Istanbul Turkey
Every now and then you get to cover events like the Pope aka Il Papa, which is sort of like a roadshow that accompanies the President of the USA, these events are like circuses where you rarely get to see the actual person. It is highly unlikely that I will even see the Pope in the flesh during the week I am here in Istanbul. We arrive before the Pope, do previews and end up leaving days later.
Turkey is a nation of 70 million people, which is a hell of a lot of people in anyones books, a nation that is both in Europe and Asia, more Asia than Europe but at the same time a nation that wants to join the European Union but has some minor problems like Human Rights and the question of Cyprus, not that anyone cares in the rest of the world about Cyprus, apart from Turkey and Greece. Human Rights is something we all are aware of and yet when it comes to Turkey all we ever remember is the movie "Midnight Express" and that is the human rights issue Turkey grapples with to this day. Everyone thinks of Midnight Express as Turkeys Human Rights problem.
Having said that I am convinced that when we arrived in Istanbul the other day, a prison guard from Midnight Express was on duty. You can meet some of the most worst people in the world in Customs Officials and upon hearing that we had flown in from Israel, this guy took it upon himself to be the most obnoxious sod I have ever had the displeasure to meet, he even joined my favorite list of people I will never shake hands with along with slave traders I met in Sudan. The contempt and spit that came out of his mouth was matched only by his sheer rudeness. At one point it looked like I was actually just going to go upstairs and fly straight back out of the country before the gear was impounded. Luckily cool heads managed to placate the customs and they simply waved us through after 90 minutes with not even a stamp on a piece of paper. If you can figure that out then please let me know, but it seemed to be in the too hard basket and they obviously could not be bothered with paperwork.
The first morning of filming was set up for the Spice Market a building that is 350 years old. it is always strikes me as a reality check to realise that these places were built a century before Australia was even discovered, like all markets it has the faces and characters and one item that catches your attention. In the world of modern medicine Viagra has become a wonder drug, in the Spice Market of Istanbul you can buy the local version homemade that it looks like a cake with handmade signs proclaiming miracle results 5 times a night, by these hand drawn signs I took it to mean that the stuff is useless during the day.
The next stop was lunch and the inevitable bloody kebab, if America has the Hamburger and Australia the Meat Pie then Turkey has the kebab. an epicurian delight that gives you wind that smells like something has physically died inside you and indigestion that brings your stomach to your throat. But sitting in the Restaurant contemplating the 15 plus variations of kebab on the menu. Only one struck me "Well Mannered Lamb", now there is no way in hell that I am going to eat a bad tempered lamb and with a menu heading like that the decision was simple, simple being a good word because it turns out that "Well Mannered Lamb" is simple cubes of lamb that have been "Well marinated" none the less the lamb well mannered or not gave me indigestion and dead rat flatulence.
After such a feast we headed for a demo where Islamic Women stood outside one the famous ex Churches/Mosque/now Museum to protest the visit of the Pope. There were perhaps a hundred women, a couple of hundred world media and twice as many Police. Nothing happened not even a good old fashioned flag burning, since no one actually knows here that the Vatican has its own flag. The only funky thing was that the female police have these new riot outfits that make them look like a cross between BMX riders and Robo Cops.
Nothing happened at all but when I get the chance wait to I download a photo that shows Monty Python's Life of Brian is alive and well and living in Istanbul.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
Village of the damned
“Find me the dog shelter, in this town “ I asked
“Why?” asked Yonat our Producer
“Because, people care more about dogs than they do about poor people”
Sderot is the town in Israel that is the closest to Gaza and hence has been subjected to nearly a thousand Qassam rockets fired by militants in the Strip this year, about eighty in the past week. Now Qassam rockets are not the state of the art Tomahawk missiles but are crudely home made pipe bombs that rely more on the principle of ‘Point, shoot and prey’ principle of modern warfare.
When you hear in the news that Israel has struck a metal shop in Gaza, it really means that they have tried to wipe out a Qassam factory, and having spent time on the streets of Gaza, it often seems that there are as many ‘Metal Shops’ in a block as there are Starbucks stores on corners in New York City.
Sderot, is not exactly the resort capital of Israel. It is fair to say that it could lay claim to one of the most depressing places here, when Russian migrants come to Israel they believe they are coming to the land of milk and honey, only to find that they end up in the village of the damned.
To give you an example of playground conversations overheard today, a group of children maybe six of them aged eight to ten were in a vigourous discussion and when I asked Yoav to translate he laughed and said that they were each boosting that “No the Qassam landed closer to my house or the Qassam that landed near my flat was bigger than your Qassam”
Of course being down here for the whole day not one has been fired today and we have been sitting around drinking Israel’s worst coffee. The only highlight, is when someone walks past us and we try to guess how many bottles of 15 shekel vodka they have had to drink.
Fashion is something that should also be noted that Sderot is not famous for, as the procession in the main street showed. If you are female you must wear boots, preferably white and then try to totally uncordinate them with everything else you wear. Of course the famed hat makers of Sderot specialize in woolen caps in multi colors to match the socks sticking out of the boots.
This just a tragic town of twenty thousand where no one wants to live, but cannot afford to live anywhere else. Almost totally all Russian migrants, there are more signs in Russian than in Hebrew on the shop fronts and you hear more Russian than anything else spoken.
Why would I ask for a dog shelter?.
Because in the sad world of TV News, scared yelping puppies who have been abandoned by owners fleeing the rocket attacks has more impact than poor people pushing shopping carts in depressing streets.
We laughed about my idea, and no we did not go and find a dog shelter, but set up in the street for our live shots.
Still think it was a good idea though
Mal
Sderot
November 16, 2006
“Why?” asked Yonat our Producer
“Because, people care more about dogs than they do about poor people”
Sderot is the town in Israel that is the closest to Gaza and hence has been subjected to nearly a thousand Qassam rockets fired by militants in the Strip this year, about eighty in the past week. Now Qassam rockets are not the state of the art Tomahawk missiles but are crudely home made pipe bombs that rely more on the principle of ‘Point, shoot and prey’ principle of modern warfare.
When you hear in the news that Israel has struck a metal shop in Gaza, it really means that they have tried to wipe out a Qassam factory, and having spent time on the streets of Gaza, it often seems that there are as many ‘Metal Shops’ in a block as there are Starbucks stores on corners in New York City.
Sderot, is not exactly the resort capital of Israel. It is fair to say that it could lay claim to one of the most depressing places here, when Russian migrants come to Israel they believe they are coming to the land of milk and honey, only to find that they end up in the village of the damned.
To give you an example of playground conversations overheard today, a group of children maybe six of them aged eight to ten were in a vigourous discussion and when I asked Yoav to translate he laughed and said that they were each boosting that “No the Qassam landed closer to my house or the Qassam that landed near my flat was bigger than your Qassam”
Of course being down here for the whole day not one has been fired today and we have been sitting around drinking Israel’s worst coffee. The only highlight, is when someone walks past us and we try to guess how many bottles of 15 shekel vodka they have had to drink.
Fashion is something that should also be noted that Sderot is not famous for, as the procession in the main street showed. If you are female you must wear boots, preferably white and then try to totally uncordinate them with everything else you wear. Of course the famed hat makers of Sderot specialize in woolen caps in multi colors to match the socks sticking out of the boots.
This just a tragic town of twenty thousand where no one wants to live, but cannot afford to live anywhere else. Almost totally all Russian migrants, there are more signs in Russian than in Hebrew on the shop fronts and you hear more Russian than anything else spoken.
Why would I ask for a dog shelter?.
Because in the sad world of TV News, scared yelping puppies who have been abandoned by owners fleeing the rocket attacks has more impact than poor people pushing shopping carts in depressing streets.
We laughed about my idea, and no we did not go and find a dog shelter, but set up in the street for our live shots.
Still think it was a good idea though
Mal
Sderot
November 16, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Kandahar ' Worst Place on Earth" ?
Do you ever have one of those conversations?
What is the worst place in the world you have been too?
Now, I have always told anyone who would listen that
"Lets accept that there is a greater being than ourselves, and for the the sake of avoiding an argument lets call him 'God' that way we can include all messiahs and prophets, now this greater being decides that the Planet needs to be re cleansed and in keeping with the fads of the 21st Century naturally it involves the colon and lots of water"
Well the place the pipe goes into on this Planet is Kandahar, Afghanistan.
In the scheme of the world I have been to some shit places, and yet no matter where I travel Kandahar is yet to be topped as without doubt the worst place on Earth, that does not have an excuse of a Natural Disaster to blame for the misery and conditions that exist there.
The origins of the city go back to 330BC and Alexander the Great, for many centuries it was the capital of Afghanistan before Kabul and under the Taliban it was again the seat of power and decision making. led by a one eyed cleric Mullah Omar.
Born in 1959 (good year that, perhaps Omar and I are twins separated at birth) he grew up on a rural village near Kandahar and having attended a Madrassah he had risen to the highest ranks and even in a ceremony received the title of Commander of the faithful , which had not been adopted in nearly a thousand years wrapping himself in a cloak that is believed to have been the Prophet Mohammad, a ranking in the Islamic world that is nearly second to the Prophet himself.
From his humble youth to becoming a Mullah with his own Madrassah outside of Kandahar, Omar was taken back by the vacuum of the lack of law and order following the departure of Russians, local mujadhideen commanders were kidnapping and raping boys and girls and stealing from other Afghans at gunpoint on the roads. Thus the Taliban began, when Mullah Omar and 30 followers "picked up the gun" at first to stop four mujahideen who were raping women in a village close to Omars village, from there the Taliban grew to bring law and order to the entire country.
One of the things that amazed all of us on this trip was that everyone we met (and I do mean everyone) thanked the Taliban for restoring law and order, it never ceased to amaze me to hear farmers talk about the fact that their young sons were safe now from being raped. Boys more often than girls are raped in Afghanistan.
We had a couple of days shooting planned for Kandahar, including key interviews with the Taliban Foreign Minister and the Information Spin doctor Hashimi, who was the International Public Face of the Taliban, he was the street savvy kid with multi languages, American educated and even an accent, who would defend the Taliban till the end. Every now and then he still pops up here and there in interviews, but most of the time he appears to be in hiding.
The first morning i spent lying on the bathroom floor getting over the previous days journey from Herat and letting my body enjoy the magic world of porcelain as it completed the final stages of the bug we had picked up on the road.
The guys hired a mini van , as the Herat drivers had left us before first light no doubt after spending a wild night in the bright lights of Kandahar, not!. Officially we were still without our "Official Minder" as we had had no contact with any official who would take an official stance, but in the coming hours that was to officially change.
We went into the back streets and managed to shoot a few of the dreaded vox pops or MOS's (man on the streets) naturally asking in depth questions like, Do you know where Osama Bin Laden is? (this was still pre 9/11 attacks) the couple of interviews we did manage to get naturally said "We like OBL he is a good Muslim and a guest" . The trick is to keep moving to try and avoid a crowd or getting attention drawn to yourself, but given that not many American Television Crews were on the streets of Kandahar asking people their views on the worlds most wanted terrorist, it was at some stage that inevitably the Vice and Virtue Police were told that we were in town, and thus we became the hunted.
We drove out on the best piece of road in the entire country, which just so happened by chance to go to Mullah Omars residence and in those days reportedly Al Zawahiri (the real brains behind Al Qaida)had a house next door. This was one of those zones where you do not need the " No Photography " signs, it was evident that this was a compound not for the feint hearted we managed to get close to the first gates in a series of gates and squeeze off a few shots on the long end of the digital lens, which is a polite way of saying a couple of crappy pictures.
After the fall of the Taliban, I went back out to Omar's mansion following the bombings by US Forces and walked around his Mosque that he was building next to his house, the pictures were still crappy, at least he did not succumb to the third world dictator taste of bad architecture.
The next stop was the key interviews which involved driving miles out of town to the ramshackle buildings that were in effect the Government Offices of the Taliban and Afghanistan, for the key interviews, which were fascinating as neither guest blinked or apologized for what had happened in the rise to power or how they were dealing with the issues of women's rights. They had the standard spin answer which in reality is no different to any Western Leader giving an interview, the interviews went longer than expected with tea breaks that are mandatory in this part of the world.
We finally all piled into the van as it was almost dark and set of for the drive to the other side of the city perhaps 30 minutes or so, it is not that Kandahar is this vast urban (mud brick) metropolis, rather the roads are so bad and the drivers manage to set standards so low that only Israel would ever grant them a drivers license internationally.
We were approaching the main mosque in town where Omar had accepted the cloak, it was now dark and the only real street lighting came from the stores lining the roads. When a couple of cars pulled in front us blocking any movement, the Vice & Virtue boys had been looking all afternoon for us and could not figure where we were, not expecting that we were doing interviews with the leadership.
But the commander was agitated and pissed, and Imtiaz and him were involved in a verbal joust that in Pashtun sounds like two japanese game show hosts bidding for tuna. I casually got the Sat Phone out of the back of the van and rang New York Foreign Desk to inform them that we were now guests of Vice and Virtue, that things were alright and we would call them as soon as possible.
By this stage we were starting to draw a crowd so they hustle back into the van and were taken under escort to a building that was either a Police Station or Vice & Virtues Offices, since the only Police we ever saw were the occasional traffic lollypop Intersection variety in was without doubt V&V Headquarters.
In these situations there is nothing you can do as a foreigner, so it is one of those moments to sit back and enjoy the show of the Commander & Imtiaz going between offices and cars whilst contemplating the big issues of the world in the back of a van in Taliban Kandahar, behind the locked gates of the Vice and Virtue Police Offices in the dark.
Within half an hour Imtiaz had managed to placate the Commander and ensure him that we were heading directly to Kabul and our first stop was to be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press Section where we would get our minder. We were not pass Go or detour in any way the officials were unhappy with us being sans "Minder".
The only issue now was how to get to Kabul.
What is the worst place in the world you have been too?
Now, I have always told anyone who would listen that
"Lets accept that there is a greater being than ourselves, and for the the sake of avoiding an argument lets call him 'God' that way we can include all messiahs and prophets, now this greater being decides that the Planet needs to be re cleansed and in keeping with the fads of the 21st Century naturally it involves the colon and lots of water"
Well the place the pipe goes into on this Planet is Kandahar, Afghanistan.
In the scheme of the world I have been to some shit places, and yet no matter where I travel Kandahar is yet to be topped as without doubt the worst place on Earth, that does not have an excuse of a Natural Disaster to blame for the misery and conditions that exist there.
The origins of the city go back to 330BC and Alexander the Great, for many centuries it was the capital of Afghanistan before Kabul and under the Taliban it was again the seat of power and decision making. led by a one eyed cleric Mullah Omar.
Born in 1959 (good year that, perhaps Omar and I are twins separated at birth) he grew up on a rural village near Kandahar and having attended a Madrassah he had risen to the highest ranks and even in a ceremony received the title of Commander of the faithful , which had not been adopted in nearly a thousand years wrapping himself in a cloak that is believed to have been the Prophet Mohammad, a ranking in the Islamic world that is nearly second to the Prophet himself.
From his humble youth to becoming a Mullah with his own Madrassah outside of Kandahar, Omar was taken back by the vacuum of the lack of law and order following the departure of Russians, local mujadhideen commanders were kidnapping and raping boys and girls and stealing from other Afghans at gunpoint on the roads. Thus the Taliban began, when Mullah Omar and 30 followers "picked up the gun" at first to stop four mujahideen who were raping women in a village close to Omars village, from there the Taliban grew to bring law and order to the entire country.
One of the things that amazed all of us on this trip was that everyone we met (and I do mean everyone) thanked the Taliban for restoring law and order, it never ceased to amaze me to hear farmers talk about the fact that their young sons were safe now from being raped. Boys more often than girls are raped in Afghanistan.
We had a couple of days shooting planned for Kandahar, including key interviews with the Taliban Foreign Minister and the Information Spin doctor Hashimi, who was the International Public Face of the Taliban, he was the street savvy kid with multi languages, American educated and even an accent, who would defend the Taliban till the end. Every now and then he still pops up here and there in interviews, but most of the time he appears to be in hiding.
The first morning i spent lying on the bathroom floor getting over the previous days journey from Herat and letting my body enjoy the magic world of porcelain as it completed the final stages of the bug we had picked up on the road.
The guys hired a mini van , as the Herat drivers had left us before first light no doubt after spending a wild night in the bright lights of Kandahar, not!. Officially we were still without our "Official Minder" as we had had no contact with any official who would take an official stance, but in the coming hours that was to officially change.
We went into the back streets and managed to shoot a few of the dreaded vox pops or MOS's (man on the streets) naturally asking in depth questions like, Do you know where Osama Bin Laden is? (this was still pre 9/11 attacks) the couple of interviews we did manage to get naturally said "We like OBL he is a good Muslim and a guest" . The trick is to keep moving to try and avoid a crowd or getting attention drawn to yourself, but given that not many American Television Crews were on the streets of Kandahar asking people their views on the worlds most wanted terrorist, it was at some stage that inevitably the Vice and Virtue Police were told that we were in town, and thus we became the hunted.
We drove out on the best piece of road in the entire country, which just so happened by chance to go to Mullah Omars residence and in those days reportedly Al Zawahiri (the real brains behind Al Qaida)had a house next door. This was one of those zones where you do not need the " No Photography " signs, it was evident that this was a compound not for the feint hearted we managed to get close to the first gates in a series of gates and squeeze off a few shots on the long end of the digital lens, which is a polite way of saying a couple of crappy pictures.
After the fall of the Taliban, I went back out to Omar's mansion following the bombings by US Forces and walked around his Mosque that he was building next to his house, the pictures were still crappy, at least he did not succumb to the third world dictator taste of bad architecture.
The next stop was the key interviews which involved driving miles out of town to the ramshackle buildings that were in effect the Government Offices of the Taliban and Afghanistan, for the key interviews, which were fascinating as neither guest blinked or apologized for what had happened in the rise to power or how they were dealing with the issues of women's rights. They had the standard spin answer which in reality is no different to any Western Leader giving an interview, the interviews went longer than expected with tea breaks that are mandatory in this part of the world.
We finally all piled into the van as it was almost dark and set of for the drive to the other side of the city perhaps 30 minutes or so, it is not that Kandahar is this vast urban (mud brick) metropolis, rather the roads are so bad and the drivers manage to set standards so low that only Israel would ever grant them a drivers license internationally.
We were approaching the main mosque in town where Omar had accepted the cloak, it was now dark and the only real street lighting came from the stores lining the roads. When a couple of cars pulled in front us blocking any movement, the Vice & Virtue boys had been looking all afternoon for us and could not figure where we were, not expecting that we were doing interviews with the leadership.
But the commander was agitated and pissed, and Imtiaz and him were involved in a verbal joust that in Pashtun sounds like two japanese game show hosts bidding for tuna. I casually got the Sat Phone out of the back of the van and rang New York Foreign Desk to inform them that we were now guests of Vice and Virtue, that things were alright and we would call them as soon as possible.
By this stage we were starting to draw a crowd so they hustle back into the van and were taken under escort to a building that was either a Police Station or Vice & Virtues Offices, since the only Police we ever saw were the occasional traffic lollypop Intersection variety in was without doubt V&V Headquarters.
In these situations there is nothing you can do as a foreigner, so it is one of those moments to sit back and enjoy the show of the Commander & Imtiaz going between offices and cars whilst contemplating the big issues of the world in the back of a van in Taliban Kandahar, behind the locked gates of the Vice and Virtue Police Offices in the dark.
Within half an hour Imtiaz had managed to placate the Commander and ensure him that we were heading directly to Kabul and our first stop was to be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press Section where we would get our minder. We were not pass Go or detour in any way the officials were unhappy with us being sans "Minder".
The only issue now was how to get to Kabul.
The Desert Of Death
Have you ever been so sick from food poisoning that you want to curl up and die, then imagine how you feel three hours into a trip on the road through the Desert of Death.
" The old Soviet constructed road to Kandahar is terrible and travel between the two cities ( Herat / Kandahar) can take up to 18 hours. The UN has applied a travel ban on this road from dawn to late afternoon, (particularly on the stretch through Helmend Province) as a result of Islamic guerilla activity. Check the current situation before travelling on this road."
We had finished shooting in Herat and our next destination was Kandahar the spiritual centre and capital of Afghanistan under the Taliban. Our two taxi drivers were confident that their trusty Toyotas were capable of the drive, which they said they did on a regular basis. But they did warn us that we would need to leave to be on the road before 4am so as to maximise driving in the cool of the morning before the heat of the day. There was no air conditioning in the cars and in fact a colander has less holes in it to stop the dust and heat coming in.
They warned us that the road would be bad in certain areas which turned out to the understatement of the year, within fifteen minutes of leaving the road became a dust bowl of destroyed bituman with more potholes in the dirt than flat road, all going well the drivers estimated 14 hours and that we would arrive before nightfall. This is an area were you do not travel at night for all the obvious reasons.
We split the team up with Greg, Joe and Lara in one car, with myself and our fixer Imtiaz in the second car. The first thing our drivers asked us was do we have any music tapes to listen to on the drive. The Taliban had banned all music with the exception of listening to the Koran, a copy of which our driver proudly held up and told us not to worry he had a Koran on tape for when we would be stopped by the checkpoints.
The Taliban set up checkpoints on the roads all over Afghanistan and would stop all cars to search for music, if they found any tapes they would destroy the cassettes by pulling the entire tape out and drape it over poles in old oil drums so that people could see that they were serious about stopping the scourge of music.
I would like to add a personal note that given the standard of music in Afghanistan that the Taliban were actually doing a favour to everyone by ridding the nation of bad music taste.
In these pre ipod days I always travelled with a compile of music tapes, which after listening to a hundred times became just as torturous as an Afghan Top 40 compile. But at least it was better than listen to the exhaust and engine straining thru the dust.
During the drive we went through about three of these Taliban Music checkpoints, and sure enough there was cassette tapes hung up proudly for all transgessors to see. In a fit of laughter we started to call these " Taliban Christmas Trees" and still to day we laugh about them.
The first few hours passed and eventually the drivers pulled into a couple of mud brick houses by the side of the road and proclaimed that this was the breakfast and prayer stop. You get used to drivers pulling over and stopping for prayers by the side of the road, if anything it gives you a chance to stretch your legs and ten minutes of peace.
The mud huts it turned out, were the Afghan equivalent of a Truck Stop, and as we sat in the dark room illuminated by a couple of of lamps, our hosts bought out traditional afghan tea made with milk and very sweet, then came the bread and two fried eggs.
For such little that went in, the mathematical equation did not add up because within an hour back on the road cramps and the uncontrollable urge to expel everfy body organ, not only hit me, but Greg and Joe also had an Alien growing in their guts.
Now the Desert of Death is not called that name lightly, it is the most barren inhospitable land I have ever been through, there is not a living thing for hundreds of kilometers, what passes for a road is elevated to avoid flash floods that happen on the two days a year that it considers to rain, the only saving grace is that this meant that there were culverts under the road and in our state it offered us the only place of privacy, and thus when ever we saw a culvert the taxis would come to a rapid stop and the three of us would fly out trying to hold our stomachs in for the dash off the road. And the sanctuary of the culvert, when we relayed this story to some people over the next few days they told us that we were the luckiest bastards alive.
As it turns out this entire stretch of road is one of the most intensively land mined stretches of road in the world, when the Russians were in Afghanistan they had a massive airbase at Shindead and as a result landmined the complete region. What happened is that the average Russian conscript did not give a damm about laying mines and would often just sweep aq cursory handful of dust over the top of the landmine. Then over the years when it rained the landmines would be caught in the stormwaters and be washed to .... yes you guessed it the culverts under the road, so the sanctuary of our inpromptu latrine was in fact infested with landmines.
To be honest we were by this stage so ill that it is one of those moments that you wish you could die, in more than one way we almost had our dreams come true. we all forget how many drugs we tried to get into our bodies to stop the lose of fluids because we still had over eight hours of misery to endure.
I remember virtually lying in these culverts amongst the remnants of others who had suffered the same fate and wishing the world would end, it was just a chance to get out of the heat of the sun that was by now really hitting bad.
The amazing thing is that Lara did not get the bug, perhaps it was that she had the good common sense not to eat when we did. However whenever we stopped we had to cover the car windows with whatever we had so that men could not look in, we even named the car she was in with Joe and greg and the Burqa Car. We had the luxury of stretching our legs and poor lara had to just sit and endure the sun in the Burqa Car.
Hour after hour we continued , my tapes had been played countless times to the point even I was bored with them and still the potholes rattled every bone in my body the heat started to diminish and we started to see signs of life. We were approaching Kandahar the heartland of the Taliban. Naturally we had no hotel or even any idea as to where we could stay. We decided to turn up at the UN house and see what they could offer and against all odds they had a guest house which was vacant and they offered us a room with air con, the only time we would ever have it in Afghanistan so after an incredible day of travel that amazes people to this day. We had driven from Herat across the Desert of Death and Lars from the UN even offered us a home brew beer, bathtub beer tasted good that night.
" The old Soviet constructed road to Kandahar is terrible and travel between the two cities ( Herat / Kandahar) can take up to 18 hours. The UN has applied a travel ban on this road from dawn to late afternoon, (particularly on the stretch through Helmend Province) as a result of Islamic guerilla activity. Check the current situation before travelling on this road."
We had finished shooting in Herat and our next destination was Kandahar the spiritual centre and capital of Afghanistan under the Taliban. Our two taxi drivers were confident that their trusty Toyotas were capable of the drive, which they said they did on a regular basis. But they did warn us that we would need to leave to be on the road before 4am so as to maximise driving in the cool of the morning before the heat of the day. There was no air conditioning in the cars and in fact a colander has less holes in it to stop the dust and heat coming in.
They warned us that the road would be bad in certain areas which turned out to the understatement of the year, within fifteen minutes of leaving the road became a dust bowl of destroyed bituman with more potholes in the dirt than flat road, all going well the drivers estimated 14 hours and that we would arrive before nightfall. This is an area were you do not travel at night for all the obvious reasons.
We split the team up with Greg, Joe and Lara in one car, with myself and our fixer Imtiaz in the second car. The first thing our drivers asked us was do we have any music tapes to listen to on the drive. The Taliban had banned all music with the exception of listening to the Koran, a copy of which our driver proudly held up and told us not to worry he had a Koran on tape for when we would be stopped by the checkpoints.
The Taliban set up checkpoints on the roads all over Afghanistan and would stop all cars to search for music, if they found any tapes they would destroy the cassettes by pulling the entire tape out and drape it over poles in old oil drums so that people could see that they were serious about stopping the scourge of music.
I would like to add a personal note that given the standard of music in Afghanistan that the Taliban were actually doing a favour to everyone by ridding the nation of bad music taste.
In these pre ipod days I always travelled with a compile of music tapes, which after listening to a hundred times became just as torturous as an Afghan Top 40 compile. But at least it was better than listen to the exhaust and engine straining thru the dust.
During the drive we went through about three of these Taliban Music checkpoints, and sure enough there was cassette tapes hung up proudly for all transgessors to see. In a fit of laughter we started to call these " Taliban Christmas Trees" and still to day we laugh about them.
The first few hours passed and eventually the drivers pulled into a couple of mud brick houses by the side of the road and proclaimed that this was the breakfast and prayer stop. You get used to drivers pulling over and stopping for prayers by the side of the road, if anything it gives you a chance to stretch your legs and ten minutes of peace.
The mud huts it turned out, were the Afghan equivalent of a Truck Stop, and as we sat in the dark room illuminated by a couple of of lamps, our hosts bought out traditional afghan tea made with milk and very sweet, then came the bread and two fried eggs.
For such little that went in, the mathematical equation did not add up because within an hour back on the road cramps and the uncontrollable urge to expel everfy body organ, not only hit me, but Greg and Joe also had an Alien growing in their guts.
Now the Desert of Death is not called that name lightly, it is the most barren inhospitable land I have ever been through, there is not a living thing for hundreds of kilometers, what passes for a road is elevated to avoid flash floods that happen on the two days a year that it considers to rain, the only saving grace is that this meant that there were culverts under the road and in our state it offered us the only place of privacy, and thus when ever we saw a culvert the taxis would come to a rapid stop and the three of us would fly out trying to hold our stomachs in for the dash off the road. And the sanctuary of the culvert, when we relayed this story to some people over the next few days they told us that we were the luckiest bastards alive.
As it turns out this entire stretch of road is one of the most intensively land mined stretches of road in the world, when the Russians were in Afghanistan they had a massive airbase at Shindead and as a result landmined the complete region. What happened is that the average Russian conscript did not give a damm about laying mines and would often just sweep aq cursory handful of dust over the top of the landmine. Then over the years when it rained the landmines would be caught in the stormwaters and be washed to .... yes you guessed it the culverts under the road, so the sanctuary of our inpromptu latrine was in fact infested with landmines.
To be honest we were by this stage so ill that it is one of those moments that you wish you could die, in more than one way we almost had our dreams come true. we all forget how many drugs we tried to get into our bodies to stop the lose of fluids because we still had over eight hours of misery to endure.
I remember virtually lying in these culverts amongst the remnants of others who had suffered the same fate and wishing the world would end, it was just a chance to get out of the heat of the sun that was by now really hitting bad.
The amazing thing is that Lara did not get the bug, perhaps it was that she had the good common sense not to eat when we did. However whenever we stopped we had to cover the car windows with whatever we had so that men could not look in, we even named the car she was in with Joe and greg and the Burqa Car. We had the luxury of stretching our legs and poor lara had to just sit and endure the sun in the Burqa Car.
Hour after hour we continued , my tapes had been played countless times to the point even I was bored with them and still the potholes rattled every bone in my body the heat started to diminish and we started to see signs of life. We were approaching Kandahar the heartland of the Taliban. Naturally we had no hotel or even any idea as to where we could stay. We decided to turn up at the UN house and see what they could offer and against all odds they had a guest house which was vacant and they offered us a room with air con, the only time we would ever have it in Afghanistan so after an incredible day of travel that amazes people to this day. We had driven from Herat across the Desert of Death and Lars from the UN even offered us a home brew beer, bathtub beer tasted good that night.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Lost in the Computer
First up apologies for those who read these ramblings and background to life on the road, somehow my computer has eaten the three next installments on the Taliban in Afghanistan
Not to be discouraged the search on the hard disc continues
Cheers
Mal
Not to be discouraged the search on the hard disc continues
Cheers
Mal
Monday, September 25, 2006
Herat Part Three - Life and Death on the Road to Iran
In late January 2001 the temperature around Herat dropped to minus 25 C, brutal numb chilling cold and more than 150 people effectively froze to death in the "Internally Displaced Persons" Camps outside Herat on the road to Iran. The world politically corrected the term to "Internally Displaced Persons" instead of "refugees you are technically not a refugee till you cross a border. People actually discuss this point in offices around the world, but as we drove out to the Camps about 40 km I knew that we were going to a Refugee Camp.
Afghanistan was in the grip of its worst drought since 1971, the fighting pre Taliban between warring factions had destroyed communities and now with the Taliban's Iron Fisted Rule people from rural areas had nothing left but hope. Almost 10% of the population of Afghanistan's 22 million people displaced desperately seeking help and hope. The lucky ones managed to get out to neighboring Pakistan and Iran and had a life of misery in Refugee Camps far from home.
Through another piece of good luck and poor communications between officials we actually had permission from Taliban Authorities to film out at the camps, the plight had gotten so bad that even they realized the need for the world to see the worsening situation in the camps within and that help was needed. The UN and other aid agencies could simply not cope with the scale of tragedy that was unfolding.
You approach the camp on the only road out to Iran, a five hour drive away. At first you honestly wonder what has happened and as we turned into the only permanent building in the area, guards with long whip like sticks were beating men who surged to get to the gate and hopefully food. It was a scene that was to replay itself time and time again whilst were there. This was not cruelty or punishment for the sadistic minded officials, but the only form of crowd control, to stop the food store being over run by the desperate. A two storey mud brick complex with a couple of large rooms for the bags of aid, most of it USAID wheat being handed out by the UN.
I went to the roof and squeezing past the machine gun nests on the roof looked down into the sea of desperation, Every few minutes the guards would open the gate a small way and allow a lucky few men thru to get food.
The official in charge of the camp was in despair trying to do the impossible with nothing, this camp extended more than 5 km's, tents that offered shelter from sun and rain but not from the cold or heat. It is in the middle of a desert terrain without any trees for shade or more importantly fuel for cooking or heating. Taking us down the road we stopped at a tent and I filmed small children queueing for a pail of gruel. They did not complain at their life, for most they knew nothing better at least there was some food here, it breaks your heart to stand there filming as a four year pushes here two year old sister or brother forward with a bowl to get the only food they would that day and then see them both try to walk back through the maze of canvas together trying not to spill the slop. Only children were allowed to get food from this kitchen Aid tent, as the official said we try to feed the children first they in turn take it back for the sick and elderly with whom they share, adults rarely ate in this camp. Were they starving with distended stomachs, no but the fear was that unless aid came and the world started to care it was a real possibility. It was the sound of the cookers hissing that I remember to this day slowly keeping warm vats of gruel, as if Charles Dickens Oliver Twist Workhouse kitchen was in the middle of this desert.
We were then taken down to the arrival area and the official casually mentioned do not worry if there is nothing there when we arrive because more would surely arrive. I always get worried when we are relying on key pictures to tell a story only to be told before we arrive that nothing was there, in many places we have waited hours for nothing to be constantly reminded that we should of been here yesterday.
Filming the Arrival of IDP's outsside Herat
In this case tragically the official was right, next to the Medical arrival tent where all refugees (IDP's - Internally Displaced Persons) are processed and most importantly immunized against disease, there was nothing there. Within five minutes a truck arrived and then another, within twenty minutes four trucks arrived. battered old Russian models with men riding on the rail around the side providing security for there family who were huddled in the back. It wasn't until the third truck arrived that I climbed up to film the scene and the conditions that these people had endured to reach the sanctuary of hope that the camp provided. Few things prepare you for the despair you sometimes face and looking down into the bed of the truck were about 75 women and children crushed together clinging to the hope that somehow they were safe. From babies barely days old to to the old who had nothing. We were told that they had travelled for four days in these conditions to the camp and hope of a better life.
From the trucks they would be processed and immunized for the fear of disease is of paramount in these conditions, like a military operation they would over the next half an hour be shuffled thru the tents and in the whole time we were in Afghanistan this would be the only time that I could openly film women, some in Burqas others with the shroud flung back as they held the children as they cried when the doctors gave injections, what struck me was that in these desolate austere grey and sand was the color of clothing amongst everything I was to film that day this was the only color I saw.
Eventaully our hosts had had enough and not sure of what actual permission we had, they started to get nervous and said we had enough, so true I thought how much misery can you capture thru the lens of a camera. We had more than enough misery and despair for the stories we would file once we left. We drove back to Herat, all of us quiet and I am sure all of praying for a better life for these people.
Was this the worst misery I had ever filmed, no that had happened the previous year in an Afghan Refugee Camp called Jalozai outside Pershawar in Pakistan, and will be the subject of another entry. It was the only time that after a trip on the flight back home that I went into the toilet of the plane and cried myself silly with the nightmare I had seen.
Vaccination Photos by Joe Kainz
Afghanistan was in the grip of its worst drought since 1971, the fighting pre Taliban between warring factions had destroyed communities and now with the Taliban's Iron Fisted Rule people from rural areas had nothing left but hope. Almost 10% of the population of Afghanistan's 22 million people displaced desperately seeking help and hope. The lucky ones managed to get out to neighboring Pakistan and Iran and had a life of misery in Refugee Camps far from home.
Through another piece of good luck and poor communications between officials we actually had permission from Taliban Authorities to film out at the camps, the plight had gotten so bad that even they realized the need for the world to see the worsening situation in the camps within and that help was needed. The UN and other aid agencies could simply not cope with the scale of tragedy that was unfolding.
You approach the camp on the only road out to Iran, a five hour drive away. At first you honestly wonder what has happened and as we turned into the only permanent building in the area, guards with long whip like sticks were beating men who surged to get to the gate and hopefully food. It was a scene that was to replay itself time and time again whilst were there. This was not cruelty or punishment for the sadistic minded officials, but the only form of crowd control, to stop the food store being over run by the desperate. A two storey mud brick complex with a couple of large rooms for the bags of aid, most of it USAID wheat being handed out by the UN.
I went to the roof and squeezing past the machine gun nests on the roof looked down into the sea of desperation, Every few minutes the guards would open the gate a small way and allow a lucky few men thru to get food.
The official in charge of the camp was in despair trying to do the impossible with nothing, this camp extended more than 5 km's, tents that offered shelter from sun and rain but not from the cold or heat. It is in the middle of a desert terrain without any trees for shade or more importantly fuel for cooking or heating. Taking us down the road we stopped at a tent and I filmed small children queueing for a pail of gruel. They did not complain at their life, for most they knew nothing better at least there was some food here, it breaks your heart to stand there filming as a four year pushes here two year old sister or brother forward with a bowl to get the only food they would that day and then see them both try to walk back through the maze of canvas together trying not to spill the slop. Only children were allowed to get food from this kitchen Aid tent, as the official said we try to feed the children first they in turn take it back for the sick and elderly with whom they share, adults rarely ate in this camp. Were they starving with distended stomachs, no but the fear was that unless aid came and the world started to care it was a real possibility. It was the sound of the cookers hissing that I remember to this day slowly keeping warm vats of gruel, as if Charles Dickens Oliver Twist Workhouse kitchen was in the middle of this desert.
We were then taken down to the arrival area and the official casually mentioned do not worry if there is nothing there when we arrive because more would surely arrive. I always get worried when we are relying on key pictures to tell a story only to be told before we arrive that nothing was there, in many places we have waited hours for nothing to be constantly reminded that we should of been here yesterday.
Filming the Arrival of IDP's outsside Herat
In this case tragically the official was right, next to the Medical arrival tent where all refugees (IDP's - Internally Displaced Persons) are processed and most importantly immunized against disease, there was nothing there. Within five minutes a truck arrived and then another, within twenty minutes four trucks arrived. battered old Russian models with men riding on the rail around the side providing security for there family who were huddled in the back. It wasn't until the third truck arrived that I climbed up to film the scene and the conditions that these people had endured to reach the sanctuary of hope that the camp provided. Few things prepare you for the despair you sometimes face and looking down into the bed of the truck were about 75 women and children crushed together clinging to the hope that somehow they were safe. From babies barely days old to to the old who had nothing. We were told that they had travelled for four days in these conditions to the camp and hope of a better life.
From the trucks they would be processed and immunized for the fear of disease is of paramount in these conditions, like a military operation they would over the next half an hour be shuffled thru the tents and in the whole time we were in Afghanistan this would be the only time that I could openly film women, some in Burqas others with the shroud flung back as they held the children as they cried when the doctors gave injections, what struck me was that in these desolate austere grey and sand was the color of clothing amongst everything I was to film that day this was the only color I saw.
Eventaully our hosts had had enough and not sure of what actual permission we had, they started to get nervous and said we had enough, so true I thought how much misery can you capture thru the lens of a camera. We had more than enough misery and despair for the stories we would file once we left. We drove back to Herat, all of us quiet and I am sure all of praying for a better life for these people.
Was this the worst misery I had ever filmed, no that had happened the previous year in an Afghan Refugee Camp called Jalozai outside Pershawar in Pakistan, and will be the subject of another entry. It was the only time that after a trip on the flight back home that I went into the toilet of the plane and cried myself silly with the nightmare I had seen.
Vaccination Photos by Joe Kainz
Friday, September 22, 2006
Herat Part Two - Taliban Sport
I was to learn that if you wanted to film in Taliban Afghanistan, then it would almost always be done undercover, with a small video camera pointing out the window of a moving car, only a very few times in remote areas could I get my large Betacam out to film with. The bottom line was if Vice and Virtue were around then all work was done on small cameras.
With Imtiaz in the front seat and me in the back we slowly drove around town, trying not to be conspicuous but at the same time trying to get some sense of life in Herat under the Taliban, as one of the features we had slated was a general piece of Life in Afghanistan under the Taliban, so we needed video and more than anything we needed video of women in Burqas, driving around Herat that afternoon we got lucky and managed to get some good video of women filming secretly from the car. However the lure of the football game that afternoon was hard to resist.
Picture : Taken secretly from inside the car , of women in Burqas in Herat
We thought that it would be best to wait till near the end of the game before we tried to get in and film some scenes. To give you a sense of the mob mentality that pervaded under the Taliban, the previous year the Pakistani Football team had come to Herat to play a friendly match against the National Afghan Side, neither teams in an way being a world football force of any distinction and the match was a low key event.
But when the Pakistan team went onto the field the word was that a riot almost ensued, but the mob was getting angry. It had nothing to do whatsoever with the actual game, but to the horror of the crowd, the Pakistanis were wearing normal shorts and showing skin on the legs and to add insult even further several of the Pakistani Players did not have beards. In contrast the Afghan Team had shorts down to the shins and long socks to ensure modesty and beards naturally. The Taliban had issued a decree that all males where to have beards. The game had not gone well for Afghanistan and eventually the mob had had enough so they stormed the field in the name of Allah (apparently they were also losing) and started attacking the Pakistani Team for the lack of respect for religious matters. They shaved the heads of some of the players as a punishment and the team managed to flee the mob with new haircuts, battered and bruised
There were only three countries that ever officially and diplomatically recognized the Taliban as a legitimate Government, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So the chances of another friendly football match had been agreed to a year later and as we stood outside the ground we could at least hear the hysteria of a crowd watching a match rather than the baying of a frenzied mob. Imtiaz went in and looked around then came out got me to come in, the stadium had perhaps 5,000 men watching the the game all with beards.
Picture : Taliban Foot Soldier at the Football,
I quietly filmed the general scene trying more than anything not to be noticed which in that crowd was not an easy job, but at least the Pakistani team were wearing very long shorts well past their knees and long long socks, plus I did notice they all had beards. This was not football of any high standard but since the only other sport normally held in Football Stadiums were public beheadings , whippings and stoning's at least football was by any standard a far more normal spectator sport. Everytime the ball was kicked there seemed to be more dust in the air than anything else.
When arrived Afghanistan was down one nil, but managed to score an equalizer in the last few minutes, now not being a cynic but lets say diplomatically it was better for the home team fans to be happy and celebrating a draw rather than taking out the anger in a riot. It was better to be equals, with a late minute goal than to go home with shaven heads.
I got a few decent shots of the crowd as I thought it might be one of the few chances of large groups of men together. Even the officials seemed happy for a few minutes and allowed me to film a few of the local leaders who were on the sideline. However there reached a point when I was getting more hands on the lens than anything else,
Picture - The hand on the lens " No More Pictures"
Imtiaz and i both agreed that that rather push our luck filming the crowds it was time to leave and get back to the hotel before it got dark and the curfew was enforced by the Vice and Virtue Patrols.
Night Picture of the Taliban Vice & Virtue Patrol during curfew in Herat.
There is not much to do at night in Herat and the next morning we wanted to head out to Refugee Camps close to the Iranian border, the main reason for coming to Herat was to get to the camps and try and see what misery existed in the deserts of no hope.
With Imtiaz in the front seat and me in the back we slowly drove around town, trying not to be conspicuous but at the same time trying to get some sense of life in Herat under the Taliban, as one of the features we had slated was a general piece of Life in Afghanistan under the Taliban, so we needed video and more than anything we needed video of women in Burqas, driving around Herat that afternoon we got lucky and managed to get some good video of women filming secretly from the car. However the lure of the football game that afternoon was hard to resist.
Picture : Taken secretly from inside the car , of women in Burqas in Herat
We thought that it would be best to wait till near the end of the game before we tried to get in and film some scenes. To give you a sense of the mob mentality that pervaded under the Taliban, the previous year the Pakistani Football team had come to Herat to play a friendly match against the National Afghan Side, neither teams in an way being a world football force of any distinction and the match was a low key event.
But when the Pakistan team went onto the field the word was that a riot almost ensued, but the mob was getting angry. It had nothing to do whatsoever with the actual game, but to the horror of the crowd, the Pakistanis were wearing normal shorts and showing skin on the legs and to add insult even further several of the Pakistani Players did not have beards. In contrast the Afghan Team had shorts down to the shins and long socks to ensure modesty and beards naturally. The Taliban had issued a decree that all males where to have beards. The game had not gone well for Afghanistan and eventually the mob had had enough so they stormed the field in the name of Allah (apparently they were also losing) and started attacking the Pakistani Team for the lack of respect for religious matters. They shaved the heads of some of the players as a punishment and the team managed to flee the mob with new haircuts, battered and bruised
There were only three countries that ever officially and diplomatically recognized the Taliban as a legitimate Government, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So the chances of another friendly football match had been agreed to a year later and as we stood outside the ground we could at least hear the hysteria of a crowd watching a match rather than the baying of a frenzied mob. Imtiaz went in and looked around then came out got me to come in, the stadium had perhaps 5,000 men watching the the game all with beards.
Picture : Taliban Foot Soldier at the Football,
I quietly filmed the general scene trying more than anything not to be noticed which in that crowd was not an easy job, but at least the Pakistani team were wearing very long shorts well past their knees and long long socks, plus I did notice they all had beards. This was not football of any high standard but since the only other sport normally held in Football Stadiums were public beheadings , whippings and stoning's at least football was by any standard a far more normal spectator sport. Everytime the ball was kicked there seemed to be more dust in the air than anything else.
When arrived Afghanistan was down one nil, but managed to score an equalizer in the last few minutes, now not being a cynic but lets say diplomatically it was better for the home team fans to be happy and celebrating a draw rather than taking out the anger in a riot. It was better to be equals, with a late minute goal than to go home with shaven heads.
I got a few decent shots of the crowd as I thought it might be one of the few chances of large groups of men together. Even the officials seemed happy for a few minutes and allowed me to film a few of the local leaders who were on the sideline. However there reached a point when I was getting more hands on the lens than anything else,
Picture - The hand on the lens " No More Pictures"
Imtiaz and i both agreed that that rather push our luck filming the crowds it was time to leave and get back to the hotel before it got dark and the curfew was enforced by the Vice and Virtue Patrols.
Night Picture of the Taliban Vice & Virtue Patrol during curfew in Herat.
There is not much to do at night in Herat and the next morning we wanted to head out to Refugee Camps close to the Iranian border, the main reason for coming to Herat was to get to the camps and try and see what misery existed in the deserts of no hope.
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