radio alert: interview on air america

hey folks, i'll be on Air America on Sunday evening talking about corruption in Afghanistan; yeah I know Air America went bankrupt but they're back under new ownership, and I really love the show I'm on, Laura Flanders' RadioNation, if you get a chance to listen, it starts at 7pm sunday and I think i'm near the top of the hour. On the radio in NYC on 1600AM or online at http://www.lauraflanders.com/pages/radionation.html

On Going Native ("Pahtooled")

Afghanistan is pretty variegated genetically - there's dark skin and light, blue eyes and brown, and each region has its genotype, so what a 'typical' Afghan looks like actually changes as you traverse the country. Now that i'm a little worn with travel and my beard's shaggy, Afghans tell me I could pass for an Afghan from the Panjshir valley, in the northeast about two hours from Kabul. I admit a little pride in this since in a country famous for its fighters the Panjshiri villagers are fierce as freaking lions. ("Panjshir" actually translates to "5 lions.")

So I figured I'd complete the disguise and bought myself a hat popular in Panjshir called a pahtool. It works surprisingly well. When I wear the pahtool and afghan clothes, i get treated like an afghan, which has taught me that at least in the city of Mazar it's a lot better to be a foreigner. As a foreigner i get smiles, my bags aren't searched, and tailors refuse to take money after sewing my fraying coat because i am a "guest." (I also get swindled, stared at, and am the butt of most jokes). But as an afghan, i get shoved by police at the shrine, hit up for bribes on the road, and stopped at every bank or electronics shop i choose to enter.

Anyway, here's me with my pahtool. In the background you see a bunch of buzkashi horsemen racing towards us. Two or three seconds after this photo was taken, I and the photographer went fleeing to safe ground (note the guy behind me to my right, already mid-leap.) In other words, this picture was taken just at the end of ignorance, just before panic, smiling cheerfully in the direct path of a horde of buzkashi warriors and their frenzied horses battling over a goat carcass. 3 seconds after this photo i'd look neither panjshir nor lion-like.


People in America often talk about whether it's dangerous to be a foreigner in Afghanistan and of course, in some situations, it is, but in most cases one can usually leap out of the way. As an Afghan one cannot leap out of the way of a career making $50 a month (and that would put me in the educated elite) in a shitty government job while supporting one's parents and eight brothers and sisters, and at the mercy of every corrupt government official with precious little chance of being allowed to ever leave the country, ever.

Such are my thoughts after spending this morning touring some ancient ruins with Reza, an absolutely charming 24 year old self-taught archelogist who practically danced around the Mosque of the 9 domes showing me the bhuddist signatures and 'well Gegary what do you think THIS means?'; he is exactly like all of my favorite professors. To illustrate a story about Genghis Khan he actually pluckd some 800 year old finger bones from the mud wall and lined them up in finger form on the rock. (which does say something else about Afghanistan. How many ancient sites could you go to in the world and find human bones and bits of 13th century pottery and keep them as souvenirs?)

But Reza only has a high school education because there's no archeology program in university here; and he says every time he gets a scholarship to get his degree abroad the culture minister gives it to someone else. This has been happening for the last five years and he is losing hope. It seems to me that this is the real gulf between us and them: not language, not wealth, not religion. It's freedom. It's when you live in a country where some bureaucrat can inch by inch steal away your calling, just because you are Shiite and he is Sunni, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. "God is great," shrugs Reza. "It will be as it must."

producing public radio is like flushing yourself down the toilet

the relief, the rush, the inevitable downward spiral. Afterward, the lone square of paper floating in the empty bowl like a white flag of surrender.

I did a short piece for ATC today about afghan musicians. You can hear it here. I had many frustrating tech issues and cried out many times like Job with his potsherd, but i got no commiseration from the heavens, just the hum of the compound generator. Fortunately the kindly proprietor Sebastian allowed me to use his office internet connection, even after I in panic tore the cable from his server and plunged the compound into cyber blackout his eyes looked pained. "Oh, Mr. Greg," he quietly moaned.

soy sauce and mint jelly do not a mango chutney make

So my first night in Mazar I stayed at Hotel Barat, which I misheard as Hotel Borat, that should have been my first warning. Still the view of the shrine over the balcony was lovely so I took it, despite the rundown appearance, the abandoned feel and the lack of internet access. I regretted the last one after learning that the internet café Tahir swore was “just around the corner” was 15 minutes away and closed at 8 pm. Besides, I’d managed some dicey lamb kabob for lunch so all I wanted to do was sleep; I picked up an invalid's supper of sugar biscuits and coke from the gazebo across the street.

But i couldn’t get my room’s heater to work. So I walked down and told them and they sent up a guy with a can full of propane which he glug glug glugged right into the stove. That was one of those moments where you see something terribly dumb about to happen but the happy ignorance of the actor leaves you paralyzed until the gas is out of the jar. Of course the tiny room filled immediately with fumes that I could remove only partially with the ceiling fan. Finally I was climbing into bed for the third time when I got a call from a guy with whom I’d was scheduled a lunch meeting the following day; he informed me that I was on the shrine’s northwest corner, where a 1-ton bag of explosives had been discovered that afternoon. I woke a short time later the pilot light had gone out again and the place smelled strongly of gas, so I dragged my mattress and blanket out to the balcony and slept there. The pre-dawn air was quite pleasant. Then it started to rain.

The following morning I checked into a hostel recommended for its wifi. It turned out to be an American-style guest house exclusively for foreigners. “Please to put your Afghan nationals on a list, otherwise we can’t let them in,” explained the owner, a Pillsbury-shaped Indian-American named Sebastian with gap teeth as wide as his hips. “We have to be safe.” Everything is very safe here, including the food, all imported from Dubai, down to the napkins and toothpicks. In a land of naan, the only bread here is sliced and white. Still, I like Sebastian as a person but I wish he’d get a wife. The place needs a woman’s touch. Tonight for dinner I ordered the veggie curry and heard the microwave beeping. I should have gone for the lamb chops; at least I would have had the right condiments.

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.