely into self loathing as I watched the television. A couple of phonecalles came and went, but I was distant. Intensly focused on the grotesque hippocrisies of my personality. Finally the phone was thrust into my hands and a deep, powerful voice came out of a deafeningly silent background.
"Salaam, alaykum", he sounded vaguely amused. "What is your country sir?"
After I answered in my frankest voice, I was immediately told the information.
"I have ordered my man to issue you the permit, he will be there in half an hour".
I tried to thank him without sputtering, I was so surprised at how simply I seemed to have won my battle. It was all up to this deep mysterious voice at the other end of the phone. I never found out who he was, but the I could tell from the notes on the wall that Ministry of Tribal affairs was part of a vast military network that kept a handle on Pakistans widely spread and politically fragmented population. Shortly after the man I spoke with before called up and told me what I needed to have the permit issued and that he would be there in twenty minutes.
I raced outside to find my driver so he could take me to the nearest photocopy machine to get my passport and visa copied. He had apparently dissapeared with all my luggage. Typical. I was screwed. Or not. I ran around for 10 minutes before I had found he moved the car. My blood was running anyway so it didnt make much a difference to me. Without ceremony we went to the nearest market where a man with a photocopy machine sat in the corner of a bombed out courtyard and made my copies for 1 rupee each. He just sat out there all day, waiting for people who needed copies to be made to find him. I hate to think what he did for money when it rained.
I waited only for a few minutes after I got back before the man in question walked through the door. I got up and sent two piercing green eyes under a furrowed brow in his direction as I Salaamed and he smiled shyly before retreating behind his desk. It was second nature to be the same man as he spoke with on the phone. He effortlessly put my carefully guarded self confidence in the shithouse by earnestly apologizing for making my day more difficult. I had to stand up and tell him that indeed I was the one very sorry for making him have to leave his family on a holiday and that I was very, very thankfull for him to be there helping me out. It did nothing for my feelings of self-worth. The effectiveness with which he made me feel like a pile of trash almost made me think that his apology was designed for such a reason, but I knew it wasnt. Plainly, I AM a pile of trash. Completely and utterly full of shit. But I got the permit in my grubby mongrel paws, and no small price I had to pay for it. He chased after me when I left the office and cajoled me to come back and share a juice with him.
The inner turmoil I am describing is spoken to my concious mind through a very small voice while I am playing the master of the universe, yet grows to a deafening volume as the role ceases to be played. The whole game is usually made worse for me by the fact that everybody is completely taken up by the act and treats me like I am indeed a very, very important person.
I told you I hate doing it. I really hope you believe me. But the upside is that I ALWAYS get what I need. In this circumstance, I needed the permit, and being full of shit for half an hour was the only way I was going to get it. A chosen sacrifice.
We made our way back to the political office, and I got to speak with some of the political prisoners shortly. American foreign policy was seemingly the topic of the day. Something everybody could agree on. The captives, the captors and me!. After a few photocopies were made of the permit, and I ate a few bites with the other guards (I hadnt eaten all day, it was now just after noon), the gunman, taxi-driver and I squeezed into the yellow hatchback and we were off. In my ignorance and left over egoinflation I sat in front. The driver quickly rectified this at the gas-pump by telling me that in pakistan, the smaller man goes in the back.
There was no question I was the smaller man.
We passed a sign just after the smugglers bazaar that informed anybody who could read english that foreigners were not allowed any further without a permit. Mine was checked and a copy handed out.
Hmm.... looked like serious business. Maybe there was a good reason for the permit. I still doubted it. The gunman was definitely unnecessary.
So I was in the tribal areas heading towards the legendary Khyber Pass. For eons this pass has divided empires, ethnicities and most importantly, everything we understand to be "west" and "east". Great warlords from Alexander the great to Babur the Mughal have passed through on conquests in the Indian subcontinent, and much blood has been spilt to control it. I had an armed escort to ward away danger, a scarf to ward away the dust, and a camera to catch it all out the window.
I'm done for today, I will continue with the trip through the pass and my hectic entrance into Afghanistan in my next post.
TTFN
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