Grand Overland Voyage (2005-2009)

Kabul – Women Call for Justice

Blue Demonstration Under the scorching sun they yelled, they cried, they screamed. Many of them were completely wrapped by blue burqas. Many of them were invisible. But grieves and cries were heard and tears were felt. The message was clear: call for justice. A group of more than 100 protesters, mostly women, held a demonstration in front of a UN mission office in Kabul today. They brought photos of men. The photos, seen from the fading black and white, are presumed old portraits. Who are the women? Who are the men? Before we go further, let me introduced you to a happening in Kabul some weeks ago. A discovery of mass graves located in Dasht-e-Chamtala, a desert some kilometers away from Central Kabul, in early and mid-July, shocked the country. The last mass grave contained at least 1000 bodies. The human remains reminded all to the two and half decades of wars in the war-torn republic. Bones, skeletons, even scraps of clothes of various colors, each has their own history and tragedy. Some of the skeletons had bullets through their skulls. Some even still had tufts of hair. Missing relatives, will they come back? The site of the mass grave [...]

August 5, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – A Dilemma

Afghan government is really in dillematic problem due to the Korean hostage crisis Yesterday, in the party in the embassy, an Indonesian friend told me about the new announcement that foreigners in Kabul are requested not to do any unnecessary journey inside the city. Attack towards foreigners may occur, says the guy who is close to the American embassy. “Oh…ya…, if you believe American warning you will go nowhere. Even they put Bali in the travel warning,” said a guy. But I also believe Kabul is not Bali. Here, after the several kidnappings in just order of days, the security situation is tightening. It should be something behind it, and this time I prefer to believe announcement ‘from the intelligence source’. Today, there was a press conference held. Here, the presidential spokesman expressed the government commitment to do the best to free the Korean hostages. The details can not be unveiled yet, but the promise is for sure. The 23 Korean hostages, 2 males among which had been killed, now is the main topic in the country. Taliban did not demand anything but prisoner exchange. You set free our people from your jail, and we will deliver these 23 foreigners [...]

July 31, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – The Indonesian Family

The only place to taste genuine Indonesian food in Afghanistan ‘If you are abroad, remember, embassy is your home,’ said my elementary school teacher, explaining the function of embassy in a moral education class. This, at least in Afghanistan, is proven true. Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Shahr-e-Nao Kabul is indeed warm shelters for small Indonesian community in this Islamic Republic. There are not too many Indonesians in Afghanistan, and for sure less in Kabul. Not more than 30 Indonesians seen regularly in the embassy in the capital, and that already includes the embassy staff. People come and go. This small community always welcomes newcomers with smiles and prepares farewell party (sometimes almost rained by tears) for those who leave. In the last three months of my stay here, already two long-term Indonesians leave the country. For small family like this, the feeling of losing a member always hurts. The embassy people dominate this little community. Not before December 2006 the Indonesian embassy in Kabul is led by an Ambassador (Duta Besar Luar Biasa dan Berkuasa Penuh – Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary…what a title). As anywhere else, the ambassador comes with his wife, head of domestic affairs (Kepala [...]

July 30, 2007 // 1 Comment

Kabul – Warning: Travel Ban in Afghanistan

No foreigners are allowed to take this road to leave Kabul overland, due to the Korean hostage crisis Following the worsening of the 23 Korean hostages’ crisis, Afghanistan government has instituted new strict security measures in order to protect foreign citizens in the country. Foreigners, de facto, are banned to travel outside Kabul overland. Any foreigners wishing to travel by land must submit first an application to police two days in advance of the trip. To enforce the travel ban, new checkpoints had been instituted at all of Kabul’s main roads. The ban is given to an unlimited time, or will be announced later. I am sure the recent hostage crisis will cause various indirect effects. South Korean government has already included Afghanistan in travel-ban list, forbidding any citizens to get into the country without permission from the government and Afghanistan government was requested not to allow Korean citizens to enter the country. Lonely Planet independent travelers’ guide book is going to publish Afghanistan edition this summer and Aga Khan Foundation is to hold Wakhan Festival in Wakhan Corridor (Badakhshan province) to promote tourism in the isolated area, but it’s very likely that situation in Afghanistan is still not too [...]

July 26, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – Funeral Ceremony of the ‘Father of Nation’

I have the rare opportunity to attend the state funeral ceremony of Muhammad Zahir Shah, the former and the last king of Afghanistan, who died at the age of 92. The king reigned from 1933 to 1973, before being overthrown by his own cousin Muhammad Daoud who started the history of Afghanistan as a republic. The forty years of his monarchy leadership was always remembered as the peaceful era in Afghanistan history, which had been almost always carved by blood. His father, the king Nadir Shah, was assassinated by a student, which then brought the young Zahir, 19 years old at that time, to the throne. Assassinations and bloody coups are not new things in Afghanistan. Nadir came to power also due to a bloody civil war rouse by the controversial modernity programs promoted by the former king, Amanullah Khan. In 1929, there were three different kings sat on the throne consequently. People were sacrificed in struggle to power. It is blood which dominated history of Afghanistan. During the reign of Zahir Shah, who saw the assassination of his father in front of his eyes, the country was relatively ‘quiet’. Young Zahir ascended to the throne, but in his first [...]

July 24, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – Long Holiday

King Zahir Shah on an old Afghanistan postage stamp. “Iran has banned national flag from flying at half-mast during mourning period, because the flag contains holy symbols of ALLAH, holy sentence of ‘la illaha ha ilallah (there is no God but ALLAH), and ‘Allahoakbar (Allah is great),” said an article on an Indonesian Internet newspaper today. I was interested by this topic, and asked my colleague whether Afghanistan has the same policy. My friend didn’t understand my question. “What is half mast?” he asked “It is the culture to fly the national flag at half portion of the pole, to show mourning,” I answered. “Why mourning?” he still didn’t get my question. “Well… for example, there is someone very, very important in the country, dies. Then all people in the country mourning. Then it’s the culture to put the flag at half of the pole.” “Why doing that?” he asked me more than what I was asking. “I don’t know. That’s the culture everywhere.” “I don’t know too.” I didn’t get the answer. But on the very same day, I got the answer. This noon, a colleague came to our office, saying excitedly, “Baba-i-millat has just passed away!” ‘Baba-i-millat’? I [...]

July 23, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – Women and Terror

The road of Ghazni, where the incident took place The most recent news brought from the southern part of the country, is the striking hijacking of a bus full of foreigners in Qarabagh district, southern part of Ghazni province, by the Taliban. 18 foreigners on board, all Korean nationals, are taken hostage by the hijackers on 19 July. Among the 18 hostages, 15 of them are females. Initially the people were reported as tourists traveling from Kandahar to go back to Kabul, but later confirmation from the news agency reveals that these Koreans are Christians working as volunteers for a Christian missionary group, Saemmul Community Church in Bundang south of Seoul. These people entered Afghanistan on July 13 and were supposed to return home right after they arrive in Kabul. But the incident on their way to Kabul not only delayed their return, but also put a big question mark on their live survival. This is the largest-scale abduction conducted by the Taliban after 2001. The spokesman of Taliban urged the South Korean government to pull out its 200 troops in the Islamic Republic; otherwise these hostages would be slaughtered. Today I saw from BBC News the Korean newspapers showing [...]

July 21, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – Thousands Pairs of Legs

Practising with new legs Afghanistan, a war-torn nation, is where the handicapped war victims dominate the scene. A bazaar with armless beggars lying on hot asphalt, or pedestrian path with men sitting next to plastic legs waiting for alms, or handicapped street children crawling for tomorrow, are common things here. Fate is just decided by a simple foot step. You step on the wrong stone, and you explode. Landmines, millions of which scatter the country, are hidden enemies to bring unwanted nightmares to people. But you also may mention dozens other evil things that come along with the war: rocket, bomb blast, gun fire, malnutrition, until polio virus – which bring more and more Afghans to physical disability. It was fate which brought Najmuddin Hemal, 43 years old, to his current position. In 1988, when he was just 24 years young, he drove his car through a river bed. What a fate. He went out to the sand, stepped on the wrong stone, and blasted. He had his two legs amputated. But the disaster didn’t end his life. At the other end, the unwanted fate brought him a bigger opportunity to dedicate to humanity in Afghanistan. The man, who is [...]

July 17, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – Nine Afghan Prisoners from Bagram

Prisoners released from Bagram Nine Afghan prisoners, from various the provinces of Khost, Ghazni, Paktia, Balkh, and Farah, were released from the US military main airbase at Bagram today. They were in detention for various periods, from 8 months to two years, on the charge of having links to Taliban resurgent. I went there with a reporter to attend the ‘ceremony of freedom.’ I was expecting to see cruel faces of Taliban supporters, but what I saw was some thin old men with white beards, some younger bearded ones, all in Afghan dresses with Chinese luggage bags. Everybody was numbered from 1 to 9. Haji Inayatullah, the eldest among the nine, a 76 year old man with white and red beard, was telling his unjustified detention in Bagram. The former Mujahidin commander loyal to Sibghatullah Mujaddidi was arrested and served one year in the American main airbase. Ironically, he was served the painful days in the detention center when he, following the government’s disarmament projects, was handling over 145 fire weapons and vehicles. His detention, he claimed, was unjust. He blamed the pro-Communist from Soviet era which now held high positions in his district, arranged everything as revenge to him [...]

July 11, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – Mengungsi di KBRI

I feel safe under the red and white Suatu pengalaman tak terduga yang membuat saya terpaksa mengungsi di ‘tanah air’ di tengah gelapnya malam Kabul. Seperti biasa, mobil yang mengantar para pegawai kantor kami ke rumah masing-masing berangkat pukul 7. Matahari mulai merunduk di Afghanistan. Senja mulai menjelang di Kabul. Perjalanan pada malam hari mulai mencekam di mana jalan-jalan gelap pekat tak diterangi lampu seakan menelan semua mobil yang berlalu. Saya tidak pernah ikut mobil jemputan, karena saya tinggal di kantor. KBRI juga sudah mulai menelepon, memberitahukan agar datang untuk mengikuti pertandingan olah raga menjelang Agustusan. Saya bilang masih ada sedikit urusan di kantor dan datang agak malaman. Tiba-tiba, teman yang tadi pergi dengan mobil kantor datang kembali. Pukul 8. Wajahnya yang hitam kini nampak pucat pasi. “Kita diikuti pelaku bom bunuh diri!” serunya dengan tergagap. Bom bunuh diri atau penculikan, tak seorang pun bisa memastikan. Namun memang benar, di halaman kantor nampak semua pegawai yang tadinya berangkat dengan mobil itu, datang kembali lagi ke kantor. Mereka tidak jadi berangkat karena mobil kantor diikuti oleh orang mencurigakan. Simpang siur saya mendengar ceritanya. Sejak pagi tadi, ada dua orang tak dikenal yang ‘nyanggong’ di depan pintu gerbang kantor. Pintu gerbang kami [...]

July 11, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – The Americans and the Indonesians

Crushed Kalashnikov The US embassy has a very special program today, to celebrate the destructions of more than one million small arms or light weapons worldwide. That is to show to a bunch of Afghan journalists from selected media of how an AK-47 arm is being destroyed by their Ambassador. So important that the program is, a limited number of the selected media have to come an hour earlier and being scrutinized thoroughly before being able to cover the speech of the Ambassador (which last only for 6 minutes, compact and short, no Q&A session that a female reporter complained the program to be very bland), people from disarmament organization, followed by a demonstration of the Ambassador destroying a Kalashnikov being turned to pieces by an unforgiving drill machine box. Kalashnikov, the Russian branded automatic rifles, had been invented more than sixty years ago (1943), and the AK-47 has the reputation as one of the most reliable rifles. There were already 100 million of Kalashnikov weapons produced worldwide, said the ambassador. The crushing of an AK-47 by his highness American ambassador was in fact a symbolic ceremonial of U.S. government commitment to destroy excess small arms worldwide. From the press [...]

July 9, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – Mister Kabul, Mister Muscle from the Afghan Land

With this oil, the body will go “blink-blink” Bodybuilding and Afghanistan. For most of us this pair does sound kinda odd one. ‘Afghanistan and Gun’, ‘Afghanistan and War’, or ‘Afghanistan and Bomb’ all sound more familiar to us. The Afghan young men, whom foreigners might prefer to associate with AK-47, long beards, and Arab gowns, now are showing up their shiny smooth chest, bulging biceps, and packed stomach. Proudly they come out in body show contest, where hundreds of spectators cheer enthusiastically to support their Greek-god-bodied fellows. In a country where the posters of Tajik warrior Ahmad Shah Massoud and the president Karzai scatter the streets, Arnold Schwarzenegger – the governor of California – is the real king for the crowds in this hot old theatre hall, where the Mr. Kabul of the year is crowned today. At least 200 muscled hunks from 70 fitness clubs of the capital competed in the bodybuilding contest. In a city of 3 million population and just crawling after decades of wars, the number of at least 70 gyms is enough to show the great enthusiasm of local men to carve muscles on their body. These bodybuilders come from different backgrounds: students, teachers, soldiers, [...]

July 5, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – (Another) Explosion in Kabul

The victims of the blast Morning, 8:10 a.m., we just started our daily work. Suddenly we heard a big blast. It was obviously a bomb blast. The sound was very loud, and it should not be very far from where I was. My instinct as a photographer threw me away to the source of the blast. The explosion happened in front of the Police Headquarters, just about 500 m away from my office. It was a mess. I saw a big bus was completely destroyed; police and medical workers were evacuating victims; and other police rushed civilians (including journalists) not to get near. There was no fire. When we arrived (one reporter and two photographers), there were no other journalists there yet. Our office was the closest to the location. But not long after we arrived, police started to beat civilians with sticks to empty the location. This was a big blast. The bus belonged to local Police Academy and was carrying academy attendants. At least this terrorist attack claimed 35 casualties and injured others. Most of the victims are police new recruits, but there were also some poor civilians. A coach carrying four foreigners (two Koreans and two Pakistanis) [...]

June 17, 2007 // 3 Comments

Kabul – A Short Walk at Kabul Underpass

Welcome to Kabul Underpass, or “subway” Today I want to take you to take a walk around the center of Kabul, just to see how the ordinary days pass through, and how the ordinary air fills the atmosphere. Let’s go down to ‘Kabul Subway’. I remembered this phrase when a man from Kandahar I met in 2003, in my first visit to Afghanistan, took me around the capital. It was no kind of underground metro station which I imagined. Kabul Subway, or underground passage to be exact, was the safest crossway for pedestrians from the wild traffic at the heart of the capital. A simple crossway it was not. The dark stairway and crowded underground passage brought me to a deep contemplation, about the live of a country named Afghanistan, a place that used to haunt my dreams, a place that remain in people’s fantasy, a place that turned to be rubbles after endless wars since the history began. It’s very crowded during peak hours, which last for most time of the day I couldn’t forget the shabby dark passage, filled by dozens of children offering plastic bags and shoe polishing service, as well as women bodies wrapped by dirty, [...]

June 12, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – A Female Journalist Murdered

Funeral of Zakia Zaki. Photo credit: Safiya Saifi (Pajhwok Afghan News) Today I was struck when a female colleague told me that one of her good friends, a female journalist, was shot to death by mysterious gunmen. Zakia Zaki, director of a radio company, was killed a night before on her own bed. It was scary news. Just about a week before, May 31, 2007, a popular Shamshad TV female news presenter, Sanga Amach, 22 years old, was shot to death. The actual motive and suspects remained mysterious. ‘Honor killing’ was among the possible motives. An honour killing is a murder, nearly exclusively of a woman, who has been perceived as having brought dishonor to her family. The killings are typically perpetrated by the victim’s own relatives or community. Such killings are often regarded as a “private matter” for the affected family alone, and courts rarely become involved or prosecute the perpetrators. Being a journalist in Afghanistan is comparatively dangerous. It is not uncommon to hear this journalist to explode with a bomb or that journalist being kidnapped. But the risk is much higher for women. The conservative don’t approve women to work (neither to go to schools), moreover to [...]

June 6, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – An Expatriate Restaurant Is Closed

Notice of the closure of L’Atmosphere, due to tax problem L’Atmosphere, a French restaurant hidden in a small dusty alley in Kabul, is forced to close by the government, due to a tax failure. I have a personal experience with this restaurant. In 2006, the first day of my arrival in Afghanistan, an Indonesian friend of mine took me to the restaurant to watch the opening match of the World Cup soccer championship. I was not interested to watch World Cup, but as he said that it was a public place with giant screen – which he supposed to make watching football much more interesting, I was thinking of a giant screen in the middle of an open field where a crowd of turbaned Afghan men cheered and supporting their favorite teams. I accepted the invitation. Located in unsigned property in a nondescript dusty alley of Kabul, here is one of the renowned expat heavens in Afghanistan This was the perfect hangout place for the expat. After the closure, many of the Kabul foreigners miss the atmosphere of L’Atmosphere But I was surprised to come to the place. No turbans, no burqas. In fact there is a huge notice in [...]

June 6, 2007 // 0 Comments

Kabul – Those who Survive on Afghan Streets

Ni’mat, the shoe polisher The decades of wars in Afghanistan have left scars on Afghan community. Victims of wars are still visible on busy Kabul streets. War widows and orphaned children beg for donations from the crowds, and poor children also have to work instead of getting access to proper education. The economy disparity causes many people are still not adsorbed into proper occupation. If a father does not make enough money to support his big family, which is very common in Afghanistan, then young children have to start to earn for living. Ni’mat is an 11 year old boy. His name in Arabic means mercy, but his life is not quite a mercy. At this early age, he has to work on streets as shoe polisher. He started this work a year ago, and now he has more responsibilities. His mother does not work, as most women in Afghanistan. His father used to be street worker, hanging around on the street to offer his muscle power. But then, last month, his father got accident because stepped on landmines and stay at home just like his mother. Ni’mat, a cheerful boy, said that he also goes to school in the [...]

May 22, 2007 // 6 Comments

Kabul – Life from the Stinky Mountains

Searching for possible “treasures” in the garbage dump of northern Kabul North of Kabul, on the top of barren hills, is located the garbage dump of all waste of the capital. The complete waste, after passes the selection of waste pickers from all around the capital, ends its journey here. Waste pickers, those who try to find treasures from dumps of waste, can be recognized easily. They are people in dirty clothes, with a sack on their backs, and dwindle around Kabul streets or garbage dumps searching for something. Most of the waste pickers in Kabul are children, besides adult men and women. Garbage from the streets is then dumped here, on a hill north of Kabul, as the final dumping point of all garbage in the whole capital. Garbage which makes its way here can be assumed as the most unusable kind of garbage, or we can say the garbage of all garbage. But still, this kind of place may provide life for some people. Lunch, everybody? Waris, 12 year old boy, spends his full day picking garbage at this central dumping point. Actually not much valuable thing he can find here, but plastic bottles and Coca Cola tins. [...]

May 8, 2007 // 4 Comments

Kabul – Some Broken Eggs from Kabul to Share

“My eggs are broken… my parents will punish me … keen to help?” Broken Eggs A boy is crying as his eggs are broken on a pedestrian street in Kabul. I was among sympathetic passers-by who donated some coins to this poor boy. Later I found out this is a common scam in the capital, as you may find this trick: a boy crying in Kabul’s many busy streetsnext to broken eggs to gather some symphathy from unsespecting people. Telur-telur yang Pecah Seorang bocah kecil yang menangisi telur-telurnya yang pecah di sebuah trotoar di Kabul. Entah apa yang dipikirkannya. Apakah sang ayah akan menghajarnya karena ia telah menyia-nyiakan uang belanjaan hari itu. Apakah sang ibu akan mencacimakinya karena kecerobohannya. Yang jelas, saya bersimpati dan menyumbangkan beberapa keping uang receh yang disambut dengan tangan yang terjulur dari balik wajah yang tersembunyi itu. Kemudian baru saya mengetahui, bahwa ini adalah salah satu teknik mengemis yang mutahir di ibu kota ini: bocah-bocah kecil yang menangis di samping tumpukan telur-telur pecah, menangisi jalan-jalan ramai di kota Kabul, sambil menanti gemericik uang receh dari para pejalan kaki. Scars of war on the streets of Kabul Scars of Wars Three decades of wars have left grey [...]

April 26, 2007 // 3 Comments

Kabul – Brother Ambassador

The Indonesian Embassy in Kabul Today there is opening of a photo exhibition in the newly renovated Kabul Museum, just across the Darulaman Palace. The exhibition shows some old photos of Afghanistan, taken in the 1970s, about the glorious era of the covered bazaar of Tashkurgan. The covered bazaar now is gone. And European historical site preservation mission is trying hard to return the legendary bazaar back to its golden time. As photographers we were invited to attend the opening ceremony. There were long, long speeches from authorities and historians about the importance of preserving historical sites, the mission of photo exhibition, and about the destroyed bazaar of Tashkurgan. Many of the invited guests are foreigners. I feel a strange feeling surrounded by high class Afghan expats accompanied by their super muscular bodyguards. I am just a little photographer assigned by a local office here. During the speech I noticed a man standing next to me. He also looked at me. I was not sure whether he was Indonesian or not, but he seems so. As many Indonesians, I also have a strange hobby of guessing about other people’s identity. Hmm…, this man looks like Indonesian. But I have never [...]

April 25, 2007 // 1 Comment

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