Good Morning Afghanistan!!

We arrived in Kabul yesterday afternoon. We are in Afghanistan!

We flew on the Afghan airline Ariana Airlines, “the friendliest way to fly to Afghanistan.” But the 2.5 hr flight from Delhi clarified two things – why Ariana was half the price of the other airlines, and why it’s nicknamed “Scary”ana airlines (a moniker we heard shortly after purchasing our tickets.) We were also told, shortly AFTER we had bought our tickets, that the reason Ariana isn’t allowed to land in Europe is because they don’t have a regular maintenance schedule or don’t maintain their planes, or something. Yikes!

On the plane I noticed a few interesting things: one, that all the seat belts were different – Adam’s was an old Pan Am seat belt, with the classic 70’s emblem on it. Mine was from another airline. Somehow the realization that various parts of our plane were cobbled together from recycled bits of 30-year old airplanes didn’t really comfort me, particularly as we hit some very rocky turbulence crossing the mountains over Pakistan.

I was the only blonde on the plane, and the only American woman. None of the men looked at me, not even a sideways glance - not even that thing that guys do when they don’t want you to know they are looking at you, that sort of quick little flick-glance thing. It was quite interesting, made me feel almost invisible, except for the women who stared at me unabashedly.

The view from the plane was almost completely brown, even the mountains. which were steep and a little too close to our window for my preference. It was an overcast day in Kabul, lovely and cool after the smothering heat of Delhi.

We were met at the airport by Conrad, an American who is working at Turquoise Mountain Foundation as Rory Stewart’s personal assistant. I still haven’t finished “The Places In Between,” Rory’s book about his walk across Afghanistan in 2002. It’s a great story and well-written, but who’s got time to read? He is arriving here tomorrow and while I doubt it’ll come up, I wish I was more prepared.

What great luck to have Conrad with us –he’s been living here for ten months and speaks Dari (I have now learned how to say hello and thank you, but that doesn’t help much in immigration). He ushered us through the tourist registration process, chatting with the official in Dari and making the whole process seem easy and friendly.

We easily found the TMF driver in the small, sparse parking lot. What struck me was how quiet it was, especially after the constant cacophony of India. We’d been told that the most dangerous part of Kabul is the road between the airport and the city, but somehow I’d forgotten about that, feeling so comfortable with Conrad and the car and the whole thing. I’d already pulled my camera out, shooting the landscape when I saw the roadblock. A couple trucks and some men in uniform with assault rifles were stopping traffic on both sides of the road. That was a little worrisome, but not nearly so much as the next moment when Conrad said he didn’t recognize the uniforms they were wearing. Hm. At the Delhi airport we’d read a newspaper story which said the Taliban is preparing to take over Kabul in the spring. Conrad wondered aloud who the roadblock might be, but we passed through without stopping and it was not mentioned again.

As we passed another military vehicle, I saw the heavily armed man on the hood through my camera and then saw him seeing me. He locked eyes and held my gaze so intensely as we passed, I put my camera down. I looked back a minute later and he was still there, still looking, still holding his large gun.

Now we are safely ensconced in the compound of TMF – with a 19th century fort and wi-fi (although a horrible connection) a cook, offices, classrooms, a garden and living quarters for the mostly-British staff. It is quite nice and feels very safe. The guard at the gate walked around our SUV with a bomb-detector before we could drive in. That made me feel VERY safe (!!!) We were told never to leave the compound, partly because we might be arrested by the corrupt police who don’t speak English.

Today we are going to an old area of Kabul which TMF is helping to rebuild. Jenny Hartley, who is our host here, is in charge of community development and runs programs for children, among other things. It is going to be shooting-heaven (camera shooting, I mean) and I am incredibly excited to be here.