target practice

One last Quetta story. My last day in the city, I was in the business district waiting for someone when I saw a kid come out of a shop and stand eight or ten feet away from me. He had a sparkly red cap and dirty clothes. His shaved head indicated he was probably Wahabi, a particularly militant sect from Saudi Arabia. I guess he was about 15. But his expression was what stopped me. I would write that he looked at me with hatred but it was more dead than hateful.

He pulled out a toy gun, took aim, and shot at a railing. A little yellow pellet emerged and made a pinging sound. I watched him, this young radical, with the (fairly realistic looking) toy pistol, and thought “I should really get my camera” which is when he turned to me and pointed the gun at my chest.

“Hey,” I said in Persian, which was probably a mistake because he maybe only spoke Pashto. Then he pulled the trigger, and shot me.

"Excuse me,” I said. Then I tried to think of what to say next. “I’m here as a guest in your country.” He shot me again. I tried out various arguments asserting my right not to be fired upon, but none convinced him, and since I wasn’t going to actually shoot him back, or go find his mother, I gave up. I walked away, not quickly so he’d think I was scared, but hey, who was I kidding. He'd won and he knew it. As I passed, he nodded and smiled, making his eyes seem even more reptilian.

The story unsettled me - well, the kid did too, but also my story about it - because I felt I was missing something. Some hours later, I considered another way of looking at it: At least he didn’t shoot me in the face. Because as I walked casually (not too fast now, expression firm) past him, it would have been quite easy for him to point his pistol at my eye or something where it would actually have caused damage. As it was, the pellets just bounced off my chest – I didn’t even feel them.

Only target practice.

afghan star

It’s 10pm and we’re walking through the abandoned streets of Quetta like the last five men on earth. Shop windows are shuttered; political posters flap in the breeze. The distant sound of a motorcycle fades into infinity. Everyone’s inside. Watching TV. It’s Friday night. And the final episode of “Afghan Star” is on.

It is said that during this hour all crime stops in Kabul. Bored young policemen stand idle at their checkpoints, no cars to check. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do notice that the normally crowded streets of Quetta are sure quiet. Our footsteps echo. I’m with my translator, JD, and four of his best friends. All of them were former translators (“terps”) for the marine special forces.

Suddenly other footsteps, other young men appear. Our band of 5 becomes 10, 20, 40. All of us streaming in the same direction. JD gives me the frantic ‘cut’ sign with his hand, meaning: no more speaking English out loud. Mutely, I follow the crowd into a large dust field. There, an 18-foot Scandinavian man in a doctor’s uniform is projected against the brick wall of the tallest building. He is talking about sunblock. His visage is replaced by bottles of lotion. Then that commercial ends and another one begins, this one for a local airline. The square is still filling up with people staring up at the screen. They crowd around cars, motorcycles, pushcarts. By day this field is the town vegetable market. Tonight the empty pushcarts sit like dumb stubborn animals under the gleam of a full moon. Behind the screen, far in the distance, the mountains of Quetta slice the horizon in a squiggly line of dark and less dark.

Now the commercials are over and the screen shows a guy who looks like my 7th grade math teacher singing under colored lights on a stage. He turns out to be not one of the competitors but one of the judges. For those who aren’t familiar with Afghan Star, it’s a singing competition fashioned after American Idol. Viewers use text messaging to vote for their favorite singer. Each episode someone gets eliminated, and tonight there are only two left. Unlike American Idol, though, Afghan Star has a tribal flavor. Every warlord has their candidate, who they shower with money and support. Votes tend to fall along ethnic lines. Tonight’s singers are named RafÈ and Hamid, but everyone thinks of them as the Tajik and the Hazara.

I have been living in a Hazara neighborhood in Quetta, so for the past few days, well-dressed boys with clipboards have been accosting my friends on street corners, drumming up votes for Hamid, the Hazara singer. The guys with clipboards are Hazara nationalists, members of the Hazara Democratic Party. “A minute of your time, brother,” they cry. One is wearing Malcom X-style glasses.

Why is it so important that the Hazara singer win? “Still the war is not finished in Afghanistan,” explains Triple H. Triple H is one of the former marine terps, a handsome musician-type with curly hair. He once taught singing lessons to the Hazara boy that now stands poised to win. Next year, Triple H plans to enter the competition himself. To do so, he’ll have to get the support of the various Hazara political parties and former warlords. Then he has to hope the show’s judges choose him. If he’s chosen of them, his warlord sponsor will then buy thousands of phone cards and hire companies to make text message calls in his favor. Doesn’t this seem a little undemocratic? Triple H thinks more practically. “They used to fight with guns,” he says. “Now they fight… with us! And we are getting the benefit!”

More singing. More colored lights. I am freezing and waiting for the end. Still we must sit through the standard speeded-up montage of Hamid trying on various blue shirts and ties. Hamid getting a haircut. Hamid walking through the hallways of the TV studio. Then more commercials. Actually, the same commercials recycled. “What is SPF?” asks one of the terps, and I’m embarrassed to see how quickly I answer “Sun Protection Formula.” Why can’t I have that kind of instant recall with, you know, books and stuff?

Finally, at long last, the envelope. We all know what’s written there, though. The Hazara guy is going to win. We have it on good intelligence (the show is taped the night before in front of a live audience). This public viewing, this projection screen in the vegetable market in the Hazara part of town, has all been set up last minute so that the community can watch en masse and then celebrate. I wonder how they will react. After a century of persecution, victory! After the massacres, the land grabs, the forced servitude, triumph! Afghan Star style! I have no idea what they’ll do. Will they riot? Will they lift torches and march? Stand atop pushcarts and howl? I am so focused on these eventualities that I don’t even notice when the Tajik guy wins it. The crowd, quiet, immediately disperses. The headlamps of motorcycles illuminate their sad, drawn faces.

“Wha---” I say. “I thought you heard for sure that…” Even hearing myself speak I realize how silly I sound. This is Afghanistan, after all.

On the cold walk home, only recriminations.

And this paradox: In a land of constant rumor, it’s easier to keep the truth secret.

blogging in quetta

Me, and JD.