Appendix: Physical Toll and Packing Logistics
Body Toll: My bodyweight dropped from 185 lbs to 174 lbs during the course of the trip. Upon return, I used bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) to check my bodyfat percentage and then did the math. Of the 11 lbs lost, 8.8 lbs were lean muscle and 2.2 lbs were fat. I suspected that'd be the case since late in the trip I noticed I still had my normal amount of belly fat but that my arms and legs were shrinking.
I also seem to have picked up some sort of skin rash. In Peshawar on my way home, I noticed that there were about ten red spots in a 3" diameter on the right side of my chest. In the nearly three weeks since then, they shifted from red to light brown and haven't faded one iota. Maybe I'll try a topical fungicide.
Of the "Packing List" items from the post I made before leaving...I didn't even end up taking: a hidden leg-attachment wallet, any type of hat, long underwear, a sleep-sheet sack, a multi-tool or Swiss army knife, any sort of business card or press pass, a lighter or scissors or a razor blade (thanks TSA!), the Lonely Planet Farsi phrasebook, Dari phrase cheat cards, any extra guidebook pages, safety pins, or lip balm.
I brought but never even touched my: long-sleeve shirt, swimming trunks, LED headlamp, miniature (AA) Maglight, duct tape, extra high mA batteries (AA and AAA), and ear plugs. Of the medical kit items, I used three of the twenty tabs of Cipro and all of the Emer-gen-C electrolyte replacement powder. Nothing else was touched.
In retrospect, I should've: worn a pair of comfy flip-flops instead of my sneakers, taken more Western-quality toilet paper and/or wet wipes, wrapped the Nexcare "Liquid Bandage" container in something since it ended up leaking superglue all over the medical kit bag, and taken less paracord with me. I'm not quite sure what I imagined doing with fifty feet but I only ever ended up using about four feet, total. I should've also only taken two little Photon LED fobs instead of those plus a headlamp and a handheld flashlight. They supply a perfect amount of light in a tiny package and are really all I ever needed. Plus, I'd have saved a substantial amount of weight by cutting the headlmap/flashlight and all of the batteries for them.
US Customs and Final Thoughts
Two uniformed, armed, US Customs and Border Protection officers were waiting at the end of the jetway in Atlanta. They were checking the passports of every person who disembarked. When they got to me, they had me step aside and then let everyone behind me stream off the plane unimpeded. I knew the FBI had visited my office and talked with my coworkers and I'd had two days to mentally prepare myself for this so I was relaxed enough to casually joke with them about being much less subtle than the Special Branch gentleman in London. One laughed and shrugged, the other scowled and said it was protocol. This ended up being characteristic of the two of them but I couldn't tell if what I was seeing was their normal personalities or if they were setting themselves up for "good cop/bad cop" nonsense, should they find it necessary later.
They ushered me into an elevator and then marched me off to a private waiting room in the CBP office. Less than two minutes later I was in a private interrogation room with the unfriendly CBP officer sitting across from me, telling me he'd be conducting the questioning. An FBI agent came and sat down at the desk with the two of us. The other CBP officer and a fourth man, in plain clothes, stood silently in the back of the room, watching and listening.
The contents of my wallet were laid out on the table between us and questioning began immediately. It only took a few minutes to get to a question I objected to. "Do you often vacation in war zones?" I balked. "I don't think that's a fair question. I don't consider Afghanistan a war zone." I was reading too much into his questions when I could've just said, "No, never." Instead, I was chastised. "That's just your opinion. Most people wouldn't go there. Do you have a military background? Why weren't you afraid to travel there when Americans are targets?"
That line of questioning evolved into other countries I'd visited. "So you'd been to England before? Then why'd you go this time? You'd already been there and seen it all before." I laughed and was immediately reminded of a Samuel Johnson quote I'd seen in London the day before: "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." Instead I simply reminded him that I'd only been there for a few days previously and I'd been 17 at the time.
Ecuador came up next. "When were you there? Where did you go in Ecuador? Were you traveling with anyone?" Suddenly we were on an absurd tangent. "Why didn't Sadie go to Afghanistan with you? What does she do? Did you pay for her trip to Ecuador? But if she's a student how does she get money? You think she has a part time job, huh? And why didn't she go to Afghanistan with you? She was in Vietnam? Well that's already half way there! She could've just grabbed a flight in Bangkok [sic] and zipped right on over!"
It was all sort of silly and I never felt like were asking the important questions. I was repeatedly asked what cities I'd visited, and in what order, etc, but they never asked who I talked to, or what we talked about, or who I met with, etc. These seemed to me like the obvious questions. Perhaps they're less verifiable than travel timelines, but if you're trying to root out the liars, shouldn't you ask them something they'd be compelled to lie about? As things wrapped up an hour later, the FBI agent sitting at the table with us almost jokingly asked, "So, did you, uh, you know, visit any terrorist training camps while over there?" Even as a joke, it seemed like the first truly pertinent question I'd been asked during the whole interview.
I later found out that one of the people who'd visited the office asked if I spoke "the language over there" and was told I had been learning some Farsi. He scoffed, "Ha! Lots of good that'll do him in an Arab country!" I'd love to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was fishing for a certain response, but it seems more likely that he simply didn't know that Afghans were Persians and spoke Persian/Farsi dialects (Dari, Tajik) and Pashtu, not Arabic. The interview in London, the interview in Atlanta, the story about the one of the guys who visited the office -- I think the law enforcement communities are sorely lacking in people with specific regional knowledge. The individuals are doing their best, but, damn, how hard would it be to divide up an office and say, "Alright. You three, Southeast Asia. You three, Central Asia. You guys, North Africa. Each of you, go read a book." Even a little knowledge about the regions and cultures would radically improve the elicitation interviews by informing which lines the questioning should take and helping catch people who were lying about where they'd been or what they'd been up to.
As things wound down in Atlanta, everyone left the room except the friendly CBP officer. He was going to do a "standard bag check" on my backpack, as a formality, and then would let me go. I warned him that there was something in there that might strike him as a bit strange and he just smiled, "Yeah, we know." I was inwardly delighted to see that "intelligence sharing" between Britain and the US includes everything all the way down to the contents of my backpack.
The "items" in question were a
small rug depicting 9/11 and some t-shirts I'd picked up in Peshawar the morning I left. I'd hoped to find a Massoud t-shirt, for me to have and wear, but when that proved impossible, a local mentioned, "You know, there're
Osama bin Laden t-shirts here..." I bit and after an hour we finally located some. They were small and of very poor quality (ie, the head hole is too small to get your head through, etc), but I thought they'd make a funny gag gift and at $1 a pop, I picked up a stack of five. We bargained and bought quickly because the man selling them was afraid the police were going to swoop in. Apparently OBL t-shirts are a no-no, even in Peshawar.
Apparently the person in charge in Atlanta had decided to confiscate the t-shirts before I even arrived, but the friendly CBP officer went and talked to him again. Ten minutes later he returned, shirts in hand, and said I could keep them. I was quite happy, on principle, since while they were tasteless, they certainly weren't illegal. Since then I haven't been able to get rid of them. Nobody wants one. (Surprise!)
I've now been back in "the West" for a week and have fully adjusted back to the humdrum simple life in San Francisco. Work, food, apartment, chat with friends, read, walk. I don't think I've given this trip the degree of honest reflection it deserves but that'll all come in due time on its own, bubbling up from my subconscious. When I sit here now and try to consider the trip as a whole, or the travel experience as a distinct entity, I'm reminded only of the line in
Tropic of Capricorn that I read halfway through my time there: "For there is only one great adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor even deeds matter."
Was it worth it?Yes, absolutely. Afghanistan is a very special, interesting place to be. That would've been true throughout history, I think, but especially now, coming out of 25 years of war, with elections around the corner, with a general sense of hope even as it's mixed with cynicism. I'm glad I had a chance to dip the tip of my toe into the culture, history, and politics of that country, even if only for a few weeks.
And it was, of course, an excellent break from the monotony of life in San Francisco.
All of that said, am I happy to be back here? Of course. Variety of food, and no need to give it a critical eye and wonder if it'll make me sick, my own bed, a shower that has both water pressure and hot water, flushable toilets, toilet paper that doesn't hurt, etc. Life here is easy. I know the routine. Even when I step outside my routine, things are accomplished quickly and easily. Everything has protocols, rules, and clearly defined structure.
Would you go back? Could you live in a place like that?Yes, definitely, but only if I had something purposeful to work toward. A job with an NGO, a specific project as a writer or photographer, some well-defined personal research goal in a region or on a certain topic, etc. I wouldn't want to return anytime soon purely as a tourist. Maybe in five or ten years to see how much the country will have changed and to visit friends who're still around.
Was it everything you'd hoped for?No. Well, maybe. It might've been everything I should've
reasonably hoped for, but I think I was right, weeks and even months ago, when I confided in people that my real reasons for going were something else. I was hoping that the "exoticness" of the culture combined with the slight edge of danger would affect my life in what would eventually amount to a profound change, bumping my current "life-heading" by a degree or two. A small change now but with larger ramifications down the road as I continue forward. I think that expectation was unmet and that it was an unfair expectation to even bring with me in the first place.
My doubts that this trip will end up changing me substantially stem mostly from the fact that nothing really surprised me there and the only meaningful danger I felt was from overzealous drivers and, for an hour one night, drunk American contractors firing machine guns in my hotel. In that regard, the trip was simultaneously a disappointment of the unreasonable expectations and an affirmation of what Sadie and I have been talking about for almost two years now: travel by a person who's honest with themselves is "without point" in that the people you meet are functionally indistinct from yourself. They do this thing a bit differently than you do, you do that thing a bit differently than they do, but, at the end of the day... it's a wash, a zero-sum game.
All the same, it may yet turn out to be true since seeing the things that changed the course of your life can only be done in retrospect.
