Imam Saheb and Shir Kahn
Today promises to be an interesting day as evidenced by our pre-convoy briefing prior to our departure from Konduz RTC. The brief covers security aspects and emergency possibilities. Its overcast this morning, but the air is so much cleaner than in Kabul, its much easier to breathe here and the temperatures are mild.
Our first destination is the Provincial Police HQ in downtown Konduz. As we come into the city, there are some similarities to Kabul, but it’s obvious this is a frontier city, far removed in many ways from the capital. At the edge of the city we pass over a dark patch of asphalt. This is evidence of repairs that were made to the road surface following a suicide bomb attack that destroyed an armored vehicle driven by German police officers who are also here advising and training the Afghan police. Last night our German colleagues hosted us for dinner. Before dinner they showed us a video of the attack on a German convoy. One of the German police officers riding in the convoy two vehicles further back was videoing as their convoy proceeded into Konduz. A taxi can be seen passing by without incident and then a little boy is seen standing by the road, just watching the “parade” pass by, then suddenly BOOM! In a split second, the taxi and those inside are scattered in pieces over a large area. You see the smoke and dust from the explosion as the video ends suddenly. Thankfully the Germans escaped without injury, while two suicide bombers perished in their own explosion. Thankfully too, the little boy was just beyond the range of the flying debris and escaped physical injury, but was surely traumatized emotionally. Having seen the video and now passing the very spot where this attack took place just a few weeks ago heightens my senses. The traffic on the road includes every kind of vehicle imaginable and every single one is suspicious. There are the “jingle” trucks, big trucks hauling all kinds of freight and painted bright colors, they get their nickname from dozens of bells and trinkets hanging like ornaments on a Christmas tree, all over the truck. All manner of taxis, including the three-wheeled “zanga’s, which are just three-wheeled motorcycles with an enclosed compartment mounted between the two rear wheels. The compartment, measuring maybe 4’ X 6’, and less than 4’ high, with two tiny benches on each side, can accommodate 8 or 10 people who are in for a very rough ride. Like the jingle trucks, many of the zangas are decorated festively and painted bright colors. There are two-wheeled carts piled high with anything you can imagine, being pulled by a single horse or donkey and they’ve been a favorite of roadside bombers in the past. Often times the horse will be decorated with colorful plumage in some kind of ornate head dress, but the poor donkeys never rate any kind of dressing up. There are motorcycles and bicycles weaving in and out of traffic with abandon, and of course, they are all suspect.
The people are notably different from those in Kabul in their attire. There are no men in business suits, and almost every adult man is attired in baggy pants with long-waisted shirts and some kind of turban-like head gear. Most of the men have a scarf wrapped around their head and neck and it covers their face from the nose down. It’s a protection from the wind and the dirt stirred up by the wind and the traffic, but it gives them a sinister appearance that’s undeserved. It makes them appear potentially dangerous when you’re trying to be alert to any threat. Maybe I’m a product of my cultural upbringing, growing up watching bandits and robbers in cowboy movies cover their faces with bandanas before holding up the stage or robbing the bank.
All of the women of Konduz have their heads and faces covered, some with black scarves on their heads that also cover their face, revealing only their eyes. The vast majority of the women however, wear the all concealing burka. The burka is usually a faded blue material, and it’s much like placing a sheet or a tablecloth over your head, with built in head bands to keep it in place. A hole is cut for the eyes, but to prevent you from seeing any portion of their face, a mesh like screen is made from the same colored cloth, and their dark eyes are barely visible through this mesh. Sometimes the burka which covers head to foot, is decorated with various patterns of embroidery, but often they are very plain. I have seen on several occasions a group of women walking along the road or highway and they will have the burka pulled back so they can see each other as they visit together. When they see or hear our vehicle, they quickly pull the burka down over their faces to protect them from the sin of tempting us with their beauty. The burka is worn over their regular clothing and is removed in the sanctuary of their home. Only when they are little girls are they allowed to have their faces uncovered in public.
The streets are unusually crowded this morning they tell me, but no one knows exactly why. The street in front of the police headquarters is always blocked off to normal traffic, as are most of the government buildings in Kabul and the gate into the walled police compound is heavily guarded. We can relax here a little bit, but only a little. Just last week, a suicide bomber entered the police station in Wardack and killed 17 police officers. There are no guarantees here.
Not long and its time to depart for Imam Saheb and a visit to the District Police HQ. Working our way through the crowded streets, traffic clears significantly as we reach the outskirts of Konduz. Leaving the city, we cross the Alcheen River and the landscape changes radically. The river is wide and shallow and sandy, and there are people gathering sand from the river for construction projects. The river bottoms are pock-marked from years of digging and removing of sand. Beyond the river are white bluffs with distant mountains rising in the background. A strange natural beauty in the midst of so much man made chaos, violence and destruction.
After crossing the river the land to the west is nearly flat almost as far as the eye can see, but it gradually slopes up to a higher plain northward, covered by the thinnest layer of green grass. On our right are huge, round-topped and maybe ancient hills that have the appearance of sand dunes, tinged with the green of a slight presence of grass. The highway winds up through the edge of these sandy hills and rounding a curve near the top of this plateau, we encounter another patch of new asphalt, much larger than the one we had seen in Konduz. This patch of dark fresh asphalt was laid last September after a suicide bomber attacked a German army convoy, killing one German soldier, wounding several others and leaving a huge crater in the highway. At the top of our ascent, we break free from the sand hills and the land spills away in every direction as a vast slightly green, almost perfectly flat and absolutely treeless plain. Mile after mile we drive through this oh so thin ocean of grass, but everywhere the surface of this sea is broken by dark patches of countless herds of hundreds and hundreds of brown and black sheep. Everywhere you look there are sheep and sheepherders. Some of the shepherds are on foot, with staffs in hand, while others are on horseback or riding on donkeys or camels. Occasionally I see a cluster of tents used as temporary homes by these nomadic herdsmen. Mile after mile there is no sign of civilization other than the shepherds and an occasional vehicle. Often the vehicle we meet or pass is a horse drawn, or donkey drawn wagon laden with people, or piled high with a thick coarse grass that is used to make roofs for houses. It obviously doesn’t come from anywhere nearby.
The mountains in the distance appear to be much closer than they are. At one point, off in the distance, is a camel caravan and I can’t help but feel transported back in time. How strange to be speeding down this modern highway in our Ford F-350 crew cab truck gazing out over this vast ancient land, at a camel caravan. It’s probably just a farmer or shepherd, but I can imagine a time when those camels would have been laden with all manner of goods being carried for trade in distant exotic lands.
I am brought back to present day Afghanistan as we come to a police post/checkpoint that must be among the worst assignments you can draw as a police officer. Remote and vulnerable, it is manned by only a handful of policemen and no vehicle for escape if that becomes necessary. The outpost consists of a small metal container with sandbags piled on top to form a pillbox or observation platform. The policemen are busy digging in the ground behind the outpost, possibly dressing up their foxholes or trenches, and we wave at each other as we slow down for the speed bump before racing on toward our next destination.
The pavement appears good, but in reality it’s very rough. Cramped inside our heavily armored vehicles, made extremely heavy by that armor and the bullet proof glass, it is a rough ride. A ride made a little more uncomfortable by the constant weaving from one lane to the other as we try to cheat the odds and make it more difficult for the bomber to predict where we’ll be if he’s going to trip the switch on his roadside surprise. Sitting behind the driver, I have to sit sideways in my seat so I can observe everything to the left as well as to the rear of the vehicle.
Eventually we turn off the main highway and head east toward Imam Saheb. The landscape changes gradually, transforming from grazing land to farm land. Fields of dark green winter wheat and lighter green rice plugs appear on both sides of the highway. Large adobe walls also appear, enclosing large and small farm compounds. Long rows of mounded dirt, consistently about two feet high, divide the farm ground into a patchwork of green plots and brown plots that are just now being tilled. It is obvious the people of this area are very industrious. In some places the adobe walls, which I’m told are hard as concrete, appearing to be 10 or 12 feet high, stretch for several thousand yards. In some places a farmstead will be set back from the road and appear as one of the old army forts in the American southwest. Here too, are the first trees we’ve seen since leaving Konduz.
Hussain, our language assistant, has a lot of respect for the people in this area, telling me they are very hard working people and they have more schools than most other places in Afghanistan, believing the education of their children to be one of the most important things they can do. One of my American colleagues tells me the police in Imam Saheb are really top notch and very good to work with.
As we come into town, it’s obvious its much smaller than Konduz and although there are a lot of people out and about, the streets are not overly busy. Most of the motorized vehicle traffic consists of a few motorcycles and zarangas, but they are outnumbered by horses, donkeys and camels. Children are herding sheep through the streets, where the sky is dotted with kites indicating other children are in training for the big kite contest. But here, as in Kosovo, Liberia and Sudan, and countless other impoverished countries, the children are required to work very hard. Many of the children in Afghanistan labor alongside their fathers to help provide for the family. Everywhere in Imam Saheb I see children working in the family business. There’s a young boy laboring in a tire repair shop and the man working nearby is probably his father. What appears to be a father and his very young son, both laden down with bundles of firewood on their backs, having walked who knows how far, and having who knows how far to go, are both bent over at the waist, struggling under their heavy loads. There are young boys helping their fathers butcher goats and sheep in the family meat market, and boys working in the family bakery, and other boys tending the family food or produce stand. Compared to the street children in Kabul they probably have it pretty good, but its still a tough childhood.
Everyone knows who we are as we drive through the streets and people look on with great interest. There are a few smiles and some “thumbs up” as we pass, but mostly people just stare. We arrive at the police station and it’s great to get out of the truck and stretch my legs. Hussain is sent to find a local food vendor to bring us lunch. He returns to tell us that lunch is on the way, but in the meantime we walk across the street to city hall and the police station where we talk with police and government officials. It is great to finally be able to walk among the people. I encounter a group of boys flying their kites and they are all smiles as I approach them. A couple of them practice their English on me. It may be the only English they know, as over pronouncing their words they say, “Hello! How are you?” One renders a smart salute and they ask me, as do all the kids I encounter in these war torn countries, for a football, (soccer ball). When I can’t come up with a football, they ask for “choc-o-lot” and are a little skeptical when I can’t produce even a simple chocolate bar. They’re disappointed, as am I that I don’t have anything for them, but they continue all smiles as we shake hands and say goodbye.
Finishing our business with the police and the prosecutor, who seems to be an intelligent and friendly man, we head back to the parking lot where our lunch has arrived and we have an American tail gate party, Afghanistan style. Lunch consists of lamb kabobs, although Hussain is doubtful it’s really lamb, fried rice and grapes, and bread that looks like ½” thick tortillas. Folding the bread in half, we make sandwiches by removing the meat from the steel kabobs, covering the meat with the rice and a few pinches of various powdered seasonings provided. It’s very good and filling, too. The guys had packed some soda in a cooler with ice, and we have a pleasant little tailgate picnic there in downtown Imam Saheb. A dozen or so kids gather at the security gate, which is not closed and some climb the security wall around the parking lot to watch us eat. Another American police colleague has brought some stuffed animals and she invites the children to come into the compound and gives these stuffed animals to the little girls. Needless to say, the girls are thrilled and the boys are even happy for their sisters and friends who have been so fortunate. It never ceases to amaze me how utterly unselfish these totally deprived children are, whether in Kosovo, Liberia, Sudan or Afghanistan. There is much more food than we can eat, and the police officers are very happy to get the left overs, and my colleagues assure me the officers will take it home to their families at the end of their shift.
We saddle up and head out of town, and before long we are back on the main highway where once again, the landscape is very flat and we are enveloped by grazing land and those huge herds of sheep. Eventually the road begins to wind downhill as we descend into another river valley and the town of Shir Khan, a small town with a very big landmark. Shir Khan’s claim to fame is a large modern bridge that spans the very wide Amu River, carrying traffic between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Hussain tells me the name of the river may change as it flows through other provinces as the people in each province will attach their own name to it and the Tajiks on the other side of the border probably have their own name for the river as well. I’m told Amu means river of five rivers, as there are four more tributary rivers in Afghanistan that will empty into the Amu on its journey.
This poor town looks weary and forlorn, with buildings made almost exclusively of adobe, and not a blade of grass or a tree to be seen. There is sand and rock, rock and sand, everywhere. Very much out of place is a restaurant right in the middle of the town, with lots of glass and chrome and very modern décor. There are numerous broken shells of buildings as well as wrecks of old Soviet tanks that add to the bleakness of this little town. We make contact with some of the border policemen assigned here and then its time to head back to Konduz. Without making the side trip to Imam Saheb, the return trip, about 65 kilometers, goes quickly and we arrive back at our camp without incident. Tomorrow we head south to Baghlan Province.
Missionary Adventures Blog 
the u s is about to land in konduz my son is with them would love to hear news about them from time to time thanks
William, I’m sorry I have not been back to Kunduz and sorry I have no information on your son or his unit. I pray for his safety. Randy