4AM

It’s four am. I’m surprisingly awake, apparently Louis hardly slept, but I was like a rock, dead to the world for a mere 150 minutes give or take. Our colleague Salah had arrived in the interim. He was patient, we were groggy.

Louis is right when he says Salah is by far the friendliest, most generous person we’ve met thus far. Asking for no money, he’s driven from Benghazi to Alexandria to reach us and bring us back, all because his friend Sami asked. Why did Sami do it? Because his brother in law told him we needed a ride and were coming to help the Libyan people.

I know almost nothing of Libya, but if the generosity we’ve experienced thus far is a good indication, I may have a new second home after this trip.

Once the car was loaded and a minor crisis of a missing cellphone was averted we were on our way, driving again. So far in 3 days we’ve not stayed the night in any one place twice.

Salah pulled away from our friends house and I pulled away from reality, again sound asleep in the back of a microbus.

BARANI

The parking of the van jolted me awake. Another dusty west Egyptian town, just like resting places on the roads of Syrian and Jordan, this locale is no different. I lean over to comment on the similarity to Louis, perhaps like the American east coast corridor up I-95, rest stops are the same from the Maghreb to southeast Turkey.

Salah ordered up breakfast, plates of beans, salad, some type of meat-most likely lamb or beef, but I didn’t ask-and a chickpea/lentil style soup. It was hearty and filling eaten with our hands and the ubiquitous bread-as-utensil style of Arabian cuisine all over the region.

The restaurant was quite busy for such a remote location, full of locals, as well we noticed a hip Arab female reporter with fancy glasses, wing tipped and translucent, she was accompanied by a stocky guy with his head wrapped, looking for all the world like a prototypical cameraman.

The first white person I’ve seen since leaving Cairo wanders in, looking about, seeming lost. We try to discern whether she’s an aid worker or journalist, could even be a war tourist-though it can be hard to tell between the three. An Arab wearing a UNHCR vest walks in at this moment, further confusing the issue.

Our attention is suddenly drawn away from the interpersonal dynamics of the characters populating the breakfast tables. Abstract images from a news channel flicker across the screen of a television on the far side of the room. Best we can tell there appears to have been a massive earthquake and pictures of a tsunami, or is it only a predicted/expect tsunami? It’s unclear, but definitely alarming. Lucky for us the only nearby coast is in the natural shelter of the Mediterranean. A tsunami of natural causes is the least of our worries at the moment.

Finishing breakfast, we have a spoke and prepare to leave. Salah is talking with a local man who is sitting with the white lady. It turns out she’s a journalist from Austria. She was headed to Benghazi until the man she is with decided it was too dangerous for him and he wasn’t willing to go. After a brief discussion with Louis and Salah we decide more company would be nice and invite her along.

SALLOUM AND THE BORDER

An hour out of Barani we arrive at the small dusty town of Salloum. Most of the town is shuttered but it’s impossible to determine whether that’s on account of it being Friday or related in some part to the events of recent days, or something else altogether. After the briefest of stops here its full speed to the border.

The first check at the border is a breeze, a hello, a glance at our passports, and we are waved on. The generally opaque bureaucracy of customs/passport control in the region is fairly unnoteworthy all told. More interesting is our stop at a police station between the entrance to the exit region of Egypt, before we make it to the entrance point for Libya.

A long line of young men of various nationalities has formed behind a microbus slightly larger than ours. At a distance of a few hundred meters it’s hard to tell exactly what’s happening. The microbus appears to be quite full, but now the line has at least doubled, no tripled. I’m nearly unable to keep from laughing due to the stark absurdity of the image in front of me.

A smile cracks my tired face when I see one of the young men pass out from the front of the vehicle clutching a worn pair of jeans and the mystery is revealed. Migrant laborers, stuck in the border area, are receiving clothing donations from somewhere.

Rather than crammed with bodies yearning to get home, the van is filled with clothing and supplies in response to their impossible situation. Past the police station the scale of the situation becomes even more clear. The hundred or two hundred milling about the station and standing in commendable patience at the clothing bus give way to hundreds more beyond the station.

Occupying whatever space they might find for themselves, men from as far as Bangladesh to as near as west africa sit about in groups, wrapped in blankets, or solitary figures in front of makeshift tents. The luckiest have found space in the exit buiilding where travelers leaving Egypt go for their exit visa and passport processing, the next luckiest have occupied the sheltered car park just outside, leaving at least hundreds of others, if not more, casting about for whatever shade from the bright sun and shelter from the cool wind is available.

Finally passing through the last stop in Egypt we arrive to the Libyan side and repeat the process, though with distinctly less heart being put into the over officious procedure. After we pass the last point we are implored by a man in camo fatigues and hat to step down and take a picture with him and a display of the old Libyan flag.

ONWARD TO BENGHAZI

The Libyan landscape is stark, but nearly empty of people and vehicles. I’m left remembering my recent trip across southwest Texas, driving cross-country on our move to Portland Oregon. The towns are just as empty and tired, with similar numbers of old rusting trucks and jeeps.scattering the landscape.

We meet more friendly faces the further we go into Libya. The people are intensely welcoming, excited and happy to see us. Then, just as sudden as the appearance of a border post in the middle of a forbidding, dusty landscape, that landscape falls away.

Green fields and orchards appear along the roadside. It’s beautiful and comforting, it’s a relief to see the greenery after hours of stark browns disturbed only by the occasional scrubby greens and flat grey rocks. Of course I shouldn’t overlook the brilliant blues of the Mediterranean in the distance, or pulling up just to the road in Salloum and Tobruk, but as we speed down the highway it mocks as much as befriends.

Yesterday I arrived in Egypt with my colleague @Louis_Abelman, we are here on a new Small World News project, investigating potential partners and local support to expand and continue our http://alive.in/Egypt and /Libya projects.

It’s amazing to be here right now, the future is on everyone’s mind and it seems they are all free with their opinion. Perhaps then only thing more numerous than opinions right now are the ubiquitous Egyptian flags, on sale in the street, on display from houses, car antennas, hotels, bumper stickers, they are everywhere.

One of the most amazing things to me is to see the young guys everywhere in the street selling flags, rather than newspapers, drinks, or the many other things often found in the terrible traffic across the Middle East.

When we first arrived at the airport I was amazed that we had such an easy arrival. Although we are carrying a variety of media equipment, we were not searched, nor even asked our business. I guess the need to increase tourism these days I working in our favor to ease the heavy hand of customs and passport control.

After grabbing our bags we had to wait for our first contact to arrive and it seemed like a good time to grab a smoke. I was at first hesitant, given the crowd of official looking guys by the terminal entrance. I had the immediate assumption these guys were mukhabarat or other security services, but I should have known that was not the case. Rather than security it turned out these guys were taxi drivers, just looking to make an honest day’s pay.

Once they realized we weren’t potential customers but just waiting for a colleague, they weren’t pushy. Instead they just began offering us any advice or support they could, directions, advising us on where to find our friend at the parking lot, providing a light, etc.

Our colleague arrived shortly after this, and the only thing surprising about him was perhaps how typical was his look and demeanor. In a khaki sports coat and slacks, well-groomed, he was the perfect picture of a northeastern liberal arts college professor, Egyptian style.

This probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise given that he studied and taught at just such a Liberal arts school for several years. Hussein was talkative and very proud of Egypt, matching the stereotype you’ve no doubt heard mentioned too much in the ends given the heavy focus on Egypt in recent days.

He was an interesting guy for certain, but left me wondering whether his views adequately reflect those of less educated or less privileged Egyptians. So far not just he, but nearly everyone has asked me what I think about Egypt’s revolution and the future.

Seeing the calm, unassuming, but ever present. Soldiers and armored vehicles all over Cairo, the best thing I can say is I’ll have to wait and see, and I hope things will continue to improve.

I spent last New Year’s Eve with my family in Tennessee, and New Year’s Day on a plane to Goa, India, where I spent the largest part of 2010. I certainly didn’t think I’d end up in a similar situation a year later. This year I found myself in the Burj Khalifa/Dubai Mall metro station just minutes before midnight.

It was a madhouse, I mean packed to the gills. As I left the platform on the Jebel Ali side, the side of the station away from the Burj Khalifa(and consequently out of site of the upcoming fireworks) I noticed a very strange thing. Although the floor was packed so there was barely space to move, one of two staircases between the floor and platform was nearly empty. I thought it must be my lucky day, but as I was moving toward the empty staircase, a lone man was coming up the stairs. He looked me in the eye and warned, “I’d not go down there if I was you, its getting very dangerous!”

You might be wondering just what I was doing alone in Dubai on New Year’s Eve. Thats especially likely if you’re aware I’ve already spent nearly a third of the past year away from my family. Without getting too much into the details, essentially I recently received the opportunity to have my expenses covered on another trip to Afghanistan. Due to the holidays and my desire to have at least a short vacation with my family, as well as an upcoming post-holiday move, I found myself traveling somewhat suddenly and urgently.

So when I arrived in Dubai, to find the airport customs surprisingly mauled with New Year’s Eve travelers, I was a bit frustrated. I’d been looking forward to dropping my luggage and spending a few hours with a couple beers and a hookah, particularly after I got word that the Burj Khalifa was holding a fireworks extravaganza as its official opening celebration on New Year’s Eve. Making the judgement that I’d be just able to make it in time for the fireworks, but only if I took the metro.

Outside the streets were a disaster. Cars were backed up as far as anyone could see. Now I’ve not spent a lot of time in Dubai, 2010 marked my first visit actually, but I’ve now been to the city-state a half dozen times in the last 6 months. That said, I have never seen traffic like this. I was glad to be on the metro. Dubai’s metro, for those of you who might be wondering, is a bit like the metro in Washington DC, only cleaner and more spiffy-futuristic.

But what I saw on the ground floor of the Dubai Mall metro station was decidely more apocalyptic-futuristic. A mass of humanity convulsed between the stairway and the exits, a seething crescent of pushing, doing their best to exit the station. As I rounded the stairway, it became clear there were Emirati security forces preventing individuals from leaving the station. With no clear exit from the station, I decided to head across the platform and catch a car in the opposite direction.

I’ve missed a key detail here, punctuating the low rumble of the teeming crowd were periodic staccato bursts of applause and cheering exultation. It seemed the fireworks, visible from the opposite platform, on the Burj Khalifa side, had begun. When I made it up to the platform, I was surprised to find only a small group of individuals trying to get a good look through the windows. It was spectacular, even from the perspective of craning one’s neck, only able to see a slight section of the pyrotechnic display.

Although the display was huge and impressive in design, what I saw was also uninspired and repetitious. After a few minutes of watching I jumped on the metro, hoping to get to my friend’s apartment, drop off my luggage and find a bar to get a quick drink before bed. The sight from the metro train was phenomenal. I was hoping to take the metro back one station and grab a cab back to the Burj, unfortunately the road parallel to the metro had become a parking lot. Traffic was bumper to bumper, drivers were standing around outside their cars, no one was going anywhere. I’ve heard Dubai used to be like this, but in all of my visits to Dubai, I’ve never seen the city like it was on New Year’s Eve. There were two Indian guys in my metro car making friends with everyone. They were elated by the traffic, one of them told me it was like “old” Dubai was back in business. It was just one day, but the impression of many was that Dubai was finally bouncing back, capital and debauchery were on the march.

I said goodby to my new friends and set off to find the apartment I was looking for. Unfortunately the residential areas of Dubai are arguably even more difficult to navigate and more homogenous than suburban America. Looming, Sovietesque concrete buildings often called “hotel apartments” which are present all over Dubai, semi-longterm housing for the various mostly foreign contractors and others constantly moving in and out of Dubai.

I probably asked ten doormen and a half dozen cab drivers before I finally located my friend’s hotel apartment. Given the time and my midday flight to Afghanistan the next day, I ended my evening at one of the local 24 hour sidewalk cafes, with a vegetable patty burger and a pepsi. Even at 2 or 3 am the city was still hopping, and a number of Indian young men, retiring from New Year’s revelry, took my table as a I paid the bill and headed back to my friend’s cozy “hotel apartment.”

So I lived in India for the first five and a half months of this year, in Goa, which is a major tourist destination. Yet somehow I couldn’t seem to find a proper supermarket, with all the fixins of home.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, but on my first visit to the “Finest Supermarket” which is on the edge of Taimani neighborhood/district of Kabul City, I was overwhelmed by the abundant options that abounded.

On our way to the Supermarket we encountered one of Kabul’s campaigning politicians:

After we made it past the overzealous “Pear candidate’s” staff, we set to work looking for the various western staples we needed to stock our guesthouse refrigerators. It’s amazing, but Kabul’s “Finest Supermarket” has a perfect selection of any American’s basic suburban needs:

As well as Ragu, the grocer stocks Campbell’s Soup, among a plethora of other canned and condensed necessities. Not only is the store well-stocked, they have futuristic shopping inventions such as the “shopping basket-rolling cart” hybrid, perhaps a Chinese  or Japanese invention:

If all that wasn’t enough to assure you that this is truly the “finest supermarket in Southwest Asia,” you need only check out the second floor, glassware, chotchkies, DVDs, and Barbie!

Kabul’s been quiet for me thus far (knock on wood) so today I’ll leave you with a funny story I heard the other night from a friend.

In Kabul the ice cream man has a push cart and a mini-megaphone, rather than a truck as happens in so many western countries. It just so happens that one particular ice cream man in Kabul, has slightly more sinister plans than many others. If you hear the ice cream man at a certain hour of the evening, it never bodes well. In some parts of the world that’s because the ice cream man is secretly dealing/transporting heroin. In others it has to do with children and such.

Now kidnappings of foreigners have allegedly gone out of fancy in Kabul,  however Afghan kidnapping is still in vogue. So when some certain foreigners noticed their dog was missing after hearing the ice cream man at an odd hour, they didn’t initially think anything of it.

A few days later the Ice Cream Man showed up at their door in the evening and suggested that for $300 dollars it might be possible for him to locate the dog.

You might be thinking what you would do in this instance, $300 is a lot of money for a dog that might have just as well run away or been killed.

But what else is an expat stuck in Kabul to do? They paid the man.

The next day he returned with the dog and said “Let’s never speak of this again,” and with a jolly tune on his wagon he rode away…

Day two in Kabul was, fortunately, a day off. I have been running on steam since living India on a 4am flight to Doha last Monday. So the day began slowly, rising late, dealing with various outlying work, writing yesterday’s blog, etc. etc.

In the afternoon John Smock and I lunched in the courtyard of the Kabul Inn, the quiet beneath hovering storm clouds was quite relaxing. During our lunch of chicken burgers, and shockingly enough, a vegetarian burger for this writer, we were reminded we were in fact in Kabul and not some cheap hotel in a middle-of-nowhere hostel just once, as two large helicopters passed overhead.

The daylight hours were relatively uninteresting as I’ve said, interesting conversations with John Smock about his work and Small World News’ background, but nothing of note for the readers really. The day didn’t actually kick off until about 6:45pm when we left the Kabul Inn to walk to our friend Una’s guesthouse, to meet her and some friends for, that’s right, an Afghan rockshow.

As two bumbling foreigners on our second and third days in Kabul, we walked right past the alley to Una’s house and 2 more blocks before we realized our mistake. You see, Una’s place is “right behind the bread stand” but in Kabul there can be a bread stand on many a block, thus the error. Heading back to the Kabul Inn to regroup, we found the correct bread stand, and Una’s house just behind.

After brief intros to Hadi, Zaman, and Lea, we packed up and headed off to the Kabul Health Club. The Club is exactly that, a health club, which includes a bar and restaurant, and a few guest rooms for rent. However I have to admit that I didn’t see anything resembling workout equipment or anything to suggest it was more than a nice restaurant/bar for well-to-do Afghans and expats.

We were running late and after navigating a bit of confusion with security we found Kabul Dreams already well into the first few songs of their set. Like some combination of Jacob Dylan, Bob Dylan, and Nirvana, they were quite the sight. There were mixed messages about whether cameras were permissible, so John left his big fancy camera at home, and we each brought a mobile phone for assessment testing just in case.

It was clear soon after we arrived that cameras of any kind would be fine. During several songs the cameras  just in front of the stage nearly outnumbered the crowd. There were probably 50 attendees milling on the grass in front of the state, or a few more than that. Like many an indie show, they left a wide semi-circle of empty space in front of the band, which was soon filled by over-zealous journalists with all manner of visual recording devices.

I have mixed feelings about the impact of the show, it was loud and in an open-air courtyard in a populated residential area, meaning all the neighbors were subjected to loud indie rock well after dark. There were shishas to be smoked in the garden space after the show, and a highly overpriced (though well worth it) barbecue dinner. Oh and did I mention that it was held at Kabul Health Club, a pricey gym for Kabul’s other half? None of these things can be particularly good for encouraging local goodwill.

That said, a fun time was had by all, the band was an interesting mix of Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction meets something far less edgy, however they take themselves too seriously to be anything like pop-punk. Kind of like  if Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo met Kurt Cobain in Kabul and were listening to too much Death Cab for Cutie. Or something. I’m no music critic.

[h/t Tom Willard for the Death Cab for Cutie insight. Video coming once my slow Kabul connection gets it online. Check out http://brianconley.blip.tv]

I touched down in Kabul approximately 7:30am. Immigration and Customs was notably easy, my first mistake came when I realized I didn’t have the instructions for my arrival.

I left baggage claim for the area that, in a “normal” airport in a “normal” part of the world would be the area where your ride might pick you up, or you would catch a taxi.

Unfortunately in Kabul there is not only a parking lot A, for VIPs, but they go all the way up to C, which is where Afghans are able to reach. Eventually a helpful airport porter offered to let me use his phone and help me find my ride-for a fee of course.

Ahmed Shakib, a training assistant at Pajhwok Afghan News, and all-around-good-guy from what I can tell so far, finally found the porter and me standing around. It was an uneventful ride to the Kabul Inn, a hotel that is not much to look at from the outside, but has an appropriately gaudy garden and sitting room, complete with apparently “vintage” British rifles hanging on the wall.

After a quick shower-read cold water over my head-it was off to Pajhwok to begin meeting my new colleagues. Pajhwok Afghan News is an all Afghan news agency based in Kabul, but with reporters in 23 of Afghanistan’s 34 states.

After my first day I can say with assurance that Kabul may not be much to look at, but its charm is certainly present in its people. Everyone I met at Pajhwok was friendly, earnest, and welcoming. Consciously straying into the cliche I can say that these are, by and large, salt of the earth people. Similar to many(any?) Central Asian/Southwest Asian/Middle Eastern countries there is an air of fatalism and a feeling that things will get done, after some time.

I’m here working to expand Pajhwok’s adoption of multimedia and online/mobile media technology in their reporting. I will also be doing training in video production as they take steps to build out a video service prior to the upcoming parliamentary elections. Its going to be an interesting ride if the first day is any evidence. There is much to be done and I’m only here for about three weeks this trip.

After work we took a short trip to a supermarket in the neighborhood, that was as well stocked as any bodega in Manhattan or Brooklyn, barely providing any acknowledgment of its true geographic locale. I’ll try to take some pictures on the next visit, it should make its own interesting post. Also of note, supermarkets are apparently good places to exchange dollars if you’re in a hurry and need to combine grocery shopping with money changing. Just one of many interesting tips to a successful life in Kabul that I’m sure to learn in the next few weeks.

Last night John Smock and I caught up with Una Moore who has been living here about as long as I have been based in India. She took us to dinner at a restaurant called simply, “Sufi.” There were many foreigners there, and English appeared to be the primary language of culinary extracurricular activities that night. I’ll have to admit that we didn’t stay long at the restaurant. Your intrepid Kabul tour guide came down with a bit of what I like to refer to as the “travel bends.” That’s a combination of lack of sleep, stress, extreme amounts of travel and drastic dietary change that mimics much worse actual travel illnesses, and is a common experience for yours truly.

Una knew just what to do, she called the trusted “kidnapper-free” taxi service “Zuhaak” and we were whisked away back to the lovely Kabul Inn. The cooks at Sufi were so efficient they’d even finished cooking our meal and wrapped it for takeaway! Dinner ended up on the floor of my hotel room, John, Una, and I chatting the night away, Una regaling us with various stories of the bizarre life of a Kabuli expat in 2010.

The night might have gone shorter had the internet not gone out and I been able to call my wife and daughter who are currently roadtripping in the United States. It appears that Kabul Inn turns off the net access after a certain hour, something I’ll have to look into, as it is totally not cool when you’re working 6 days a week, 24 hours/day! The night finally ended with some World Cup action, turning out the lights just after seeing Mexico’s first goal against France, truly it is a global world.

It’s now day two in Kabul, having started uneventfully in the hotel, but tonight I am looking forward to my first Afghan cd release party with local indie heartthrobs Kabul Dreams.

So I’m in Dubai enroute to Kabul. I’ve left my full-time position at Video Volunteers which will hopefully leave a little more time for blogging and working on my book, among other things.

Just wanted to post a few pics from here, I’m not doing much interesting, just picking up a visa to go to Afghanistan, leaving tonight!