the taliban killed my day

i left for jalalabad with high hopes, a tight schedule, and a photographer in tow. but the best laid plans were suicide bombed away.

1. So we left for Jalalabad early yesterday morning. Really early, and it was snowing, which put my driver Zalmay in a bad mood and he chomped grumpily on a cold slab of uzbek bread. But Dr. Najib my translator/fixer/protector/fool (in the sense of the royal fool that's constantly mocking the king) was in a capital mood, he said he loves to get out of kabul and into the mountains. As we drove he sung a song whose lyrics are roughly ' mountains of afghanistan, how we love you... you defeated the russians, you defeated the british, you defeated alexander, etc etc.' He said that he loves to hike the famous Afghan mountains and once met an old man on the trail in winter walking in flip flops. "Uncle," said Najib, "aren't your feet cold?" "No," answered the man, "the magic of the mountain keeps them warm."

2. As we approached Jalalabad we descended in elevation, almost 200 meters, so the snow turned to rain and we all shed our winter coats. We all wore 'perohan tambon,' the long shirt and loose pants and vest that is the uniform here; all except our photographer Massoud, a refugee from Iran. He was all corduroy and fancy sunglasses. We drove past a lake, famous for its fish sold by boys on the side of the dusty highway, the fish strung on twine like christmas lights. The guys clamored for a fish breakfast but I said no - though i was starving.

3. Even still we were late to our first interview, only to find out that most of the province was under security alert. In fact, hundreds of angry villagers were at that moment marching down the road towards us. Things got a little hectic after that, but it turned out that a minivan loaded with explosives had targeted an American convoy; what happened next is under dispute but the US forces did shoot back and killed at least 10 civilians. The village we had meant to go to was now inaccessible, so we ditched that story for the moment and went to the hospital to interview some of the shooting victims. I filed something for npr which took all day what with finding an internet cafe and all. If you heard the npr spot you can hear typing in the background, which was a jalabad dude IMing his girlfriend in Pakistan. The day was lost and the area still hot so we headed back to the hotel, where al jazeera english tried to buy my videotape from the hospital only it turned out it was the wrong format for international tv. Too bad because I could have eaten a lot of fish with that cash.

4. The next day all the NGOs were on lockdown preparing for a protest in Jalalabad which never materialized, but kept the workers in long enough to kill some of our photo plans, then we headed down a bumpy road to the Kama district. God this is beautiful, poor country. I'll post those photos soon.

5. Then we ate our fish and zalmay beat me up.