Live Fire with Chuck Holton

Kabul – It looks like everything is working out okay.  I made it to the ISAF headquarters today and got my credentials.  I’m scheduled on a flight tomorrow (it’s 7:30pm here now, 1130am where you are) from here to Kandahar (which, strangely, I was there already today when our plane made an unannounced stop there to take on more passengers)

Kabul is dirty and exotic.  The big problem I’m having is that I’m tempted to give away all my money – there sure are some scraggly, desperate little waifs walking the streets.  One lady with a tiny, tiny baby had no milk – so I went and found a store and bought a week’s supply of infant formula and took it back to her.  Which made me a little TOO popular with all the other beggars, forcing me to nearly bolt for the safety of the hotel.

the SPOT locator is very cool – though I had one of the waifs above try to steal it already.  I wish it wasn’t hunter orange -  kind of sticks out too much, you know.  I haven’t figured out how to make it record my breadcrumbs, but I’m working on that.

It’s wierd to go walking around the city.  Everyone looks at you like you shouldn’t be there – and every once in awhile a UN or American convoy goes by – everyone decked out in body armor and helmets – and they gawk at me like I REALLY shouldn’t be wandering around by myself in a T-shirt, taking pictures of things.  But other than the little sharks, everyone’s exceedingly friendly.

After I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, the hotel manager told me I shouldn’t do that again – take just ANY taxi.  Besides charging me triple, he said, they were as likely to drop me off to visit their brother Omar the kidnapper as take me to my destination.  Oh, great.  That’s nice to know after the fact.  The woman at the desk drove the point home by drawing a finger across her throat.  Gulp!

Anyway, they got me a secure taxi (kind of a bodyguard/taxi two for one deal) and it was cheap!  Very helpful, too.  I stopped at the market and bought a photographers vest, a kaffieh scarf, and a couple of funny looking goatherder hats like the ones that seem to be all the rage here.  I think I look downright snappy, if I say so myself.

the airport in Kabul was a nightmare – no AC – 100+ degrees indoors, packed with hundreds of arm-waving goatherders and probably a few of their goats – all jostling each other to be the first in the next line – and there were lots of lines to stand in.  I was standing there waiting for my luggage, sweating and trying not to breathe the goataroma, and thinking, “Man, I love how much this sucks.”  Still, it was very nice to get outside – where a very fine airborne dust was in the air, making it hard to see.  It wasn’t as hot as Dubai, but hot enough, and so I told the taxi to take me to the nearest hotel with air conditioning.  Apparently that was a tall order, because we drove for half an hour.

I’ve almost fallen into a deep slumber about six times in the last 24 hours – only to be jerked awake by someone or something…but as soon as I finish this note, I’m looking forward to a cold shower and a soft bed.  I’m anxious to get out with the troops, though I’m glad to have gotten this chance to fly solo in Kabul.  A very interesting day – and exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I took this job.

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Adventures aren’t always fun.  Actually, it’s the parts that suck that make them adventures.  Like the plane flight from Dubai to Kabul – I should have heeded the warning on the FAA’s website which strongly advised against this airline.  But it was one of the only ways to get to Kabul, so I didn’t feel like I had much choice.

I’ve already mentioned the aging fleet of aircraft.  But I forgot to mention the lack of air conditioning while the plane was on the ground.  We take a lot  for granted in the U.S. – a pre-cooled airplane is one of those things.

When our flight made a scheduled stop in Kandahar on the way to Kabul, those of us not deplaning got to sit on board for over an hour with the only ventilation coming from the open front door.  Then, several platoons of goatherdsmen joined us on the plane for the flight to Kabul.  The smell – well, let’s just say this is what adventure smells like, in this part of the planet, anyway.  And it seemed like every one of them was determined to jostle or bump into my seat on their way by.  Not sure what that was about.

Then something happened that made the whole ordeal worthwhile.  In front of me on the wall was a magazine rack, stocked with this airline’s signature magazine, the appropriately named and uncritically unacclaimed “Magazine.”

Half of it was printed in Arabic.  The other half, someone took a stab at English.  Fortunately for me – they missed.

One article in particular caught my eye.  It was titled “Do not underestimate anybody!”

Apparently Tony Robbins has disciples even here.  But while they are obviously masters at motivation, English comes a little less easy.  But if my native tongue got abused like a teenaged bimbo in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it did wonders for my morale, and even some of my seatmates couldn’t help but smile at my attempts to control my laughter.

Here are some of the highlights of the article:

“Underestimating somebody means trying to make a small constant memory, people deserve to be underestimating in many ways.”

“It is even have worse impact on you as you want to increase your self esteem.  It does not make difference whether you underestimate somebody in front in his/her behind, but the important thing is your try to undervalue somebody in your mind and worthless in your perception.”

“Edison had a dictator father.  Beethoven could not hear?  Try to avoid the comparison which makes a negative view in your mind.”

I’ve often noticed publications that slaughter English when I travel abroad.  I’ve wondered why someone didn’t make a business of traveling around and fixing these things in return for food and lodging.  But most likely, if the publishers of these “Engrish” articles can’t afford an editor/translator before they go to press, they’re unlikely to invest in one afterward.

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Beginning an embed in Afghanistan is a lot different than going into Iraq.  When I embedded with US forces there in December 2007, I showed up in Kuwait and was met at the airport by an Army public affairs officer, who took care of all the arrangements from that moment on until he deposited me safely back at the same airport three weeks later.  To fly into Baghdad and take a taxi would have been highly unusual.

It’s probably because NATO controls forces in Afghanistan, but embedding there is a much more complicated process.  First, I took a long flight from the U.S. to Dubai, whereupon I changed planes to Afghan Air.  (It’s not possible to fly any of the major airlines into Kabul – and the FAA isn’t too excited about anyone flying Afghan air, but one does what one must.  I found out why as soon as I walked up to the Afghan air flight.  The plane was an old Airbus A300, and looked like it’d been last painted during the Reagan administration.  The photos in the safety card show people with haircuts from that era.  The seat belts were embossed with the logo for the long-defunct PAN-AM airlines.  Yikes.

But hey, it’s been flying this long, why should it stop today?

I’m very interested in how different cultures relate to their world, and watching the line for boarding at the Dubai airport was a great way to learn a little about Afghan culture.  I’m not just talking about the burquas and man-jammies, the funny hats and industrial-strength body odor (to which I’m sure I was a contributor, having spent 36 hours in the same set of clothing by that point.)  I mean things like the concept of politeness – which nobody would fault an American for thinking was universally understood to include not cutting in line in front of people who have already been standing there for twenty minutes.  But in this culture, politeness is expressed by not grumbling when people DO cut in front of you after you’ve been standing there twenty minutes.  And you can’t just assume that your muttered complaints won’t be understood by those around you – I was amazed to find it rare in Dubai to find anyone who didn’t speak at least some English.

While I’m on the subject of Dubai, I’ll just say that there wasn’t much there to make me want to visit again.  Of course, it’s insanely expensive – but that’s to be expected in the world’s third richest nation.  But from what I saw, the entire country is one big sand spit jutting out into the straits of Hormuz.  When I arrived at 10PM, it was more oppressively hot  outside than Vegas on a sunny summer afternoon.

The thing that most surprised me about Dubai was the presence of lots of prostitutes – some of whom were downright predatory.  Perhaps I expected more conservative standards from a staunchly muslim country, but apparently Dubai is where rich Arabs go to let their Kaffieh’s down.

I arrived at my hotel famished and excited to see that it included a Mexican restaurant – it’s an unofficial goal of mine to find a mexican restaurant in every country on the planet.  It was late, but the place was still open, though the attached bar was seeing the majority of patrons at that hour.  I ordered a salad and then stepped outside to see if I could get a signal on my GPS.  (go ahead and snicker – I’m a gadget geek, and I know it.)  As I was headed back inside, I was accosted by a friendly young woman who asked me a flurry of “who, what, when, where, why” questions.  I’m not dense – it was clear what she was after – but something about the desperation in her voice told me she was possibly putting on a performance for her boss.  So I sat down at a table with her and bought her a perrier, and asked her the same questions she was asking me, doing my best to steer what had been an interview of a potential client into a friendly conversation.

“Where are you from?”  I asked.

“Kenya.”

“Interesting.  Have you been here long?”

“Only four months.”

I feigned naivete.  “What do you do for a living?”

She pinned me with a stare.  “Surely you know.”

I held her gaze.  “No, I don’t.  How does a young Kenyan woman make a living in Dubai?”

She sighed.  “Any way I can.”

“Well, your english is great.”

She smiled slightly.  “Thanks.  Are you going back to your room?”

“Just as soon as I eat my salad.  I have lots of work to do.  Are you a muslim?”

She shook her head.  “Why, are you?”

“No, I’m a Christian.  My father is a minister.”

“So, you are following your father?”

It was my turn to shake my head.  “No.  I follow Christ.  My father does, too.”

She frowned like she all of a sudden wanted to be somewhere else.  “That’s nice.”

“It is.  Listen, I’ve got to run, but would you mind if I prayed for you before I go?”

She gave a nervous giggle.  “I guess. Sure.”

“Great.”  I stood and leaned across the table toward her.  “Jesus, please draw this young lady into your purpose and show her how very much you love her – that you made her for a reason and have a special plan for her life.  Amen.”

She just sat there.  “Thanks,” she said quietly.

“No problem.  Can I buy you a salad, too?”

“That’d be great.”  Her smile was somehow different from the one she’d wore when we first met.

I stepped back indoors and quickly ordered the salad, making sure to tell the waitress NOT to give my room number to anybody.  I had to tell her twice to make her understand what I was saying.  Apparently it’s not a common request.

Back upstairs in my room, I googled “prostitution Dubai” and learned something – thousands of foreign prostitutes are brought to Dubai each year, many against their will.  Often their passports are confiscated and they have to “work” to earn them back.  If my Kenyan friend is that kind of prisoner, I pray she gets out soon.  But there’s another kind of freedom she needs even more – the freedom that comes from surrendering her life to Christ.

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