War Diaries Part III
The War in Afghanistan | 99 Days

Chapter 5 : Do You Know the Way to Dushanbe?

"So, are you buying, or are you selling," he asks me.

I head pivot, right face, left face. Getting a better look. "Everyone in this country is buying or selling something," he qualifies, in case I'm offended. After all, he works for the hotel. A yellow-jacketed employee in the business center, where I'm sending out a fax. Working a western-style hotel is a privileged gig here for boys who speak good English and for girls who look good. But what he says, it's by far, the truest thing I've heard since the stamp of my Uzbekistan visa.

"I'm a journalist," I tell him, thinking that should be obvious, since I'd hardly pass for a German businessman or a security spook, the other two professions represented in the trifecta of guests currently in residence.

"Oh," he says, smiling, "so you're selling. Selling information."

"How do your know I'm not buying it?"

"That could be so, too, but then you'd probably sell it again." It's unassailable logic. I take his telephone numbers in case I need another fixer. The kid is clearly an operator. I need his type in a country where no one is satisfied. Everyone scamming for a few thousand sums more. He thinks he has my confidence. So here's his pitch: "What do you think of the girls here. Do you find them attractive?" It's not an innocent question, although I think so at first. He's pimping. Proving his earlier point.

* * *

It's a rainbow of smell. Roasting kabobs intermingled with thick cigarette smoke and body odor. It's the 101 with no rules. Move or be moved. You can't stand still, not for a moment. Wizened old men and pre-adolescent boys push metal trolleys down narrow aisles. They only skin your shins, rip your trousers, if you're lucky. The bazaar. The commercial heartbeat of Uzbekistan. Imagine fifty acres of six by six stalls selling cheap knock-off clothing from China, toiletries, carpets, batteries, bags, anything you could want or need if you're heading to Afghanistan. Before the winter. That's why we're shopping. After a month of dodging around IT, we've been ordered IN.

"Mee-ster, here mee-ster," they call at me. I'm a dustball, blown by the wind of necessity past these vendors who want my money. A prize, a dancing swordfish of hard currency swimming past their lines. Indeed, I'm carrying a plastic bag with ten bricks of sums, 20,000 each, about $200. It is a fortune. A fortune in this place where an aging, begging babushka will kiss your hand when you give her a note worth no more than 20-cents. I'm a one-man, walking federal reserve. Alan Greenspan wishes there were An American equivalent of the pump priming I'm about to do to the Uzbek economy. I shop with fear. I need things that will protect me from the Afghan winter. They smell it on me, dozens, ply me with full length leather coats that are emblazoned with Hugo Boss or other such nonsense. The brand is an illusion here. A counterfeit pact, once more between buyer and seller. Dimitri, my local fixer, laughs at me as I bargain for a pair of long underwear. "This is too much work," he tells me. "You bargain like an Uzbek now. They're not having any fun with you anymore."

When we are done, I haul my loot to the roadside in a large, plaid plastic bag that I bought at the bazaar. Dimitri is embarrassed. "That bagÖ" he says-- I interrupt him, "I know. Low class. "No," he continues, "worse than that. You look like a bazaar guy. Everyone is laughing to see you carrying that around." I'm unaffected. "It's an icebreaker," I tell him. "I'm the goofy American. Your new partner and the comic relief in the war on terrorism." Dimitri just shakes his head. He sticks out his hand and flags down a car. In an impoverished nation like Uzbekistan, he tells me, every driver is a taxi cab. We get a ride back to the hotel -- for less than a dollar.

* * *

The road to Afghanistan has been so many baby steps for us. First reporting in Iran, then around Uzbekistan. Now we must make one more move, before we can cross the border. We have to travel to the city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. It will require another visa. Dushanbe is a weigh station of sorts. The place you go before you cross the frontier. NBC has a makeshift bureau there that provisions news teams with food, water and advice. It's there where we will make contact with the Northern Alliance rebels fighting against the Taliban regime. Occasionally the Northern Alliance will fly journalists into Afghanistan aboard Russian-made M-I-8 or M-I-17 choppers. Thomas, our man in Dushanbe, tells me over the phone, there hasn't been a flight in weeks. It means that once we arrive, we will mostly likely have to drive over the border. Colleagues who have been there and back liken the overland trip to being inside a washing machine. But we must get permission to enter Tajikistan first.

There is a line of journalist waiting in a hallway at the Tajikistan Embassy in Uzbekistan. All are hopeful. All with visions of getting into Afghanistan before the fall of Mazar-e-Sharif. They hold their passports, copies of their Uzbekistan visas, press accreditation, and, at the time of this writing, between $120 and $180 dollars U.S., depending how fast you need the visa. That is the going rate. The hallway ends at window with a small wooden hatch. Like a Catholic confessional. There you make you're case. Dimitri and I have been here dozens of times already. My shooter, Howard has been plagued by recurring stomach problems and now the foreign desk has decided to replace my entire crew with another traveling in from Cairo. That's required a new set of visa applications, more money and more headaches. By the time we have all the visas in hand we're nearly a week behind schedule. In a new twist on what has primarily been an air war, American commando forces have staged a night raid in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Everyone is itchy to leave Uzbekistan before seeing the fall of Kabul on CNN.

* * *

I'm breaking down my survival kit. I'm breaking down my survival kit and thinking of the deep background briefing we had today from a source that can only be identified as a "western expert." The source was explaining the new U.S.-Uzbekistan relationship.(The survival kit contains a gas mask, 13 filters and a vacuum packed exposure suit. I remove them all). He was, I thought, like a graduate student who had studied an obscure topic for years and now, through some twist of circumstance, found himself in the spotlight. (The survival kit contains 36 insect repellant wipes, a first aid kit and two rolls of duct tape. I keep the kit and the tape). This "western expert" told us that the relationship was a nuanced one. Based on mutual self-interest. The elimination of the terrorist threat. Uzbekistan has a human rights problem he admitted. It has a problem with torture. The Uzbekis admit as much he said. But they're working on it, he said. And they're the best of the bunch in Central Asia. They haven't asked for U.S. money yet, in exchange for America's use of former Soviet air bases here, he said, but they expect it, he says with a smile. ( I close the survival kit. thinking that the catastrophes it offers to save me from are just to hard to conceive.)

* * *

It's Sunday afternoon. We've forgotten the war for awhile. It's a beautiful fall day and my crew and I are are strolling along the arbot or downtown marketplace. People sell oil paintings and tchotchkes spread out on blankets on the sidewalk. I see him from a block away. He makes bee-line for me. A ten-year old gypsy boy. I steel myself so I don't flinch when I look into his face. His horribly disfigured face. His flesh shriveled back against his hairline. His noise so receded from some ancient childhood burn that it looks almost porcine. He has his hand out. I try not to look away. I reach into my pocket, fishing for a few sums. Instead, it's a five-dollar bill. I know that this is not a good move. He could be beaten by older boys for the money. It creates a false logic of foreign saviors and every other instinctual hold-back I can think of. He sees the money and is nearly trembling with excitement. He grabs my hand with both of his and tries to pry it away, but his eyes still seeking approval. I give it. Now he is shaking my hand, shaking it furiously. We are partners, he and I. Buyer and seller, bound together by circumstance and a $5 bill.

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