Direct from Kabul

It is not yet dawn. In my closet I can see a prayer rug on the top shelf. I open my window and cool air rushes in. I can hear the call to prayer at a local mosque outside of my window. I am in Kabul. Sometimes, the journeys of our lives take us places we can never anticipate and I try to reflect back on the series of events that have led me to these beautiful people and this war-torn country. Yesterday, a minister of the government met us at Kabul International Airport and as quickly as I was photographed and my passport was stamped, he whisked us away through the barriers and armed guards that protect it and down the road that only the morning before held carnage from a car bomb. The target was the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF)—the NATO-led security and development mission of more than forty nations that is trying to help the country. The victims, however, were Afghans. I recalled only hours earlier in the Dubai International Airport wondering why it was that masses of individuals were also flying to a war zone.

I awakened at 2:30 a.m. in Dubai so as to make it in plenty of time to meet Mirwais; Veronica, his wife and another of our graduate students; and “Magoljahn,” a term of endearment for Mirwais’s 73-year-old mother—at the airport by 4:30. Mirwais saw me straight away and we proceeded through Terminal Two, which is this otherworldly version of what is otherwise a state-of the art airport in Dubai. The airport says flights from this terminal go to “places of special interest.” The marquee for departures reads like all the dark and frightening news on CNN: Islamabad, Basra, Peshawar, Kabul. Strange and dangerous places. Why, then, did a sea of people in an array of headdresses wait to depart to them? No one seemed anxious and rather, men pushed and shoved their way in front of us to obtain their boarding passes for the flight. More than once Mirwais launched into an argument in angry Dari in which he demanded they return to the back of the line. As it approached 5:30 a.m. and we still waited in the line, we noted that the flight which was scheduled for 6:30 a.m. was now not leaving until 8:00 a.m. We somehow discerned as we moved toward the front of the line that it appeared the agent was turning away people with tickets, asserting there were no more seats. Within several minutes, Mirwais, with all of our passports and paper tickets in hand and his commanding presence at the counter, had secured our boarding passes and we headed to the gate.

A Kam Air flight, also headed for Kabul, was equally delayed in its departure, and I asked no one in particular how it was that we seemed to have so few on our flight and they had hundreds. As I observed their flight begin to board, one woman spoke with a man who was clearly United States military. She asked whom he thought would win the election for president. He said he did not know that it really mattered. I chimed it. “In terms of US foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, do you really think it does not matter?” That caught him off guard. He replied that he had a “wait and see” attitude and wanted the candidates to talk about their foreign policy perspectives on the two nations. He said that when you are in the mountains of Afghanistan you had very different questions. Before I could ask what they were, his line moved on. The eight o’clock departure became a ten a.m. flight and we boarded. We gasped as we found the flight nearly full, for we were unaware that it had originated in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. No room for carry on luggage and barely enough seating. We piled our luggage where others had: in the bulkhead in front of my seat. As we prepared for takeoff, a man’s mobile phone began ringing and I could smell cigarette smoke. I could only muse on the number of violations we were committing by FAA standards.

When first I set eyes on the Hindu Kush mountain range dusted with snow, I recalled what so many have said to me: “You are going to love Afghanistan.” The mountains gave way to dusty plains and we landed at Kabul International Airport. On deplaning, Mamajahn kissed her hand and passed it to the earth in a signal to me that she was thankful to be home once again. She had fled with her family in 1979 when the Soviets invaded, and only returns every several years. Later, on greeting her brother’s son, the tears flowed freely as they embraced and he kissed her hand repeatedly. I recognized in that moment how precious freedom is and yet how painful the cost.

In late January, three suicide bombers shot to death a guard at the entrance to the Kabul Serena Hotel—Afghanistan’s only five star property—and killed seven others in its lobby and health club. This is where we are staying at present. When I wrote to the Serena to enquire as to their rates, I joked with my student that they are having a “post suicide bomber” special, as they extended to us a rate about 50% off the standard charge. One of my more wry friends added that “if you survive three nights, the fourth is free.” This sort of dark humor is necessary to cut the edge on the issue of security in Afghanistan. It does not make you less cautious, but it does allow you to be here. Outside of my window are solid steel gates now protecting the entrance to the compound and over one-half dozen men armed with machine guns. Other armed security guards walk the perimeter of the property continually. We understand that they are not your run of the mill security people, but now from the government. Yesterday afternoon, a German dignitary arrived, accompanied by several Mercedes Benz SUV-style vehicles and his entourage of armed security men. I asked Mirwais, “Do you think you are safer in a high profile vehicle like his or walking anonymously down the street to catch a local cab like we are doing?”

As it turns out, I may very well be our little group’s biggest security risk, for Mirwais, Veronica, and Magoljahn all fit in terms of appearance. Veronica is not Afghan; her parents are from Ecuador and Peru, but with her brunette hair and olive complexion, she looks Afghan. In a sea of dark hair, I clearly serve as a beacon for possible trouble. As one of Mirwais’s cousins exclaimed yesterday on meeting me, “She looks like a doll!” That was moments before she dressed me in hijab—the head scarf that covers a woman’s hair and neck area. Afghan men do not seem to stare at your garden variety woman, but it is not the standard Afghan man who is the problem. There are, to put it delicately, certain elements in Kabul that are looking for opportunities—opportunities to make a quick Afghani with a kidnapping or make a political point with a bombing.

I have taken the cue from the chameleon. The more I can blend in with my surroundings, the less likely I am to cause us any problem. Furthermore, every woman wears at least some form of headdress. They range from hijab with some hair showing at the crown of a woman’s head to the full burqua, which seems to run about 1:4, surprisingly. I had heard that women in Kabul wore hijab and in more conservative parts of Afghanistan such as Kandahar and Jalabad, burqua was the norm, but we have surprisingly seen these blue butterflies with high heels and perfect pedicures everywhere. If we venture out of town, Mirwais and our driver have said we must wear burqua. Meanwhile, we still await our luggage, which did not make that oversold Ariana flight, and so I practice keeping hijab on my head, for remarkably, regardless of the sort that I wear, wisps of hair slip out and the cloth continues to slide unceremoniously off of my doll-like face.