a post i probably shouldn't publish for multiple reasons

It’s said that there’s no better hash in the world than Afghan hash. And in the country of Afghanistan, the best hash comes from the northern province of Balkh, whose name sounds like you’re deflating a rubber balloon with your mouth. And the best hash in the province of Balkh? Is in the town of Balkh. Like a rubber inside a rubber, and the solution to a riddle.

So it’s my third night in Mazar-e-Sharif, which is about 20 miles from Balkh, the town, and my email inbox is buzzing with military press releases. NATO sez “Roadside Bomb Targets ISAF convoy; Kills Afghan Child” US_ARMY sez back “Afghan patriots added to police force,” NATO shouts “Nursing Students graduate from Qalat PRT!”

I misread the next release from US_ARMY, when I drop a letter and read it as “Qalat PRT treats ailing Afghans in Stinky District” which is when I figure it’s time to shut down gmail. Besides, my connection’s frozen so all I can do is stare at subject headers. (I’ll post this when it’s up again, inshallah.) You know who else doesn’t have internet access right now? The city’s university. Yes, the bastion of knowledge in the world’s hash superpower! Even the professors don’t have email addresses. I interviewed the director of the agriculture school today. He was a slight man with a worn pinstripe suit and very round brown eyes. I requested a tour of the facility and he looked pained, then resolute, then politely guided me out in the rain to gaze on the small field of test plots behind the concrete dorms.

“Inja Safflower as,” he would say, “unja Canola as,” his gesturing palm dripping in the increasingly heavy downpour. I declined his offer to walk across the field to the tiny tree nursery, and with that the tour was over. He gathered up his trousers in each fist as he hopped bowlegged back down the muddy path. They’ve not had internet access all year he says because they can’t afford the subscription fee. He passes me a towel to dry my hair. He says his department has just $200 a semester to spend on textbooks and lab materials, about 30 cents per student. Even the faculty who live on campus don’t have hot water or electricity. I make a note of this with my $2 pen on my 80 cent notepad and I wonder how much of his budget was spent on the two plates of biscuits which the assistant director brought us along with green tea for the honored American guest.

In this blog so far I haven’t really touched on anything to do with the stories I’m working on, which was sort of intentional, the idea to keep the blog anecdotal and not a pain to write. But reporting here especially as a Westerner is a weighty experience. Weighty in ways both good and bad. Last week I broke bread with a bald American cowboy in an Operation Freedom windbreaker; we talked war and agribusiness and terrorism and then he sighed and said, “I’ve never been in a country where I experience such high emotional highs and low emotional lows” and I knew the man spoke truth.

Because on the one hand you get a thrill covering stories in a place where even the small stories feel important. When you say you’re a journalist you get respect from people on the street; which is partly Afghan politeness but also that people see reporters as maybe their last allies against crushing forces. On the other hand the deeper you query the more twisted the facts and interpretations and there are many layers to all but the very simplest stories. I never know when to stop peeling the onion and pretty soon I’m crying into my kitchen knife.