Afghanistan 2001: Over the Border

Shivering on a starless night

Note: This dispatch was originally published in the New Times in 2001 when Kevin was covering the war in

NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN -- Shivering on a starless night. Waiting on the northern bank of the Amu Darya River. Waiting for a pontoon boat to ferry us to the other side. We are travelling with 1,000 pounds of equipment and enough food and water to last us into December. This is where we cut the cord.

An old tractor engine mounted on the side of the raft spools up cable, pulls us toward the other side, pulls us by the hand to the dance floor. Russian soldiers operate the pontoon. They wear camoflauge. Wrap their heads in Afghani scarves. We see only their eyes. They look bemused as they ferry us across the threshold. Tiny chill as we watch Tajikistan drift away.

A Northern Alliance fighter

In this month-long journey — 12,000 miles by planes, cars, convoys, trucks and even donkeys — this narrow spread of water once seemed crossable. No more. Tonight, in six minutes, my boots will be covered with the dust of Afghanistan.

* * *

Now I'm on the back of a bucking bronco. A Russian jeep really, but the same ride. We shuck and heave through craters the size of the vehicle. The Perfect Storm in dirt. There's an impact splinter on my side of the windshield. Forehead, I think, of a prior passenger. At least he softened it up for me.

It's nearly midnight and my vision feels like it's coming deep from within my head. Like I'm looking through a mask. It's one of those instances where your momentum outpaces your mind. You are there, but in a dream.

Before we reach the NBC compound in Khodja Bahaudin, our driver stops and turns off the ignition. He scratches his palm. Then shows me two fingers. I pull out a twenty. He shakes his head. He writes on a scrap of paper, and by the orange glow of the gauge lights, I see these numbers appear: two, zero, zero.

We have been shaken down at nearly every stop from Mashad to Dushanbe. I'm rattle-cranked and full-body tired. All that's left is anger.

And decibels. I crank up the volume, flap my arms, point a violent finger in his chest. He's surprised at my outburst. Finally turns the key again -- for $100. A small victory, but I'm smiling for the rest of the ride.

* * *

Kerry Sanders is talking to me, but I am looking out the window. This is my first view of Afghanistan in daylight. As I stare out the window of this Russian jeep, I know the things we pass or the things that pass us, are not of my world. I've been dropped into a Bible story.

Afghan women

Camel riders, mud huts, peddlers, shepherds, shrouded women floating across seas of sand, an old man drawing up water from a deep and ancient well. I can see them, see them all, but can't believe we are sharing the same century, let alone the same road.

"You're crazy if you think you can cover the whole story here," Kerry tells me. "The best you can do is report on a few square miles at a time. That's the best."

I nod, but it's too early for me to think about limitations — they will be apparent soon enough. He has been here three weeks. Enduring dust storms with 100 mph winds, canned or prepackaged food three times a day, he was even shot at while doing a live report from the roof of our Afghan compound.

He's a Miami guy. Short. Comes at you like a machine gun. Broke news almost daily during the investigation following the World Trade Center and

He has a drug smuggling story he wants to do this morning, but changes his mind when we see Northern Alliance soldiers firing their weapons for an Iranian journalist who hunkers down in a trench with a microphone, pretending he's in combat. He's not the first to do this. We want to make him the last.

We roll on the entire scene; the reporter taking cover, shots fired, slow reveal to show his videographer standing upright in the middle of the "battlefield."

The Today Show airs our story the next morning.

* * *

We share a house with the Northern Alliance. No, actually more than that. We share with them the most sacred place in Khodja Bahaudin.

This is where their leader, the "Lion of the Panjshir," was killed. This is the place General Ahmad Shah Masoud was killed. Blown up, to be precise.

Ironically, by two assassins posing at television journalists. Bomb in their camera. Took out the "videographer" too. The "correspondent" was shot trying to run away. Samid told me that part. He lives here as well, with a half-dozen other soldiers.

Samid was one of Masoud's bodyguards. Was out of town when it happened. He covers his face with his hands when he tells the story. So I won't see him cry, but he has no tears left, only weariness. When he removes them, his face is as dry as Afghanistan.

Masoud fought against the Soviets when they invaded Afghanistan. Masoud fought against the Taliban when they took power. He was a folk hero in Afghanistan. Now he's an icon. Nearly every vehicle here has his image plastered across the windshield. His house will become a shrine — but for now it's the Afghan Bureau of NBC News.

* * *

The front lines

I came to cover a war in Afghanistan and, a few times a day, I can actually hear shelling, or the occasional American bombing run. Distant thunder. But we are not far from the front lines. No more than 20 kilometers at some points.

A writer from the Ottawa Citizen showed us a fragment he picked up following that morning's attack. It was heavy as lead with serated edges. On the underside were some words, or parts of them: "MFG. in Ind."

The bomb had been dropped at eight in the morning. He said the metal still burned his hand when he picked it up at noon. It's that kind of war. A slow burn. A war of attrition. Chinese water torture. War that does not end. That kind of war requires a slow and steady pace.

Journalists like to cover wars. This is not a secret or guilty admission. Wars are easy in terms of narrative, like reporting on crime or sex. The players, the action, both obvious.

But this one is different. Nothing is easy or obvious. The action is slow. Molasses slow.

In the interim we're forced to focus on the true stories of conflict. The real stories. Refugee stories. The story of Abdul Momid.

He walks across the crust-dry field until he comes to a mound of sticks, stones and dirt. A flag ripples above him, a green flag, the color of Islam, tied to a long, slender branch planted in the ground. He sits in front of the mound and begins to pray. It is the grave of his son. It is the fresh grave of Abdul Momid's four-year-old son, Bashid.

Abdul Momid

"I am a poor man," Abdul tells us, as we videotape him in front of the burlap tent that is home for he and his wife and remaining six children. "I could not buy food, I could not give them a good place to live," he tells us, "that is why Bashid died."

I scribble in my notebook while looking at this father of seven. He owns absolutely nothing. Dirt. The Mountain Hardwear parka I'm wearing costs more than Abdul could make in three years. Even the burlap of his tent, held up by ropes and branches, is rented. It cost him 1 million Afghanis. About ten dollars. A fortune in this country.

For the rest of the day I'm a simmering pot of unfocused anger, my default reaction to circumstances I can't begin to fathom.

* * *

This is the first thing I saw this morning: the outline of NBC engineer Paul Stimpson in the doorframe of the basement room we use as our master control room. It's also my bedroom. His feet were nearly covered to the ankles in water and I could hear the sound of a steady downpour outside.

What happened next was a marvel of improvisation that would make most jazz masters green with envy.

Within minutes NBC's Team Khodja was out of their sacks and on their feet. Once they established the source of the flooding (a rooftop stairwell that followed another down to the basement) they stemmed the flow with a pitched sheath made from water bottles and a vacant canvas tent quickly confiscated from the front yard.

Next, engineer Hans Jurgenson and shooter Maurice Roper used brick and mud to build doorway dams to stop seepage into our equipment and food storage rooms. Big, burly sound technician Stan Ouse was bailing water with a small plastic cup.

Everyone helped, no one fought for control, and despite the rude awakening, we all still kept a sense of humor.

"The rain is letting up," someone yelled.

"Yeah," producer Karl Bostic answered, "that's what Noah said."

The flood was just the latest in a series of natural disasters we've been battling while trying to cover the war. A week ago it was a dust storm that left a quarter-inch layer of sand on every surface in the house, including the production equipment. Everyone knows the snows will be next.

* * *

A riverbank an hour's drive into the desert. We're shooting the final element for the Sanders story: people crossing the river from Taliban-held territory to Northern Alliance turf.

The way to distract children

My job is to distract sixty Uzbeki children who keep walking in front of our camera as we shoot. I lead them away like a pied piper, but using my Mini DV camcorder.

Most of them have never seen their own reflections. I flip my viewfinder so they can see themselves on the screen. To them, this is as big as the moon landing. They do not tire of seeing themselves, but the game is getting old for me. Since the crew is still shooting, I resort to English lessons.

"Camera," I say, pointing at the camera. They repeat. "Watch," I say, pointing to my watch. They repeat. "Hello," I say shaking the hand of one boy. "Goodbye," I say, waving goodbye.

I run through the routine with another boy who steps forward. "Hello," I say, stepping forward with my hand outstretched. "Hello," he says reaching for mine.

But just when we're about to shake, he pulls his hand back, pulls his fingers through his hair. "Goodbye," he says, turning away. Busted by a ten-year-old in Afghanistan. The kid, I think, has potential as a fixer.

* * *

The NBC compound in Khodja Bahaudin is the envy of all the other journalists here. Many of them are sleeping in tents or in houses without any running water. Our house is not luxurious. We sleep on cots or on the floor, four of five to a room. We cook our food on camping stoves or heat them using the exhaust fumes of our generator.

But we do have a shower (cold water) and perhaps, the only flush toilet in all of Afghanistan. We also have the legacy of General Masoud, Northern Alliance hero and legend. Charismatic leader respected by friend and foe for his fighting prowess. The only man, many believed, who could defeat the Taliban and still unify Afghanistan.

The portion of the house where "it" happened is sealed off. Covered up. But we see it when we get up for breakfast in the morning. We see it when we come back from shooting at night. The black falanges along the windows and door frames. Burn marks from the explosion.

It's strange to be occupying this space with both Masoud's legacy and his soldiers. But so far we are compatible roommates. They peer over our screens while we work on our computers, gawk, like anyone else, when we do live reports.

We let them look through our cameras and they let us hold their AK-47s. We are clean and respectful of the dwelling and every day we make cosmetic or comfort improvements: building shelves, buying wood-burning hot water heaters. Goodwill gestures, insurance policies, to hedge against getting evicted during the upcoming Afghan winter.

It is a strange fusion. Us. The soldiers. Masoud. All under one roof. Made stranger yet by the circumstances of his death. Still, we are here. We share this house and, in different ways, share a commitment to this war.

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