Preparing to leave Afghanistan

The time has suddenly come for us to start organising our departure from Afghanistan. Ed and I would both love to travel back overland, but we will have to see how forthcoming Afghanistan’s chippy neighbours will be in issuing us with visas. The most obvious route would be through Iran, which we both travelled to in 2001 and loved, but we were told yesterday at the Iranian Embassy in Kabul that there is a “special procedure” for American and British citizens only. Needless to say, given the current political climate, this procedure is anything but special – other than in the sense of longer, more complicated and more expensive.
I pored over the map yesterday plotting alternative routes, but they all involve a huge number of countries (and thus visas), especially if we try to avoid going through Uzbekistan again. One example: we cross from Afghanistan into Tajikistan, drive across Tajikistan over the mountains and eastwards into Kyrgyzstan, traverse the whole of Kyrgyzstan northwards, again across high mountains, up to the Kazakh border. We would then traverse the whole of southern Kazakhstan westwards, a massive trek across the proverbial hungry steppe of Central Asia. From Kazakhstan we would pass briefly into the Russian Federation, go through Volgograd and into Ukraine. Having been granted entrance to the Ukraine, it would then be a simple matter of crossing Hungary and Austria, before taking the night train from Vienna to Venice.
Having contemplated that route, this morning we decided to go back to the Iranian Embassy and submit our application. We took a deep breath and paid 240 dollars for the chance of receiving a 7 day transit visa within two weeks.
In the queue for the Iranian Embassy, I met a small Afghan lady who was also hoping to be allowed to enter Iran. She told me, in hesitant English, that she was a graduate of the Faculty of Law who had remained in Kabul throughout all the years of the war. Her husband and brother had been martyred, and she had no money, but she had heard that it was possible to apply for study grants from the Ministry of Martyrs and Maimed Veterans (that may not be its the exact title).
She told me she has never once left her country, but that she very much wants to, and that she wants to continue her studies. She gazed up at me in a supplicating manner as she spoke, and smiled so that the corners of her light brown eyes crinkled, but I could think of nothing to say.
Already that same morning I had shrugged away two requests for help – while Ed was in the British Embassy having a meeting, I waited in the car with the driver. We talked about boxing – he is a keen boxer and would love us to buy him a proper pair of gloves in England. The gloves to be found here are no good – the label might say they are made in America or England or Russia, but in fact they are all from Pakistan. He showed me his various boxing scars, and proudly pointed out that both his nose and teeth are unscathed. He also told me the interesting, and perhaps little known, fact that all the best boxers in the world always eventually wind up converting to Islam.
Our chat was interrupted by a man in his forties or fifties, with a suntanned face and a neatly trimmed beard, who accosted the window and asked the driver if he might speak to me. Having been assured that I spoke Dari, he explained that he was a teacher, but he was forced to beg because he had five children to support.
I didn’t have any money and told him so, and when he withdrew the driver explained that even experienced teachers only receive about forty dollars a month – which in Kabul can hardly be enough to keep body and soul together, never mind support a family.
Not five minutes after the teacher had departed, an old lady in a tattered burqa, lifted up so that we could see her face, clung to the car window pleading for a few Afghani to feed a poor widow. Again I explained that I had no money, but again I don’t think she believed me. In Europe, it is possible to feel confident that beggars and the homeless can rely on the state or private charities, but in Kabul, where even the teachers beg, there are just too many.

Leaving Uzbekistan

The next morning it was already time to rush back to Afghanistan before my visa expired, lest I find myself like Cinderella at the border, in all wrong clothes and a huge penalty to pay.
Alas, it was already getting late by the time we reached the border, and what with the Uzbeks having perhaps the most paranoid government on earth (up there with N Korea, Saudi A and Turkmenistan), we didn’t have an easy time of it. They moaned about my visa, they sifted through Ed's pockets, accused us of hiding our customs declaration and disappeared with my passport for an hour and a half, leaving us on a concrete curb in the gathering gloom.
We had 40 kg of luggage with us – having collected my voluminous winter wardrobe from storage in Tashkent, and were expected to walk over the 3km of bridge and no man's land, because "it is not safe" to allow cars across at night. Luckily we persuaded a special status UN car to take our heaviest bag across with them.
By the time we reached Afghanistan it was 8pm, and the Afghan on duty had fallen asleep. There was no sign of a car to pick us up. Finally we managed to persuade the roaringly drunk head of the border police to let us use his phone to call Mazar. We were told by a frightened young radio operator that he had been refused permission to send us a car, because the road from Mazar was "dangerous at night". Neither he nor anyone else in the cuckoo organisation that employs Ed had any suggestions as to what we might do in a small Afghan border town until it became safe to send a car for us (the next day), so we are lucky that the drunk commander decided to take us in hand.
We were ushered us into his own room in the barracks, the way flanked by saluting underlings, who scrambled to carry our luggage without dislodging their machine guns from their shoulders. He gestured to the amenities his room offered, and announced we should sleep there ("Clean sheets!" he remarked several times for our benefit), while he ordered his underlings to fetch us rice and meat, fruit, Pepsi and vodka (the latter largely for his own benefit).
One junior soldier with his Kalash on his back was made to peel and chop apples for us, while another was dispatched to find us a suitable room for the night (after a few more vodkas he had concluded that "it is not good for women to sleep near soldiers").
He regaled us with stories of his Buzkashi exploits (the Afghan ancestor of polo in which a headless sheep or calf is substituted for the ball, and rules are few), and showed us the ugly scars on his leg dating from the last match. He proved his great love of horses by showing us his mobile phone, which whinnied on command, and commissioned us to buy him a pair of British Army boots when we next had the opportunity.
So, after dinner and toasts we were driven off to the flat of one of his colleagues, where a meek little wife and seven children smiled shyly at us and made us up a bed for the night. I fell asleep almost as soon as I had been ushered into the ladies’ room, but Ed enjoyed a few more rounds of Afghan courtesy before joining me.
In the morning we were plied with cake and fried meats, quince jelly and fresh cream, while the family apologised profusely for not joining us in any refreshments, as it is Ramadan and they were all fasting. They had had their breakfast at 4am. We were sat down in front of the telly (which was showing "Antz") until the ACTED car finally arrived to take us to Mazar.