KABUL RUN

A few days later, we jumped into Munawar’s car and sped west down the old Grand Trunk road for the frontier city of Peshawar, the biggest Pakistani city just before the border with Afghanistan.
If Islamabad was low slung, sprawling, and relaxed, Peshawar was eye level, sprawling, and in a state of constant riot. The first thing you would notice upon entering the Peshawar city limits is the color of the dust. It’s reddish orange. It’s also the color of most everything else in the city, since the dust covers everything else like a thin sheet. Then, on the hilltops, you will see the old frontier forts, built in the time of Imperial Britain when this was still part of British India. These were the forts that were supposed to tame the wild Pashto frontiersmen; but really they were more like prisons for the soldiers who preferred to stay alive.
Peshawar was the gateway into Afghanistan, and it’s been so for centuries. Here, armed mujahideen mixed freely with the Taliban, and an army of spies from a dozen countries. This is the wild west of Pakistan, sitting at the edge of what the country calls the Northwestern Frontier or NWF, a semi autonomous region of Pakistan governed by Tribal Law. The national government is virtually powerless here; in fact, government troops have taken a beating several times from Taliban and pro-taliban militia in the NWF. There’s a saying in the NWF – Pakistani law applies to you as long as you stay on the highway (truth is, not even that is guaranteed); but step onto the shoulder to take a leak and tribal law applies to you. What this essentially means is that no law applies to you, except the law of the first armed man you bump into.
There’s even a town here where guns are sold in an open air market, everything from American M16s to Russian and chinese AK47s and an assortment of pistols and grenades. For a fee, you could step behind the counter to an empty lot and test fire a few rounds, or let loose a rocket propelled grenade. With that ban on alcohol, these guys have to find a way to unwind. We desperately wanted to visit that town, but it would require a lot of money and permits.
But I’m getting ahead of the story. We checked out the first good looking hotel we could find, not because we intended to check in (we couldn’t afford that), but because we wanted to eat something, err, familiar. It turned out that the Pearl Continental Hotel was the hangout of most of the journos who were stuck in Pakistan waiting for a way to cross the border. Still desperate for a way to skip over the border, we tried to befriend some of the 1st world journos, who were scheming and dreaming up all sorts of plots to sneak in. One time we heard that a group of Western journalists was able to make some sort of mysterious arrangement that would finally let them into Afghanistan. We watched in envy as they loaded up two 6x6 trucks with enough equipment to fly to the moon (this was a TV group after all). Finally, we mustered the courage to approach a balding producer-type and asked about the chances of our small group jumping on board their truck bed and disappearing under their equipment. His a reply was a smirk and a more diplomatic way of saying NO WAY BUDDY GO LOOK FOR YOUR OWN WAY IN. Thoroughly rejected and dejected, Jim and Patrick headed for the hotel shops to look for Pashmeenas to take home. In the end we had the last laugh – Baldie’s mission turned into mission impossible, and his huge, quite indiscreet convoy was turned back from the border. Doubtless, someone made money out of him.
Stymied again, we turned to the Filipino connection. Note how I earlier said the Filipino community here was so small? Well, it’s small but very well connected. A lot of Pinoys here worked for the UN, or for International NGOS that have links or offices in Afghanistan. One such Pinay was Susan dela Cruz-Bratley.
Now Susan wasn’t going to be able to get us into Afghanistan; she couldn’t go back there herself, even though she lived there for several years with her husband, a Norweigan relief worker, before the Taliban made it a little too inhospitable for them.
Still, Susan was a treasure trove of information about Afghanistan. She was obviously in love with the country and its people, although not with its leaders. We asked her to tell us about Afghanistan, and her response was unexpected.
"Pag nagumpisa ako magsalita, maiiyak nanaman ako. Talagang mababait sila," she said. [If I start talking about it, I might cry again. They are so kind.]
"Sa dami ng pinagdaanan nila, halos lahat ng tao, walang trabaho. Pag nakakuha sila ng trabaho, tinuturing ka nilang hari o reyna. Kulang na lang, isuot ang sapatos sa paa mo," she added. [With all the things they have been through, almost everyone has no job there. If you give them a job, they treat you like a king or queen. If they could, they would even put the shoes on your feet for you.]
Susan brought more than memories with her from Afghanistan. Her main helper was a wizened old Afghan who served us endless cups of chai while we setup our satellite videophone outside their gate to report the latest from the border area. Jim and Patrick thought of buying those famous Afghan carpets, and the old man gladly obliged by producing a couple. These were clearly priceless heirloom pieces. Unlike your regular commercial carpet which has to be in perfect condition when you buy it, the value of Afghan carpets goes up with age and wear. "Wear" is measured by how many knots and rips and stains the carpet has, proof of its age. In a country where everything, including lives, are so fleeting, carpets are probably one of the most important things handed down from generation to generation. There is even an old Afghan trick in Jalalabad, where wily merchants spread their carpets on the road so that passing trucks and donkeys add to the apparent wear, thus driving the prices up for the unsuspecting tourist. While Patrick and Jim wanted dearly to take home the Afghan rugs, they had to drop the idea – the rugs were too large and bulky, and we already had excess baggage on the way in from Manila.
Then there was Shaira and Zoomie. Shaira is very much Pinay, with all the hospitality and kababayanness that comes with that label. Despite his name, Zoomie isn’t a fighter pilot or a comic book character, although he is the biggest action star this side of Pashtunland. He’s also married to Shaira, which essentially meant that for that moment we were in Peshawar, he was also virtually married to us.
Zoomie isn’t unfamiliar with Pinoys to begin with. When he was sixteen, Zoomie, or Azeem Sadjad, spent two years in Cubao while studying in a Manila university. So it wasn’t very difficult for him to take us into his home in suburban Peshawar, or to drive us around, or to generally act like a slave to five overbearing journalists. We don’t think we’ve thanked you enough, Zoomie.
His palatial home was plastered all around with movie posters of Zoomie, with his 80s Menudo haircut. His adopting us meant one thing – that we could save money that would have instead gone to hotel accommodations. Naturally he fed us as well, and tried to serve us hand and foot. Pakistanis would gape in wonder whenever Zoomie drove us around in his car to show us the sights of Peshawar. It’s probably like having Robin Padilla serving you in public and calling you Po and Opo, and meaning it too.
But more than anything, it was Zoomie’s contacts that helped us the most. A few days into our stay in Peshawar, we saw on BBC how Kabul had fallen, and how BBC world affairs editor John Simpson declared, quite controversially, that the BBC had just walked ahead of the Northern Alliance lines and captured the capital for the west. Our hearts fell that night – until we realized that with the Taliban out of Kabul, we no longer needed to get Taliban visas!
But the biggest hurdle turned out to be the Pakistanis, who insisted on keeping the army of journalists on a leash. Pakistan required a permit from the Home Secretary for a journalist to cross the border into Afghanistan. And again, that permit was not coming out anytime soon.
Here was where Zoomie came in. Zoomie drove us to the home secretary’s office, took our documents, and disappeared inside. Later, he would emerge triumphant from a swarming gaggle of Pakistanis. Later, we learned how the crowds parted for Zoomie at the Home Secretary’s office, much like the red sea trying to keep up with a fast-walking Moses. It turned out that the Home Secretary wasn’t an ordinary fan of Zoomie – he was an ardent devout fan. Think Mother Theresa getting a visit from the Pope. Needless to say, Zoomie got us our border permits ahead of the rest of the journos, Baldie included.
Zoomie tried to be nonchalant about it, which was virtually impossible. It’s like asking Robin Padilla to be low key too. He kept giving us vague hints until we got into our cars and drove off to a gas station. There, he congratulated us and gave us our travel permits. It took some time to sink in, and for a moment, we were too stunned to react. When we finally read the signed and stamped forms, we whooped with joy and gave hi-fives all around.
That afternoon, we made some last minute purchases. I have this thing for being ready for all contingencies, and I knew what I needed to get from the market. Since we were going into the desert, I thought we could never have enough of water. And since we were taking a vehicle and a small generator, we would also need to bring fuel. I figured that with those two, we could outlast an emergency for a few days, at least before some sort of help arrives. So we went to a market to buy several five gallon plastic jugs, which we proceeded to fill up with gasoline and water.
I also made several minor purchases, including canned goods, packets of instant chinese soup (these would come incredibly handy on a freezing Kabul rooftop) candles, batteries, butane for my little stove, and matches. In a pharmacy, someone joked morbidly that we may need petroleum jelly – the pre-Taliban era checkpoints in Afghanistan were notorious for raping young men, especially those who were not as hirsute as the Pashtuns, Persians, and Arabs. On a good day, I could only count on a smattering of light whiskers on my upper lip and chin to establish my, er, masculinity. So with that joke in mind, we selected a sturdy and generous jar of petroleum jelly. Naturally, the jar raised quite a few eyebrows. It’s so it won’t hurt as much in case we run into trouble , Dennis quipped.
Oh I forgot to introduce you to Dennis. Dennis Sabangan preceded us to Pakistan by several weeks. On regular days, he was an excellent photographer for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. For this trip however, he was working for a New York based photo agency. Dennis is a survivor, which also means he had a weird sense of humor that got him around and kept him relatively sane and everyone else bouncing off the walls. Imagine buzzing around Pakistan alone for several weeks, and even travelling to Quetta near the southern border with Afghanistan. Dennis always seemed to be making jokes that would leave us in stitches, until we realized that Dennis was funniest when he was nervous as hell. It appeared to be his way of coping with stress. So when Dennis starts cracking jokes, it was time to get worried.
We linked up with Dennis in Islamabad, and agreed to stay together and try to get into Afghanistan. For him, there was safety and efficiency in numbers; for us, Dennis was the journo who had been here longer than we had.
And so here was Dennis making jokes about the fate of our posteriors, all while everyone viewed the jar of petroleum jelly with much suspicion. In the end, someone volunteered that we needed the petroleum jelly anyway to deal with chapped lips and skin because winter was about to start in Afghanistan. Later, we misplaced that jar of petroleum jelly in Afghanistan, and there would be much ribbing as to who used it.
November 17 was D-day, the day we were to cross the border. Zoomie introduced us to Iltaf, a shy fellow of undeterminable age who was to drive us to Kabul on his old, right-hand drive, red Toyota town-ace. His services were quite cheap, which was what we needed for that long trip. Naturally, for that price, he also did not speak a word of English. Our conversations were limited to hand gestures in a generally western direction, followed by the words "Kabul, go, Kabul" or "stop". Apparently, Iltaf was a frequent traveler to Kabul. In hindsight, it was an incredibly huge risk to be accompanied by someone who didn’t speak a word of English. Two years later, I would take the same risk all over again. But given our budgetary constraints, we decided to just look for a translator as soon as we get to Kabul.
Iltaf’s van was his virtual home, which meant that it was gaudily decorated with compact disks, tassels, and pictures of his family and friends pasted on the ceiling. To top it all off, he had a stack of pakistani music cassettes that would leave a wailing sound in our ears after more than half a day of bumping down the roads of Afghanistan. Funny how he decorated his van with compact disks, when his music came from cassette tapes. We loaded our satellite antenna, videophone, and other essentials under the seats. Water and gasoline went up on the roofrack, and our rucksacks went into what passed for a trunk.
We drove back to the Home Office in Peshawar to pick up our "escort", a requirement when driving through the tribal lands. Our escort turned out to be a lanky bereted fellow who vaguely looked like Mark Harmon, wearing a military version of the shalwar chemise and lugging a folding stock AK-47, plus a few extra magazines strapped to his chest. In keeping with our fortunes, he also didn’t speak a word of English. He was friendly enough though; later in the trip, after everyone was already bored stiff, he gamely passed around his AK-47 so everyone could have their souvenir picture taken.
With all the gear and personnel on board, we said our goodbyes to Zoomie. Jim gave him a bear hug, which seemed to take him by surprise, given the no-touchy culture here. We bade our goodbyes, and Zoomie wished us luck with a "I hope I see you back alive." Somehow, that innocent farewell sounded a little frightening.
The road from Peshawar to the border was incredibly long and tiring, much longer than we all thought. We were under the impression that Peshawar was the last stop before Afghanistan; after all, the border seemed so close when viewed from a map. It turned out that it was only the gateway to a different world. First, we passed a huge sign in Pashto and English that read: NORTHWEST FRONTIER, FOREIGNERS ARE PROHIBITED. We were entering the wild west. Immediately, we came to a checkpoint, where soldiers inspected our passports and papers from the Home Office. This was the crucial test of Zoomie’s influence. In a moment, they waved us through. That was when we really knew that we were on our way to Afghanistan.
From that checkpoint, the terrain changed dramatically. The mountain roads weaved between barren hilltops from which old forbidding stone fortresses looked down on us. There was nary a blade of grass, only magnificent rock formations and differing shades of sand. This was the territory of the legendary Khyber riflemen, the rugged frontiersmen who opened the Khyber Pass through the Hindu Kush in order to let the British march to a lonely dessicated death. I remember looking at a photo of the Pass that was shown to me three years ago by a former Philippine Ambassador to Pakistan. It was a photo taken from the Pakistani side of the border, overlooking the mountains of Afghanistan. At that time, the Pass held great mystique. Beyond it looking westward, was a land of indescribable beauty and terrifying madness and cruelty. I had looked at that photo with much wonder and earnest, as if trying to make out a mujahideen behind every rock formation. The photo, though, was just a haze of browns and greys. But on this day, I felt every uneven rock on the road as the Toyota bounced and rattled all over the Pass.
We passed the last town of Torkham on the Pakistani side, with villagers peering suspiciously through our untinted windows as five beardless asians trundled past. Finally, the Toyota stopped in front of an immigration outpost. Our escort got down, waved, and walked away. For a moment, we wondered where he was going. And then it struck us – he was only escorting us through the "badlands" part of Pakistan. Our escort was definitely not escorting us into the badlands of Afghanistan.
With that, we piled out of the vehicle and entered the Pakistani Immigration office, where a lonely and bored sergeant pored through our papers again and again, as if looking for a reason to boot us back to Peshawar. He kept clucking, and shaking his head, as if to say you guys really don’t know what you are getting into. By this time, another group of foreign journos had caught up with us and got in line. But for the newly opened border with Afghanistan, it seemed that Pinoys were going to be the first through.
With a flourish, the sergeant finally gave his stamp. It wasn’t an entry stamp into Afghanistan. It was an exit stamp out of Pakistan. It was around this time that Val confided that he had a "small" problem. Pakistan had given him a visa good for two entries into Pakistan, just like we got. This made sense because we planned to come out of Afghanistan through Pakistan again. But Val had already used up one of his entry permits in an earlier uneventful trip to Islamabad with Erwin Tulfo a month before. This meant that as soon as he landed in Islamabad with us, he was out of entry permits. We were going inside Afghanistan through Pakistan; it was unclear if Val could come out the same way.
But at that point, Val was more than willing to throw caution to the wind. Three days ago, he celebrated his birthday in Zoomie’s house. We even got him a surprise cake, with number-candles that said "36". The truth is, we didn’t know how old he was, but 3 and 6 were the only numbers available in the bakery. After a rowdy Happy Birthday song, Val stated his birthday wish – that he be allowed, finally, to get into Afghanistan.
It was with a mixture of intense excitement and uncertainty as we boarded the Toyota again. Iltaf aimed the vehicle in the direction of a set of huge gates manned by sentries. Beyond that gate was our prize – Afghanistan.
We were all severely tempted to raise our cameras [we had one professional camera and two handycams] and film our entry into Afghanistan. After all, this was history of sorts, and we had beaten all the odds, most of all the odds thrown our way by our own office. But we had been given a very stern admonition that there was no filming allowed in the border area. At this point, so close to our goal, we had no intention of messing up.
We crossed the gates at around two in the afternoon Philippine time; the sun was bright, our smiles much brighter. After years of dreaming about this land, we had finally made it. This job is so full of irony. While millions of Afghans would sell their favorite rifle for a chance to leave the country, we were willing to give our left nut to get in. I struggled with the handycam, trying to roll tape without being noticed. On tape, I would hear Jim warn me "Ed teka, may baril pa yung nasa labas" [Ed wait, there’s still an armed man outside].
Past that, I did a spiel oncam. "Alas kwatro ng hapon… Alas dos ng hapon sa Pilipinas. Nakapasok na kami ng…" And everyone chimed in, as if on cue, "Afghanistan!"
[Four in the afternoon... two p.m. in the Philippines. We have just entered... Afghanistan!]
"Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!" Dennis interjected. [Long live the Philippines!]
"Tayo ang unang grupo ng Filipino journalists na nakapasok dito sa Afghanistan," I continued into the camera. [We are the first group of Filipino journalists to enter Afghanistan.]
There was a crowd of Afghans just outside the border gates. On both sides of the highway, as we gained speed, were row after endless row of container vans whose mouths have been turned into shops or homes. These container vans were the legacy of decades of international aid that poured by the billions into this barren land, without much noticeable impact. Partly, this was because a lot of the aid was stolen through corruption or plain banditry, official or otherwise. In the end, it seemed, the west’s lasting contribution to this land were the boxes that the presents came in, and not the presents themselves.
I know that the terrain could not have possibly changed dramatically just because we had crossed a man-made border. In the 19th century, there was no such border to begin with. Yet, the images now seemed so much crisper and the details more distinct. It was a trick of the mind, as we whooped with delight and high fived for the first half hour after crossing the border. The air seemed clearer, and the mountains rippled off to the right like undulating waves frozen for a moment in time. Even Iltaf was smiling, even though he had made this trip on his own countless times. Perhaps he was expecting a bonus.
A few miles into Afghanistan, we were stopped at our first checkpoint. Armed men had set up a rickety barrier on the road, and we were diligent enough to stop. We could have rammed through the barrier if we wanted, but it was clear that the barrier was not what would stop us – it would be the AK-47s and the light machine gun mounted beside the road.
A burly kalashnikov-wielding turbaned gunman approached the driver’s side and engaged Iltaf in Pashto. Obviously, we understood nary a word, which was quite worrisome. Then Iltaf turned to us and, with his thumb and forefinger, gestured that he needed money. We gave him a wad of bills, from which he peeled off a few Pakistani rupees. The gunman took the money and brought it to a table set up by his comrades beside the road. Moments later, he was back, handing Iltaf a piece of paper that Iltaf promptly returned to us.
It took a few moments of turning the scrap of paper this way and that, before we realized what it was.
"Shit," Val gasped in wonder. "resibo yata ito. Ano to? Toll fee!" [It’s a receipt! What was that, a toll fee?]
It was incredible. Just days after the fall of the dreaded Taliban, some local warlord had already begun levying a toll fee on motorists coming from Pakistan. Talk about efficient organizational skills. And they even had printed receipts – in Pashto.
The highway improved as we drove deeper into Afghanistan. Sometimes, we would be bordered by endless oceans of sand and rock; other times, the land would break out into green orchards. On occasion, we would spy a fortress-like compound, with thick high walls and parapets looking down. At first we thought they were really fortresses, until someone told us this was simply the way Afghans build their houses. Much later, we would realize that the truth was really somewhere in between; after centuries of bitter conflict, those who could afford to, banded together into small communities and built fortress-compounds to keep the women in, and invaders out.
And so we rattled on, at times giddy, at times half awake. Looking at the oft-studied map, we knew that the first major city we should strike would be Jelalabad, which marks the middle point on the road to Kabul.