DATELINE AFGHANISTAN: Monday, May 6, 2002
06/16/2002
My bags are packed. My assignment complete. I am ready to go home. I arrive at the office of Ariana Afghan Airlines before it opens.
Stepping inside the cool, dimly lit room, I take a seat in front of a metal desk and pull out my wallet.
Men in turbans sit on a couch nearby, clutching their Afghan passports. They don't look happy.
The ticket agent behind the desk shakes his head with apology. Ariana's one plane is not flying tomorrow, he says. The agent doesn't give a reason for the sudden cancellation.
I am not sure I want to know.
The United States bombed most of the Ariana fleet because the Taliban used the aircraft to transport its troops. The United Nations lifted its sanctions against the airline only this winter. The airline has a storied history of maintenance problems, but Ariana is my only way out of here.
The U.N. flights to Pakistan are booked this week. Many of the overland routes out of Afghanistan are controlled by armed bandits.
The Ariana agent says the next flight to Dubai, my destination in the United Arab Emirates, leaves on Saturday, five days from now.
The agent serves me a cup of tea and a dish of toffee. I turn to Hashim Mohmand, my translator, and ask him whether it's certain that the plane will leave on Saturday.
"There will be a flight," Mohmand says. "Inshallah."
If Allah wills.
I buy my ticket.
Thursday, May 9, 2002:
I'm one of only two guests left at the guesthouse. The other journalists and the Finnish banker have all gone home.
As he does every night, Sayed Shafiequlla Zahid, the night watchman, offers to go out and buy me dinner. I give him 30,000 afghanis, about a dollar, and Zahid rushes off.
Zahid has been gone an hour. I start wondering what has happened to him. The front gate creaks open and Zahid rolls his bike slowly up the driveway, holding my grilled mutton kabob in a shredded plastic bag.
"The drivers are very bad," he says in broken English and through tears. His pant leg is torn. He's limping.
I run upstairs and grab my first-aid kit. Zahid rubs the antibacterial ointment onto the raw patch on his leg. Zahid was hit by a car and thrown from his bike. He looks embarrassed. "It's no problem," he says, wincing.
It's been a tough week at the Sultan Guest House. The staff bought a DVD player and a chessboard. They laid down clumps of sod in the front yard and lined the driveway with potted geraniums. But they can't find any guests.
When the war against the Taliban was raging, the guesthouse was hopping, manager Shah Mahmood says. All of the rooms were filled. Journalists were sleeping on the floor. Gradually, as their assignments finished, most of them left.
Shah Mahmood made a hand-painted sign, hoping to attract more people: "The Sultan Guest House, Kabul's Friendliest."
It took Shah Mahmood a couple of tries to get the spelling correct.
Saturday, May 11, 2002:
I awake early and find Shah Mahmood sitting on the couch. He holds a portable radio to his ear. The Afghan radio news crackles from the tiny speaker. There's been an announcement.
"The plane," Shah Mahmood says. "is flying."
I run up to my room and finish stuffing the last of my belongings into my backpack. Most of them are gifts: a scarf from Mohmand, my translator; a copy of the Koran from Wesal Zaman, my other translator; and a pakul, a soft white hat, from Lalakhan, the banking minister's bodyguard.
Mohmand is waiting downstairs.
Shah Mahmood shakes my hand. Zahid, the night watchman, takes my picture. I climb into the van and close the door. The young men wave from the gate, as we pull away.
We drive toward the airport, past women in burqas, soldiers holding rifles and children toting blue school bags.
Mohmand asks if I will return to Afghanistan. I tell him I don't know. He's planning to buy a cell phone when he saves up enough money. He promises to call as soon as he can.
At the entrance to the airport terminal, Mohmand gives me a hug. "We will miss you," he says.
I rush inside. The passengers, many of them Westerners, are herded into a waiting room with black vinyl seats and streaked windows. Ariana's one plane, a Boeing 727, glimmers on a tarmac that is littered with the carcasses of fighter jets and craters hollowed by bombs.
The guards check our passports and tickets at the door and let us onto the runway, one by one.
We board the plane using a door near the tail. Inside, an exit sign dangles from the ceiling. A man in a turban takes a seat by the window, causing the entire row to tip slightly. Those seats are not completely bolted to the plane.
I stow my luggage and fasten my seat belt.
The engines roar. The plane speeds down the runway. As we lift off, the overhead compartments open and the luggage begins to slide. A flight attendant runs up the aisle and closes the doors.
The plane continues to climb, then banks sharply to the south. We circle once over Kabul to gain enough speed to make it over the mountains, which surround the city on all sides.
The captain announces our route over Afghanistan, Iran and the Persian Gulf. "We have reached 20,000 feet," the captain says. "I will be back to say when we have reached 23,000 feet."
He sounds excited to be flying again.
The flight attendants, a young man wearing a white shirt and black tie and a young woman with her face uncovered, serve cans of orange soda and meat and rice in aluminum containers.
Below us, snow-capped mountains sprout from endless stretches of desert. There are few trees and little water. It looks as if no one could ever live here.
"We have reached 23,000 feet," the captain says, as promised. "I hope you are having a pleasant journey."
I rest my head against the seat and close my eyes. We climb into a bed of clouds. Afghanistan fades from view.
