Crossing the border to Afghanistan

AUTHOR: Daniel sullivan TITLE: Crossing the border to Afghanistan STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 CATEGORY: afghanistan CATEGORY: Daniel Sullivan's photography CATEGORY: Travel CATEGORY: Weblogs  DATE: 08/23/2009 09:23:47 PM ----- BODY: 
The American I met in Pakistans  name was Terry Reid and he began to teach me the art of rugs. He showed me the difference between vegetable and chemical dyes, dating rugs and how rugs were made. I photographed Terry's rug project, a model for the UN tours of the area, that employed over 300 Afghan Refuges, and his schools that educated their children. My education in Asian Arts, would span the next decade, and five years later, Terry would become my father in law. 
The more I became involved with Refuges, the more I became fascinated with Afghanistan and the war that was raging there. It was with this fascination  that I left Peshawar with a letter in my hand, heading for Afghanistan. The letter, which had been written in Dari by the refuges I had been living with, was addressed to a friend of theirs in Afghanistan. If I found him he would protect me. 
 
                                              Smugglers Bazaar, Dera Pakistan 2000 Daniel Sullivan
As I left Peshawar I headed North through the Hindu Kush mountains to Chitral, then headed West through the Bombret Valley where I hiked for three days among the Kalash tribes. The Kalash are  descendants of Alexander the Great, and their blond hair and blue eyes still show testament to their Macedonian blood.  Unique in Central Asia the Kalsh are the last tribe to refuse to convert to Islam, still worshiping the Macedonian gods.  The women do not cover their long hair and are know for their singing and dancing. I was immediately enchanted by the sparkly eyed Kalash children who followed me through town.
 I was invited by the villagers to a funeral where I sat in an old Macedonian temple with the elder women as they sang to the dead. The deceased was an elderly man who was laid out on rope charpoy covered with fruit and offerings. As we sat and ate cheese that was so pungent it smelled of rotting flesh, I smiled and politely and tried not to regurgitate the death offering. As I left the temple the fires of the Kalash homes illuminated the hill like a Christmas tree. 
From Bombret I hitchhiked West again and caught a ride on a cargo truck, then on a lapis truck heading towards Afghanistan. I sat in the back with a dozen angry Afghans for eight hours with  cramped legs and a rocky ass. Any movement was met with glancing stairs and grunts,  and eventually I had to give into the fact that my legs were going to cramp up and hurt and there was really nothing I could do about it. During the Talibans rule, smiling had been banned, I tried to remember that as I smiled to the Afghans grimacing across from me. 
The roads were pot-marked with bombed out craters from years of war, filled with mud and water from the melting snow. I carried my Nikon, 14 roles of film and two lenses in  a small goat skin bag, I had bought at the market. I dressed in a Shalwar Chemise and Chitrali hat( hoping my disguise wouldn't fail me). My hopes were that in Afghanistan I would be able to photography a game of buscatche(a primitive game played with a dead goat, but that had been  banned, with all other games, by the Taliban. In the North however it was still rumored to still be played where the Northern Alliance held out the Taliban.
It had been years since journalists had been able to get any photos our of Afghanistan. I hoped that if I made it inside I might be one of the first.
After hours of bouncing around in the back of the truck we approached a military tent. It was the Afghan border. The angry guards  whipped around the vehicle inspecting the motley crew of us in back,  as I tried to keep my head down. But quickly to my dismay (and alarm) they noticed the skinny white guy hunched over  in the back, and shouted something to me in Dari. I had no answer and could only pretend to be deaf, but it was too late. They prodded me in the back with a stick and pulled me out of the truck. 
"Passport," they said pointing at me with a stick. I handed over my passport(with no Afghan Visa). The guards left  and into their tent. After what seemed like an small eternity they returned. I pointed to my passport which one of the guards still held in his hand, but he refused to hand it over. He pointed towards Afghanistan. So this was it: me free to enter Afghanistan without my passport, perhaps never to return, or stay and try to hitchhike back to Pakistan. I hoped back into the truck and hoped for the best. In this crazy moment of desperation, off we went. Looking back at Pakistan, it was perhaps the dumbest moment of my life.

 ----- EXTENDED BODY:  ----- EXCERPT: The more I became involved with Refuges, the more I became fascinated with Afghanistan and the war that was raging there. It was with this fascination  that I left Peshawar with a letter in my hand, heading for Afghanistan. The letter, which had been written in Dari by the refuges I had been living with, was addressed to a friend of theirs in Afghanistan. If I found him he would protect me.  ----- KEYWORDS: hindu kush, Kalash, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Alexander the Great, Dera Pakistan, Terry Reid, Daniel Sullivan,  -----