Kabul – sun and dust

I slept on the way from Dubai. Partially because we spent the whole night in an Irish bar at the airport, savoring our last draft beers and watching “Vesnicko ma strediskova” and partially because the Kam Air flight was so empty that I could nicely spread over four seats. I awoke when the plane jerked and started diving in a wild spiral. This must be it – welcome to war, I thought as I clumsily reached the window to peer down at the place which was supposed to be my home for the next 18 months.

Barren, brown mountains everywhere, the colour of a dessert, sheer cliffs and narrow valleys, not a single tree, blue sky, not a cloud in sight, like a painting that looks too naïve to be considered art, black and white photograph which by some accident turned out blue and brown, and in the middle of this surreal scenery Kabul.

I read somewhere that Kabul died after it was liberated by the mujahedeen. The same people who fought for years to free their country from Soviet occupation all of the sudden could not resist fighting each other destroying street after street of this once beautiful city to gain strategic advantage only they understood. Well, that September morning Kabul looked very much alive to me. “Too much alive” would be more precise. Crazy traffic with speeding corollas fighting with 50 year-old trucks, donkeys, pedestrians, children running in the street, tricycles, tractors, old men pulling trolleys... Us 3 squeezed in our non-descript red corolla with a smiling driver. One hand on the horn, the other holding a cell phone he was showing me (the new guy) that with faith, luck and racing skills it only takes 15 minutes from the airport to our office-guest house.

In reality the traffic was exactly what you would expect. The impression accentuated by my sleepiness and the two defining characteristics of Kabul – dust and sun. The dust everywhere, combined with diesel fumes and smells of Kebab, sewage and rotting fruits. The sun blurred only by the dust making all the colors painfully bright, disguising real distances, bringing the surrounding mountains so close you feel like you could touch them.

The sensory overload of a first morning.