The owner of a poppy field watches it being destroyed.So we left Kabul for Jalalabad to film poppy fields being destroyed under the supervision of Masood, a man entrusted with destroying the "heroin" in the area.
The journey involves a long road trip through rugged mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Brian, the head of our security detail, tells me about an armored truck of theirs that went over the edge of a precipice into the raging river we drove by . The truck had not been found. The road is known for Taliban attacks and suicide bombers and the mountains the road cuts through is home to hundreds of taliban and Al queda fighters. It’s the same story I hear everywhere in Afghanistan…suicide bombers, Al queda and betrayal. Distrust, fear and separation.
The stories we hear.
2 cars, one armored land cruiser and an armored hilux form our convoy. In Kabul at the security compound Brain gets us in a circle and speaks. He tells us that in the event of an attack, if the vehicle we travel in is immobilized, that we are to follow his instructions to the word and get out of the vehicle on the side not being fired upon. The rest of the security team would stay and fight while we would be escorted off to the other vehicle. As clients we would be protected while most of our security team would stay behind to repel the attack.
We leave and when we exit the city the scenery is exquisite. Stark mountains rise out of the earth and extend skyward, silent and immense. Never ending vistas, caravans of wrinkled bent over people, and dogs walking by old women with gazes and faces just as infinite.
Mountains, snow on the horizon. We pass donkey caravans of gypsies and I wonder at their lives in such desolate expanses. I notice tiny figures of men and horses and patched tarpaulins far away. Black hawk helicopters cruise low in the distance and they look like mango flies against the mountains. They cruise low over the earth so that gunmen don't have enough time to draw a bead on them.
man on the road to Jalalabad
We stop to fertilize the desert and Naz stands guard by the car. It is the only time we stop on our trip to Jalalabad.
It is windy and very silent.
Jalalabad was founded by the Mughal emperor Akbar and had been occupied by the British and then the Soviets. When the Taliban was in power these mountains had many al queda training camps and thousands of “foreign” fighters had lived in the mountains we traveled through training for wars against India, the soviets and elsewhere. Across the border in Pakistan, numerous guerrilla groups supply arms, cash and men to the Taliban. The Taliban, according to the Americans, pays for some of their weaponry with heroin, which is grown in great amounts in the fields surrounding Nangahar.
We pass ruins of towns that look old. I ask Naz what ruins they are and he does not know. “No one knows” he says. Anonymous lives in anonymous landscapes . Correction : Anonymous to me that is.
The hills we traveled through are still home to various men from far off nations, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Sudan. I wonder at their lives and what has made them become fighters. What stories they have to tell. What reasoning. What cultures. All fighting and shedding blood for ideals and purposes the mountains care not about. One day all our houses will be in ruins.
The scenery is stunning and I am transported. I imagine at the war which has raged her for so long .
At times I look out of the window and the drop makes me dizzy. A frothing muddy river gushes past for much of the road. Vehicles that have fallen off can be seen stuck in the rapids. Brian put on an afghan hat and put his sig rifle on his lap under a towel as we drive. To make a potential attacker think he was Afghan.
Brian tells me a story of a convoy of contractors who ran into some Taliban on the road. The Taliban thought they were other Taliban as the contractors were dressed up like afghans…and waved them on.
I think brains disguise is awful but I don’t tell him. He looks like an Brit with a strange hat. A few seconds is all we need he says and he is probably right. We drive fast, very fast along the winding mountain roads and along the extreme other edge away from cars parked by the side of the road. Any car with a single driver could be a suicide bomber. I hold my breath a couple of times.
I wonder if the drivers in the parked cars held their breaths too.
We reach the governors house in Jalalabad. It is large and like a hotel. Our rooms are ornate.
I climb to the roof and in the distance, I see the White Mountains where fierce fighting had erupted during the war between the Americans, and the taliban and al queda. The mountains are still home to Al queda and Taliban fighters Naz says. I sit down and a ragged flag of Afghanistan blows over my head. Naz tells me about his life in Helmand province and how his own uncles want to kill him for working as a translator for the Canadians .
Brian shows me images of his vehicle and of corpses post a suicide bombing. 10 people died but he survived even though the man had blown himself up right outside the window of his armor-plated land cruiser.
Freaking out the clients
Former suicide bomber (Pic courtesy Brain C)
We meet Masood. He is suave and very young. He is to lead the trip into the fields the following day. Brian and his men prep their weapons. They put in a laser bore sighter and aim at a target in the governor’s house in the corridor. I join them awhile. I learn that the ak47 9 mm round does a lot more damage than the 5.56 mm nato rounds.
“If you want to drop them on their arses' use an AK,” says Brian. He uses a NATO round gun. I play soldier awhile and then retreat the roof, drink tea and talk to the men who run the house in broken Hindi.
The next morning Masood arrives. He has truckloads of soldiers with him. Brian is edgy. There has been a suicide bombing on the road. He does not want to be a part of the convoy, as a suicide bomber would head for the flashiest vehicle. He tells Masood this as we drive along as the other vehicles come up alongside despite the instructions given to them before the trip. Masood yells and curses at the soldiers. They fall back. Brian watches everything as we drive by. We had been seen entering Jalalabad. People know we are around.
This is it.
The road to the village is green and canals flow alongside. Fruit orchards can be seen as well as wheat fields. Poppy everywhere. We enter the fields and the houses are visible in the distance, surrounded by high walls. All the houses in the area seem clustered and surrounded by high mud walls. To repel what or to keep who in?
We drive to the fields. They are extensive and carry on till the horizon. Men get out of trucks and start destroying the fields, knocking the poppy buds off with sticks. The plant dies after this is done. They move across the fields while people from the village watch.
The soldiers spread out and stand guard as the men destroy the fields.
Masood meets with the elders. They are not pleased but they are very respectful to each other. Masood later tells me that if there were an attack the village elders would be held responsible. I ask him what responsible means and he does not reply. Young boys stand about and stare. The men with our soldiers walk about swishing away. Insects flee and poppies are crushed underfoot.
Guards crouch and sit down in the afternoon heat. I look nervously towards the horizon. Young boys stare at us and they do not seem happy. The don't reply to my hindi questions.You can tell a lot about how a culture views you by the way the kids treat you. Its what they have been told otherwise and elsewhere before necessary politenesses or lies.
It takes time to destroy the fields. Some of the children curse us. But the elders are present and chat with Masood. Later some of the local headmen so to speak invite us to lunch. We leave I notice Masood looking at a poppy flower. Maybe he plays to the cameras but he seems to marvel at its beauty.
Masood and the owner of some of the fields
We are led into a walled compound. Our soldiers spread out. Within the walls are fruit trees and it is cool, unlike the barren outside. I wonder why the rest of the countryside is not planted and why the trees are walled. I wonder why they invite us to lunch when we have just destroyed their fields.
"This is the Pashtun way” says Masood. “We destroy their fields; they invite us for a meal, we are an honorable people.”
We eat. We leave. Brian gets a call that a bomb has exploded on the Jalalabad road. We speed back to the governor’s house. On the way we pass an American convoy. We slow down and pull over, as the Americans have been known to fire on any vehicles that get too close.
“Give a bloody 19 year old a 50 caliber and what do you expect” says Brian.
In the next couple of days we head out to meet with a farmers family to discuss the impact of the poppy destruction on his life. It is a Pashtun area and a local informer has promised us that we will be safe. He has spoken with a farmer who has agreed to speak. The farmer says on the phone that we will be his guests. We believe him as the Pashtun honor code is supposedly inviolable.
Brian is very edgy as we have only 2 vehicles . After a long drive without any backup we drive into the mans house just off the main road. The cars are turned around and face the road. One car is closer to the road just in case we have to flee suddenly. Naz stands guard concealed close to the road with his ak47. The people in the house say it is not necessary but he stands guard anyway.
Aan old man explains the Pashtun guest code. They say that they would all rather die than let us face harm in case of an attack. I ask the man "So basically we’d all die if there were a concerted attack". He laughs and says yes.
We are offered sweet tea and biscuits. I take some photos of the kids. A girl comes out of the house. She is about 13. She smiles and I take her picture from a distance. The men present shout “ZAI” and she runs off. She comes out again and smiles from a distance. The men walk to her and scream at her. I decide not to take any more pictures. The boys stay out and pose. They are allowed.
Daughters
sons
We walk around the house to the poppy fields. Men stand in them with poppy tar stained clothes scraping off from the poppy buds. We set up and interview the farmer. A crowd of mostly children collects and sits around. He says that he has to feed a big family and that destroying the farms will leave him with nothing. He says that he is unaware about what the drugs will do to the end users eventually. He avoids eye contact when he says this. He finds it difficult to answer questions as to why he prefers to plant poppy as compared to other crops. He finally says it pays better. He makes eye contact when he says so and laughs.
I notice people walking over from across the fields. In the distance I see figures running through trees. I am suddenly nervous. The children are behaving differently. I shoot pictures of the fields and I set up a time lapse.
Suddenly our informer friend appears and he is perspiring heavily. He looks worried and says that we have to leave immediately. His hands are shaking. Brian says that we have to leave and we head back, walking fast but not too fast. Some men are walking towards us from a distance. I remember the camera on the tripod and walk back to get it. I can hear my heart beating in my ears. I wonder if I am over reacting. I probably am, I think to myself and as we hurry back I see the boy, the same boy who I had met earlier as we walked out towards the fields. He looks at me and he isn’t smiling. I say hello and he stares back. I take a picture.
Maybe I am not over reacting.
We get back to the house and brain says that we have stayed bit too long. A crowd has collected and people are asking us why we are leaving. They crowd around the car. Visions of Brians suicide bombing images come back to me. I ask for a photograph and people crowd around. I shoot myself with a group of men. I am away from the car and Brian and the rest load up quickly. Too many people in one place and the situation could change. Click.
I turn around and away from the crowd, a little boy looks at me from a doorway.
We get in and leave suddenly. No goodbyes. We speed off. I wonder if our hosts were insulted. I wonder if we needed to leave the way we did. I think of the "Pashtun code". I recall images of the suicide bombing.
Our “informer” later tells us that those fields are controlled by taliban, and that government troops have not visited the area since 4 govt soldiers were killed the previous month during eradication measures. I think that maybe he should have told this to us earlier. I think that the taliban might have got us if they wanted to.
I hear that it was risky for the farmer to let himself be interviewed as both the taliban and the government might not have been pleased. I wonder at his risk and his code of honour. The decision to possibly die for unknown filmmakers and photographers because he gave his word. I hope that they aren’t offended. I hope he understands that fear propagates itself; that Brian was doing his duty and that the risks did not warrant us staying or being polite.
We had heard horrific things about what could happen, had happened. The probably had too. I take a picture from the window of the car as we speed away. No one looks pleased.
We leave and they watch us leave. Two enigmas meeting. These strange people who come and go hurriedly. Distrust and separation on all sides with attempts to be polite in the middle.
Our versions are accountable. It sounds so good to speak of the savages beyond our borders. They’re always beyond our borders. In the next town, next cities. The monster is always a foreigner. They make for good stories, far away.
We drive back to Kabul. On the way we see the truck from Brian's security company that had plummeted over the edge of the precipice into the river and that had not been found.
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