Trivial Traveling

Tim Hackett. The news hits like a ton of bricks, and yet like feathers from so far away. So stunning, disheartening, awakening to what this world means...or doesn't. A man I spent so much time with, and yet never enough. A man whose idealism I could never live up to, and whose love for those around him fed everyone with joy, laughter, love. A man to whose soul these cliches shed not an ounce of light. This is my friend who through things so seemingly trivial as encouraging that next game to share good times, or to invite me up to the hills to play, always gave my world a little more. Even when it wasn't deserved, he concerned himself with my heart. He gave me a little more good; a little more happiness; a little more puzzle to figure out. Tim could send my world spinning and my mind challenged with a single sentence, a single word, a single look. Those words he uttered years back, "a good friend is leaving tomorrow" ring through my mind in eerie irony. I missed my chance again, Tim. I'm sorry.

But nothing I write here can ever suffice to encompass what he was, for he was more than words could ever say. For me to try to capture him inside an insufficient box of literary inadequacy seems more of an insult in its assumption that mere words could do him justice. No, words do not do... one must have actually experienced Tim to understand his being. He was more than anyone could know...and he was an asset to this world.

But now he's passed, and is the first reminder of mortality to come from the peers who are all too often deemed invincible. "They'll be there when I get back" is proven all too wrong, as the first, but not the last, bids his last goodbye to his kin, brethren, friends in an unforseen early departure. Those who did not know him certainly missed an opportunity, and those who did did not always go far enough in realizing who he was and what he meant. I, unfortunately, struggled to get past my own inhibitions to be truly open to him; and to learn from everything that he was.

Even as this news still seems foreign, untrue, impossible...I know in my heart and mind that all deaths are incompehensible. The tears that flow for the loss of this friend do so irrationally - they should be tears of joy for the knowledge that he lived happily. He lived deliberately. He loved every moment and nearly every person. He goes on in my heart and my memory. He inspires me for all of my time that's left. And whether he continues in another realm, I cannot say. I can assure, though, that he changed my world and many worlds for the better, just for being him.

Tim, I never did enough. I'll miss you. I love you.

Shocking Revelations

And though words would never do enough, part of me just couldn't bring myself to move them down to second notch. To pack them into the depths of archives by instigating novel thoughts to keep the thriving for change contented. But eventually, everything must move on. Eventually, I'll realize that my slow (or fast) march toward a separate grave at a separate time with not come to a halt because he is past. So I move forward with humor and love and all those things he would have had.

The next story begins weeks ago, before the harsh news emerged from electronic screens worlds apart.

____________
A combo of a continued bureaucratic nightmare showering flames of havoc down upon us and a not entirely unrelated telephone outage in Iran sent us spiraling into a fit of irrational yet wholly necessary escapism. We calmed ourselves enough not to break anything (a lesson certain Pakistani youth may want to take to heart), and quickly hopped a cab to the airport where we jumped onto the standby list and then into a 747 to Karachi with intentions of bypassing Iran altogether.

We walked onto the tarmac and into the refreshingly humid heat of nighttime in a city 700 miles away geographically, and eons away mentally from where we awoke that morning. Instead of the terror inspired in the author of "Who killed Daniel Pearl?" when he strutted out into the white-face-less Karachi, we instead marvelled at the McDonald's Playplace that dominates the landscape as we emerged from the airport. Where he met only creepy taxi drivers and police officers too-eager to supplement their income by duping white idiots, we met only friendly help as public transportation got us to Saddar Bazaar, even if Jenny had to ride in the segregated hot pink cage up front. We arrived not before three separate conversations of welcome, one with a man who was happily on his way to an telemarketing job outsourced from Michigan.

We wandered the dark littered alleys of Karachi that might inspire dread in the reader, but over us dominated a steady calm - much like everywhere else we've traveled. We saw faces that screamed not of nuclear black markets as Time Warner loves to use for profit, but of those same ultra-friendly faces offering the sort of hopsitality you truly have to experience to understand. This is not "gee, you're not from here? Welcome to Karachi." This is "Oh, you're a guest - let me buy you're meal, and a coke, and a sack of bananas, and perhaps leave my office just to walk you around and help you find a bus ticket." This is humanity truly caring for humanity - or perhaps that's too pure. Nevertheless, it's close.

At 2 am on my first night in the supposedly dangerous city, I took a walk down the street to the juice stand still pumping out fresh liquids squozen from Bananas, Pineapples, Strawberries, Appples... I sat next to two of the sketchiest men I've met. They grilled me. They proved to be the first two men who openly admitted that "NO" they did not like America or Americans. Then, they bought me my juice shook my hand with a smile and rode away on their motorcycle.

In the process of booking our next flight out, we received yet another email from Hamid and were on our way once again in the direction of Iran. We spent a day in hot, humid Karachi looking around at the megacity's Qaid-e-azam (leader of the people = Pakistan's non-communist Ho Chi Minh and, largely, Gandhi's opponent in creating Pakistan) memorials and monuments, etc. and dipped our hands in the Arabian Sea. We eventually bought a night bus ticket to Quetta, just in time to miss the next day's newest strike over stupid cartoons.

In the morning, I went alone to drink tea with a man who wore a still straight brimmed UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees...blah) cap. He had worked in Kandahar with the organization, and described the radical mulahs for whom he has nothing but contempt. Once, they arrived at his military health outpost with a woman in need of an emerrgency C-section, but with not women available to perform the operation (as they'd destroyed all the woman's schools), the husband of many let her die rather than be subjected to the hands of a helpful man. So much for the Taliban of safety and order defended in the streets of Khazakhela.

Also, he warned me not to travel more than 30 km from Quetta, as not even the police travel there for fear of having their vehicles and everything else they have taken from them at the hands of militants. Yet walking down the streets of turbanade Taliban (taliban = graduates of madrasa, or Quranic, schools) only whets my appetite for more interaction. to see more of genuine Balochistan than the urban anomaly of Quetta. After all, this land of 6.5 million people still takes up 44% of the land in this 150 million strong country. AND, along with the tribal areas, seems to cause most of the political problems Pakistan endures. To get out of Quetta and be allowed a glimpse of the people of this turbulent land would be envigorating, doubltessly. Unfortunately, such experiences seem to be left to more daring authors of sometimes crappy books.

Quetta's Iranian consulate did not disappoint as the mystery man behind one way mirrors shouted us to the front of the line and exclaimed, "I hope we can get you a visa TODAY! We LOVE the American People! But only the people..." Hover, the MFA joined up to squash optimismas the necessary fax was somewhere still in Bureaucratic hell. Jenny returned to the hotel to lament in her book.

I wandered through the Kandahari bazaar and turban clad afghans toward the nearby desert mountains. At their base, I find a slew of clay waled enclosures and investigate. Inside the bizarrely partitioned cemeteries are hundreds of graves, mostly nmarked in traditional pakistani style that I've seen. The monds make an excellend photo opp and then I manage to lose the gang of adolescents who picked up my scent. Wary of the crazy Taliban elements that may be lurking in caves on the hillsie, I still manage to convince my imagination that even were they fundamentalist hideouts, I'd probably be warmly welcomed.

Halfway up, I notice another man following my tracks, and no sooner had smiles and welcomes been exchanged than I was carrying his teapot up a class 4 scramble. I sat in the cave mostly wondering at their kindness, and just HOW they were going to imbibe this local goo they mashed around. In the meantime, they continued with the usual "USA very free. Pakistan not free." Which was unusual only that it came from a cave on a hillside in the heart of Balochistan.

Contented finally to be an eyewitness to freebased opium, I took off for the ridgetop and quiet solitude over Quetta. I stopped for another cup of Chai on the way down, and, wholly refreshed at the ironic friendliness and safety of the cave, wander back to town. That night, I got the terrible news of Tim.

We mourned for a day atop a hillside nearby, while a group of stupid kids kicked and pounded our rented cruiser bikes down below. The unceasing help from locals who we'd never met in carrying the bikes and driving us back to town renewed our faith in the humanity of this world.

The next day, the visas were still not ready so we hopped another bus to Karachi. We didn't blink as we got from bus directly to taxi to the airport ticket counter and purchased our exit from Pakistan. A few hours later, we landed in Dubai.

As wqe disembarked from the ariplane onto the Arabian Peninusla, imatges of sandy dunes dissolved into the puked up modernity of the place. Capitalism oozed from the walls and flat screen televisions, from moving walkways and poster fro eTennis tournaments feautring Andre Agassi. The immigrations officer was a stark contrast to the sinny, underfed, under exercised physiques of Asia - this was a man build as an American. He would fitin perfectly in Colorado, his Arabian dress notwithstanding.

As it turned out, Monye oozed from every one of Dubai's pores. A new skyscraper is under construction on nearly every block, and every building in town is exceedingly modern in curves and style - a testament to the recent acquisition of all this weatlh. In the ocean they've built an enormous palm-tree shaped peninsula with 2000 luxury homes on board.

To be thrown into such an onslaught of dolars after 8 montths of Asian poor was altogether disorienting. It was a lesson in just how much the world has to offer for the fortunate few, and how much struggle it provides for the rest (or rather, how much struggle we percieve in the rest, but how much joy comes from it). We spent our day walking, mostly, as the transportation, food, and everything else was out of our budgedt. By the Rolext towers, the Emirates Towers, the Persian Gulf (where, yes, I dipped my hand), by the creekside and over the ferry. We ate some shawarma and, mostly, simply marveled at the unanticipated contrast to Pakistan - to Quetta where we had been just 15 or so hours before.

We also tracked down the cheapest way to Istanbul, which meant that we spent the night sitting on the floor of the Dubai International Airport where a cup of coffee was $4.

At 4:40 am I passed out on an airpplane, with only pbrief intermissions for a surreal airline meal simply in that I could barely keep my eyes open to "enjoy" it but felt that I had to as I couldn't afford to eat the next one and to look out the window at Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Next thing I knew, I was seeing snowy hills just before touching down on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Athens, Greece.

This stop, totally unplanned 24 hours before, excited our emotions and senses - coplete with a bit of culture shock at prices, the fac thtat traffic with rules can be so slow, and all the white faces amongs wiich we weren't singled out, didn't get stared at, and just weren't the spectacle we're used to.

We used our unexpectd opportunity to go to the Acropolis. We stood where Plato and Socrates founded rationality and marveled at the contrast for the resons for the acropolis verses all of the structures in Asia. Divine vs. Man. Sure, Zeus and the greek pantheon emerge, but the parthenon was not for worship so much as for rational governance. Imagining Socrates deep in thought on a sunny day, similar to this one, on one of those grassy hills leading up to the Parthenon was something very surreal. The structure itself, though shrouded in obnoxiuos scaffolds of restoration, was inspiring. It is not as grand, I think, as Angkor today, but the statues in the museum of the Acropolis tell more of what the place used to be 2500 years ago. The constant onsluaght of Olympics, Zues, Parthenon, GREEKS ever since elementary school gave way to present. The photos of Greece were ALWAYS of the Parthenon, and now I've sood there. I've fel thte ground where deemocracy took root, where Zeus played Shiva's role. I jmped thoruhg all the textbook bullshit and laid eyes on the PARTHENON.

We lost all control of ourselves and drank wine and cheese in history's shadow, while a very Rick Steves-esque train rolled by nearby. Afer one last ray of sunshine in Omonia square, we jumped the train back to the airport, whose tracks lacked the feces and trash of its Asian counterparts. We hoppedanother plane, and landed in Istanbul. The Middle East, Supposedly.

Though most people in Istanbul share their Asian counterparts' lack of ability to listen, the similarities stop there. I think most of the modern culture is epitomized in the unnecessarily pointy shoes one man wore when he hopped on the tram with us - Fasion, style, self-indulgence, ease. The things money affords us, all here, in Turkey. I feel the gradual shift via a slow overland journey through Iran would have been nicer on my body and mind, but I had little choice. So as I walk down clean cobbled streets past the Four Seasons Hotel and into a land where a meal costs 10 bucks again, I almost want to puke. My body can't handle the contradictions, the change. I never expected culture shock to happen in Turkey, 8 months into the unfamiliar.

There, travelers who believed that Pakistan was a terribly dangerous place reminded me that most travelers don't go to Pakistan either - that the misconceptions I knew I'd encounter back home have emerged early. Women with suitcases so large they can't carry them down the stairs of the hostel, and tourists here for short week or two stays remind of how easy this destination seems. Meanwhile, the comfort of Tomatoes and Feta while gazing over the Marmara Sea seems a sacrilege against the discomfort of Travel. This isn't vacation, after all.

But then again, this vacation seems less than bliss so far. Somewhere between the Parthenon and the "blue" mosque I got lost in apathay. No doubt it's some connection to Tim - to the realization that the people in Kashmir wouldn't give a shit that my good friend is gone - ALL of their good friends, brothers, sisters, mothers are gone too. I am not special.

But that overwhelming apathy was heinous. The rows of touristy restaurants with punk bastards who are, after all, just doing their jobs hasseling me to by their shit and look at their Friggin' menus which are prominently on display already. And the guy at the Blue mosque who took it upon himself to shamelessly try to sell us overpriced crap carpets. Idiot. And to boot, he was one of those who makes ME feel bad for NOT buying one. "How am I going to make a living?" Stupid guy. The whole experience of the gorgeous ottoman blue mosque is tainted because of that guy. Not to mention the onslaught of weird men trying to "buy me beers" in the typical local way of duping tourists out of money. Argh.

I thnk what bugged me most on that day was the stem of culture shock that the place is so Western and yet so not. That the clean streets and clean air haven't wiped away the obnoxious touts or bargaining bullshit. That the lack of headscarves doesn't mean a lack of orthodoxy - the guy at the blue mosque got VERY upset because a man nearby prayed in the wrong direction. And it seems almost like all that crap that's supposed to be limited to Bassackwards societies in Asia are creeping in on my world. Turkey and the West - where spontaneous order rules - isn't supposed to be an existence to endure like the one in Asia.

After a few days of wandering ottoman streets, drinking Turkish Coffee and terrible Efes Beer (which was nonetheless welcome after our Pakistani dryness), and marveling at the gorgeous mosques whose congregations are now indoors and whose rooves are now domed, we caught a ferry over the Bosphorous canal. We hopped a bus and then, on the outskirts of this megacity, got back to my roots with thumbs in the air. The first trucker to stop took us all the way to Cappadoccia, and even bought us dinner on the way. Unfortunately, it was liver and onions and I almost puked it all up.

We slept the night in the cab of his truck, and awoke just in time to see the sunrise over a perfectly formed snowy volcanic cone. The colors welcomed us to the new unknown, as we sat again on the roadside with thumbs raised for the last few kilometers to Goreme.

You would not believe what happened that day.

The next day I woke up with the type of hangover that has me swearing off alcohol for all of eternity. The beating headache, the inability to function, the desire to do nothing but sleep. So I slept. I slept most of the day away, then watched the sunset from a hilltop nearby and called it good.

Finally, on day 3, we wandered into the fairy tale surroundings. In this would be canyonlands, the sandstone spires and cliffsides were turned to cave dwellings and churches for christans during Roman times. Papa Smerf lurks around every corner, as this unworldly maze of cave abodes feels like pure fiction. Entire cities built of nothing but sandstone caves.

The silence, too, was welcomed to reflect on the next destination. And after a few phone calls home, I decided to head south for my own reasons. We threw thumbs to the air once again, and while all the way to Antakya once again my mind would not release thoughts of Tim and of my own mourning, I stuck with my decision.

In the morning, we unwisely skipped breakfast and ignored the bus driver's refusals to take us to the border as we had no visas by hitching once more. Eventually, we sat in a room with a uniformed man somewhat taken aback that stupid Americans would arrive at his post without visas and against all regulations. However, he decided to let this businessman and hospital worker who were staying at the Sheraton in Damascus through. Moreover, he charged us 17 bucks - better than the 120 we were going to pay had things worked out at the embassy in Pakistan. Lesson learned: Disobey and you'll be rewarded.

Hitched again, with an immigrant Brit back to survey the textile mills. We wove our way through dark green hills that were, mysteriously, still not the desert dunes into which all of the middle east had been sucked in my mind. Those rocky hillsides seemd to be pushing that last inch up above us, struggling to have independent form from that around them as though they were breaking the rules by going higher. Those hills through their mysterious nature made me feel like I was at the top of the world, and like, with the help of a wholly improbable day, I was nowhere near Syria.

Nevertheless, we arrive in Aleppo wholly refreshed. The Falafel and streetfood is, well, still street food. But the rush of humanity in the streets, the friendly smiles that want nothing but smiles in return, and even the incessantly honking horns that beckon as a continuous conversation between drivers are a great relief (believe it) after the quiet, lonely, empiness of money grabbers in Turkey.

And so here we are, still moving...though sometimes reluctantly. In Syria.

Eventful Monotony

As I wandered the streets of India, I had no idea that the copy of the novel that earned a death sentence complete with bounty by the ayatollah of Iran in 1989 was also banned in India. In fact, had I not been reading the Satanic Verses openly on trains, in cafes, and various other public places on the subcontinent, I never would have realized that books can, in fact, be banned in India.

Such as it is, though, the Satanic Verses is off limits throughour India, Pakistan, and the majority of the Middle East. However, should one be looking for a good copy of Mein Kampf in this military state, he won't have a problem provided he has four dollars to spare. In the meantime, rallies and riots will ensue in the name of religious tolerance and respect. People will continue to plead that "we don't criticize Jesus or other people's prophets!" and shut down shops in hartals while Hitler's profecy sits in prominent display at Saeed Book Bank, and at least a few other independent book stalls. The ongoing self-contradictory fervor means that the KFC that I had ice cream in a few weeks ago is now charred due to irrational Islamic youth pissed off about a cartoon published in a country with half the population of Karachi.

But enough about that.

We decided to go see a Spanish film at the French Alliance in Pakistan. Perhaps the most interesting outcome of the choice was that I was interviewed to make my third appearance on television during my short time on the subcontinent. Also, we met a few interesting guys.

Stunned that we had not yet found a route to enjoy a cold beer in Pakistan, these two products of upper class society invite and we accept. We pull up to an unmarked building in a residential area, where Saad hands a few bills through his car window. Minutes later, a man emerges with four cold ones in a plastic bag. Four cold Murree Brewery Beers, that is, fresh out of Rawalpindi in the heart of this "dry" nation - another highlight in self-contradiction.

Being that such possessions are still illegal, we drink them in the car as we cruise around, but our driver is not too worried about the police as his is a VIP license plate. "See the emblem on that car, over the license plate? That's a member of the National Assembly. Those guys are invincible." And here the locals persist in placing more importance on a cartoon in Denmark than on their own national woes. Sorry, I revert.

The Shisha Tobacco on offer at the tea shop next to a gelatto den provides a stark contrast to the Western Ambiance the place seems to vomit up. Nevertheless, we stop for Kahwa and the converstion veers toward religion (via, of course, cartoons). The host sees chaos coming, so rerouts the verbal exchange; though his choice of politics as a mediating topic is less than understandable. One predictably commends the relative stability of Afghanistan under the Taliban (though it just now ocurred, the press was far from free during their time in the limelight, so how can we discern between stability and illusion, really? But then information is necessarily limited in every topic, is it not?)

America went WAY out of its righteous parameters to bomb Iraq and Afghanistan - the nation should isolate and worry about itself only, leaving everyone else to endure on their own. Except, of course, for the Kashmir dispute - which is an issue so grave that it requires the hard hand of a mediating superpower. Maybe you should just worry about opposing Musharraf, for whom your companion's Uncle used his vote as a Supreme Court Justice to validate...huh?

Then Jenny and I absolutely slaughtered a few potentially good days as plans to write, read, learn, relax, and gain control over my spiraling ambitions gave way to watching HBO movies so terrible they make your brain crack in a nearby British Hill Station. Yet with all the local tourists doing nothing more than strolling up and down the one hundred meter long main road stuffed with handicrafts, shawls and crappy souvenirs, we found little to pull us from our lazy self-destroying onslaught of movies. So it was two full days of insufferably dull existence, interrupted briefly by a solitary walk down the deserted road into familiar smelling evergreens and chilly bliss of clean crisp air, and we decide to head back to the dull capital.

Yet another Hartal has been called to protest whatever it is they can come up with - Bush, Washington, Cartoons, Musharraf, etc. Busses are not running to Islamabad, so we opt to share a taxi with a "doctor" from Azad Kashmir who is nowhere near being proactive despite his linguistic advantages over the Anglo-descendent visitors. We are soon turned back as five small stones in the roadway apparently indicate that a gas line is under repari. No passage. Back through the other way we think we're golden until the taxi runs out of good old Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). We quickly learn that the disadvantage to this ultra-clean fuel is that one cannot simply run to the store and grab an extra gallon of it should he run out in the middle of, say, Pakistan. Thus, while our driver attempts to turn the engine back into a petrol-guzzling ice-cap melter but accomplishes nothing but sputters and spurts, we concur that ditching him is our best option.

We hop in the back of a pickup with four women very, very excited to see Jenny. Though outgoing, the veils over their faces make me question my own appropriate boundaries, and I remain mostly quiet. Soon after they jump ship, we hit another road block and are detoured along with everyone else along a road where not a single person seems to know where he's going. Eventually, however, we wind our way out of the meandering countryside back into Islamabad just in time to hop a cab to avoid the clouds of teargas coming our way. Soon we hit another roadblock.

We hit pavement to walk the rest of the way. We're near the diplomatic enclave, and fully armed guards with assault rifles sit behind sandbag bunkers and coil upon coil of barbed wire. Others stand shoulder to shoulder in riot gear ready for an outright battle against maybe not irrationality but at least disobedience. One guard points out the tear gas billowing baove the road somewhere in the vicinity of Aapbara Market, where we fled a similar riot a few days back. However, he doesn't seem too concerned about his own post as he nonchalantly waves us through the barricasdes. The soldiers behind the bunker smile and wave as we pass in fron tf the muzzle of their disproportionately large weapon. We realize the only path home is via the entrance to the diplomatic enclave, through the secretariat and into the Blue Area - the main strip of town. The streets are still and virtually empty save an occasional army car, police patrol, or VIP-esque ride.

Sure that we shouldn't be allowed to wander these currently off-limits regions (espeicially with large suspicious backpacks), the rows of riot-gear-clad soldiers and armed army men simply smile, slaute and return our "Asalaam Maleikum"s as we mosy past. Past the enclave, parliament, the supreme court...all of it. We weren't too sure that we weren't walking directly into the eye of the storm until we crossed the mass of barbed wire and guns at the Blue Area. A man with a walkie talkie runs past almost frantically as though in dire need to prepare for an onslaught of lawlessness, but just when anxiousness might set in, a guard nearby reaches down and scratches his groin in calm indifference. As if that weren't enough, the next guard mocks our lack of a taxi, and the over-prepared infantry behind him lay in the grass as if prepared for the afternoon barbecue. I think we're going to be just fine, despite the moderate disappointment such an uneventful day inspires. My camera's film did not get impressed with images of teargas amidst burning tires or effigies of God-knows-who being defaced. But then, I suppose, such is the life of the majority of people here - the people who don't make the front page every damn day for weeks.

Books? I mean, books...

Peshawar's pollution was turning everything down to the depths of my soul black, so we irrationally hopped a bus.

In Taxila we saw the collison of East and West, where the Greeks openly influenced Asian art in an ancient Buddhist civilization. Despite the historical significance and the land touched by Alexander, though, the benefit of the sojourn mostly lay in blue skies and fresh air.

A ride with a local math teacher to Islamabad brought us to the dingy Star Hotel, which would be our home for several unexpected days. It seems that the Ashura festival (on which the self-mutilating Shiites displaying reverence for martyrs of old seemed to be hiding from us in Peshawar) wrought a little havoc with the work-week of the Muslim world. The visas to the next destination should be available shortly.

In the meantime, we've been trying not to drive each other completely insane, mostly unsuccessfully. This dull western city to which we never wanted to return after our first stopover here is draining the very life out of us. Most inspiration of thought comes from literature, which despite its serving as a catalyst to arouse ideas as we move, is a sad fact for any traveler to admit to.

Today we awoke with the intention of bagging the whole ordeal, but a slightly optimistic email has us glued to Musharraf's backyard for another day, at least.
_____

For those wanting something more, I include it here:

Iran is not an imaginary place in the cradle of civilization, far far away from the United States in both time and place, as I and perhaps 90% of other Americans would think. Instead, Iran is a place easily reached from the United States in less than 24 hours and maybe 1000 dollars in the modern world. Iran is not an undeveloped country, and most people to whom we've spoken who have traveled there praise the level of development, in contrast.

There are, as such, actual people living in Iran.

It is completely unfair to judge the middle east by pictures of burning danish flags on the cover of newsweek, or by one story in the NYTimes about suicide bombers in Kandahar, or even by stories of 4 people being killed in riots in Kabul. This would be akin to developing one's view of the United States based on a murder in South Central LA. It would be like nixing Washington off the list because someone tried to dive a plane into the pentagon. It would be like avoiding the mountains of colorado because there was an avalanche somewhere a few weeks ago.

The irrationality by the west in their appraisal of the situation in the middle east is astounding, and I am the first to admit that I wholly embodied the common stance before arriving in Pakistan. As much as I may have wanted to, the task of digging one's way out of the swamp of media misinformation and misguidance is daunting, and nearly impossible at home.

Here, we drive down the streets of pakistan and by a few protestors (danish cartoons), while our driver, who is just a friend we met, not a taxi driver, advocates the view that the protests are good; should be carried out; and that the man who wrote the cartoon should be punished. What may be shocking to the Western reader of Newsweek is that he is not wholly opposed to free speech, he is not against all western values, and he does NOT want to kill US just for having white skin like the Dane who brought all this wrath about.

In my estimation, there would be similar riots in the streets of Denver if the Rocky Mountain News published an editorial dismissing the holocaust as a myth or advocating the return of slavery, for example. A protest in light of such remarks would not be construed by the media as an attack on freedom of speech, but rather as an exercise of freedom of speech. In that wonderful article of the declaration of independence, it is not only the initial statement that is protected, but all the subsequent responses as well.

In fact, in those riots in Denver some protestors may get out of hand. Some people may break some windows, pull down some light posts, or even set a building ablaze - say, an embassy. But it has never been a value of the West to dissuade the masses from continuing peaceful demonstrations - up to and including flag burning, as has taken place at many rallies that I have attended - despite the unruly few who cross the line of the law.

Focusing on Iran and Pakistan, we can make one point clear. Pakistan is the seventh most populous country on the planet with 150 million people (how many people that you meet on the streets in Washington today will know that?), and Iran has close to 70 million. Supposing even 1, 2, 3, 4, or 20 million people chose to hit the streets in protest, they would still not provide an accurate representation of the sentiments of the country as a whole. In fact, to assume such is akin to assuming the whole of Ireland is aligned with the IRA, or that all of Alabama is the KKK. Such gross over-statements of non-truths are absolutely outrageous, and yet this is the image the media highlights of the entire muslim world. When flag burning is not prevalent on the streets, they instead focus on Al-Qaida operatives or Nuclear ambitions - while the other 99% of the population takes its seat in the ignored realm of editor's cuts.

All of this logic applies equally well to Iran. Iran is a country full, by all accounts, of some of the most hospitable people on the planet (though the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Western Pakistan are very hard to beat) - people who live life everyday just like you and me. Likewise, they are people with a reputation among travelers for an innate ability to separate the actions of governments with the actions of people - as are most Asians. They realize that I am not Bush. In fact, just as at our protests yesterday, the writers of everyone's favorite lonely planet describe a rally that they witnessed in Tehran: in a crowd chantings "DOWN WITH AMERICA!" in unison, several participants came out just to say hello to the onlookers with white, pasty faces and ask them how they liked Iran.

Perhaps the people of the United States have been so overwhelmed by the propaganda of history books that our government is "by for of the people" that we forget that many despise our own government's actions. We forget that the people in power are rarely a reflection of society as a whole, and certainly we cannot blame Abbey and Chris for the pitfalls of George Bush's viewpoints. People in Iran do not equate to the Ayatollah, and people in Iran recognize, even in the face of impending sanctions or war, that I am not the one doing the bombing. They recognize that 279 million other people are in the US with whom I have to contend - why can't the majority of people in the US realize the same lesson to overcome their inherent fear?

Of course, in this specific instance we cannot place the blame of blatant misunderstanding or misplaced policy squarely on the shoulders of our beloved President. In this case, he has specifically stated that the government of Iran does not reflect, and much more overpowers and even oppresses its own people. It's just that Americans (and westerners as a whole - I've met Irishmen equally irrationally terrified of Persia) have their minds so wholly bent toward disagreeing with the usually idiotic personality that they forget to think for themselves. They forget to group individuals apart from politics.


It struck me when I spoke to a Cambodian who dismissed the entire reign of Angkar as politics; and when I spoke to the Vietnamese who did likewise with their wartime history; and even the Burmese who did the same with their oppressive government of the moment that even war is only politics - even when it costs lives. In fact, as I sat in a wester-style pizza/burger joint in Peshawar, close to the border with Afghanistan, I looked around and realized all of my above points. I realized that life does, indeed, exist here - and despite its differences of beliefs and customs, it is remarkably similar to the life I know...the life everyone knows. In this city where I was so scared to come a few weeks ago because the CIA bombed the tribal areas, I realized more than simply that people here associate me less closely with the CIA than I irrationally do. I realized that life does not come to a halt at the demand of the United States government. Bombs, deaths, and conflicts do not stop time from moving forward; and as it does people continue with their daily lives, with very little changed.

So as we try to go into Iran we recognize the risks (most of which stem from Patriot Missiles at this point, which would probably miss us if they did land, and which won't be flying for a month or so at the earliest anyway), but we also emphasize our own misperceptions. We are going there to get around the media and to arrive at a more complete, more satisfactory understanding of the place. We are going with the intention of understanding something we cannot find by simply reading an IAEA statement. We are going to meet people who are very much alive, breathing...and kind.

Who is this Duckworth and where is my crowbar?

I could certainly play up the experience in Kyber Pass to be an overwhelming adventure of danger and risk. However, it's more of a trip for history (and modern politics)(and amazing culture) than anything else. No fear, really, or real danger as Jenny beat our guide in a rock - throwing contest toward the visible Afghan border.

The pass screams of invasions - with lookouts built atop the scattered hilltops and remnants of forts throughout. Not to mention the sheer feel of the place - no greenery inspires understanding of the waterless lifeless wasteland. Except, of course, for the adobe houses that quickly pop out of the landscape after the line separating Pakistan's law from Tribal Law.

So in this historical place with wafts of hospitality juxtaposed against obligatory revenge, our armed guard seemed more of a guide - and a childish guide at that. In fact, we realized that to travel with an armed assistant here is normal. Back home, for instance, we do not cringe at the pistol carried by the security guards at the bank - we do not think banks are unsafe places simply due to their need of security. So it is with our escort. We were, however, happy to have him as he did let Jenny hold his grenade for a photo opp.

Yesterday we bought a ticket on the black market and miraculously managed to push through the throngs of spectators vying for entrance into one of the biggest spectacles in Cricket - a one day competition in the rivalry between Pakistan and India. Fearing occasionally for life and limb, we pushed our way in until security guards took us into their control and literally beat back the crowds with sticks to make way for us to enter the stadium, whereupon they beat back crowds with sticks to make our way to the "Ladies' Enclosure," where my chromosomes did not seem too big a hindrance to my accompanying Jenny to a safe seat (thought I did get smacked in the face once by a guard...slight misunderstanding). From here, we witnessed the chaos in the men's sections as fans perched atop barbed-wire strewn fences; and we occasionally heard small riots break loose in the corridor nearby. I believe the security guards in the enclosure outnumbered the spectators, and inspired more havoc than safety as such numbers simply crowded the already over-crowded stadium ever more. Still, they swung their sticks at anything that moved.

The match was riveting, we are told, though we often had to keep ourselves from falling asleep. Just when the going got good - with 20 more chances to get 18 more runs and win the game, the prissy british rules of this silly sport kicked in and said that the "lighting was bad." So the Duckworth/Lewis method gave an underwhelmingly unexciting win to the home team. I wanted to riot. 8 hours of "sport" for a "judge's decision." We are told that this was one of the most exciting matches we'll ever see....I am content if I never witness cricket ever again.

However, we were on Television at least twice during the event, and today every single person in Peshawar recognizes us. The already high celebrity afforded by white skin and a US passport is thus hightened to previously unimaginable proportions. Super.

Arrogant Implications

The idea that it would be different here took the backseat through Kashmir. It didn't surface in the moderate Islam of Lahore, nor Islamabad. It didn't come up in Azad Kashmir. Only now, as we head up the Karakoram Highway and over to Swat do things change.

Human rights here are not a function of government policy. They do not deal with Yangon limiting internet access or other resistances to the new world. Here, Human rights stem from culture; the past; the interpretations...individuals, communities, beliefs. Not nation-states.

It is here in this land where the proposition in the Quran that women should maintain modesty and privacy is interpreted to be that women shall not leave the home and that they shall not be seen by strangers...or even male friends; that people defend suffocated liberties. It is, after all, the Quran and the word of their God. It is the ver core of their view of this world - the view we all must have lest we slip from sanity. AND as the women are locked away from light, as they remain elusive to interactions, as they are tossed into arranged marriages, and even murdered without constraint or consequence in the name of 'honour' still women do not scream but only murmur from the corner. "Women are not allowed to leave home for the market... or even the hospital," they whisper, and even then the fear of making their voice heard is loud.

The men who came BACK to our hotel only to make our acquaintance after seeing us in the street agreed with the Taliban. A good regime, "good men," good ideals like you and me. Sure, they forced a few people to act as they didn't wish, but Afghanistan was safe. It was moving forward in the name of Allah. Under the US, Afghanistan is in chaos, with a crumbling economy and crumbling personal safety. The TALIBAN was good for Afghanistan, they say.

Yet the "what! How!?? What about rights?! to CHOOSE?!" are quickly qulled by the realization (again) that we are not here to change but merel to learn. The "Taliban is terrible" is a biasd statement based on faith, information accepted, and beliefs. So, too, is "the taliban is excellent" - except they value safety, security, order, and that "other thing" (salvation), while I and the myth of America(in theory, Bush and red America aside) believe in choice above security. As enny exclaims, "Who are WE to say they're wronge, we should let them live as they want to live where they are. If they don't agree, they can leave the country..." the clash becomes apparent.


A community built on common rules of conduct and a community built on individual freedoms (limited in comparison to some and in need of expansion though they may be, not to mention in danger at the hands of a very clever though outwardly awkward henchman) meet in the global arena. Again, this is no longer China's secular cultural revolution, not the communist Angkar, not the egalitarian enemy in Ho Chi Minh. This is GOD now...a civilization whose mandate for male superiority comes from the divine, as it did in Europe, America, and everywhere else in years past.

But..uh..oooh...actually it comes from the interpretation of divine texts. It comes from the Mullah blasting across the loudspeaker his perception of the words, which become much more than laws enforced with punishment, instead rising to the level of edicts whose betrayal leads to hell and to whose adherence leads to heaven; salvation; paradise. "I don't know what it is. But it's better than this world" Usman says.

"The burning sun of oppression always risess over a horizon of consent." The whispering women agree with the interpretation too, to some extent at least. (I cannot assure, for I have not interviewed and do so only on my toes as I want not to inspire "honour" acts). They too see heaven in the mullah's words. They believe much in the same way the Untouchables believe in India. But, that is, not all of them...

Sure they could. Those who dissent could run off. They could escape to Lahore... but then, they've never been. They don't know the world outside of their home as even the fifteen year old married to the man at lunch left school to enter lockdown at her wedding on her 14th year. The travesty is not the unbelievers' difficult escape, though, so much as the proximity of their oppressors. Big Brother lives in the next room over.

And on the face of such a culture without outlet for those who seek it; can one who truly believes in individual rights to choose remain neutrally pluralistic? Can he turn his cheek and ignore?

Where, then, does this line between faith in religion and faith in individuality collide? Where is the line we dare not cross?

The interpretations may ALL be contrary to Mohammad's (MPBWH) (Insert Christ's name here, if you prefer, the lesson I learn is the same) teachings, but there is no true way of knowing today. Mine is as easily flawed as the Mullah. Yet this very point - their separation in age from their origin - creates all of their validity. Interpretation becomes belief becomes religion becomes reality. The prophet is no longer here to clarify, so what you read is true...no matter what you think it says.

When the United States drops bombs on Afghani oppressors, Shah sees good men killed by "The very best terrorist." Right or wrong, they believe. And the liberation of some creates hatred of more. So the conflict ensues.

To whom should we give power? Only I can decide...except, of course, here; where they've not enough power to choose lest they risk outright death. (though maybe that's not as big a hindrance to my philosophy as I am tempted to think)

So, you see, that point where adaptation to culture no longer becomes a kind gesture or a desire to learn, even a desire to fit in, has been reached. A decision to adapt is now a decision of humanity. The decision is human rights. The decision is beliefs, and as enny dons her head covering but denies adherence to the customs of burkha or seclusion, pluralism is that much harder to come by.

____

Up the valley Shah unexpectedly hops in the van behind us. He becomes our unassuming, uninvited guide; though luckily he turns out a gentle soul. He spends a day on the riverside as we delve further into the mystery of life through religion and, my preference, plain quiet nature by the river. We find new friends...again.

This time, though, they're Pathan (syn. Pashtun or Aghan), and with their tradition of hospitality as their weapon, they suck us in. We spend almost a week with him, his family, or people connected to him. I stay in his guest room for a day, while enny wanders the family portion of the home and delves into the aspect of Pashtun life that I cannot witness due to custom. They force feed her ice cream made in her honor, decorate her with Henna, and accept her as family. In the other room, the men accept me similarly and between card games and conversations we feel yet again that we know them better than reality would allow.

The morning comes and after throwing a makeshift wire contraption connected to two exposed nails carrying electric current stuck in the wall into a bucket for hot water with which to bathe in the home of electric company employees, we dine on lunch at a nearby home. Here, one man in the family has married an American woman (though she is not present), providing for an interesting exchange on hopes and dreams of America, as well as hopes and dreams of Americans here. We are overfed yet again, and smothered with gifts simply for being. After all, we are guests...

In Mingora we thought we had bid our adeu from the family before we run into Tariq, a brother, in the street. We spend the next three nights smothered in hospitality at his company's apartment with seven coworkers coming and going variously, and consistently treating us like visiting royalty. We ride the company motorcycle around town, and up to Malam abba - the second ski resort on our tour. This time, the lift is down and while some Pakistanis hillariously topple over on ancient skis on the lower slopes, most simply throw snowballs or slide down sans sticks. The view, though, is beautiful and we would not have witnessed it if not for the insistence on incredible hospitality.

Even as this family stems from the ultra Islamic areas outside of Pakistani law known as the Tribal areas - specifically from Darra, a lawless town built on the illegal gun trade - we find nothing but genuine beauty in their eyes, hearts, souls. They modified doctrine to allow us to dine with them and sleep in their homes. One time only we were asked if we would enter Islam, and then only fleeting. Our subtle dismissal of the invitation was accepted quickly, and we entered more of a dialogue than an attempt to pressure us into faith.

In fact, as Tariq explained the laws of the Tribal Areas to us (a lifestyle built partly on hospitality, kindness, and love for others, and partly on obligatory revenge, punishments that could include a hand chopped off for stealing or being stoned to death for rape), he remains calm, normal, kind. These practices are not an outrage for him, nor does he see their perpetrators - his kin - as fundamentalists, extremists, or any other vocabulary "imported from the West." They are, quite simply and without under or over exaggeration, a different way of thinking.

So after I leapt toward a conclusion of oppression, of inustice through unrelenting confinement to the home, my time with new friends lessened my hard views somewhat. enny's descriptions of women smiling and laughing inside the home do little for an argument either way, yet interaction with even the men provided a warm soul and understanding of human beings, rather than a falsely simple perception of truth.

Islamic Traditions in the Swat Valley collide on a very basic level with modern thought in the United States; this much is true. But so too is it true that Hinduism clashes. That Buddhism clashes. That the third world's general bias toward family more than individuality clashes. And, it is true that a common conversation in Swat as in America is fundamentalism - only that there I believed that it was in Pakistan, while here I cannot find it...no one seems to be able to. Despite an attitude toward women that we would deem oppressive, the Pashtun people we've met would not treat a woman, man, or child with anything other than what they deem respect. Their version of respect, only, varies from ours.

So maybe, and only maybe, pluralism has not faltered. But I suppose I'm not as convinced as I was a few months ago in a cafe in Kathmandu. Maybe the "Clash of Civilizations" is real, after all...

___

Now we sit in Peshawar - a frontier town and the historical first stop of any invasion of the subcontinent, from Alexander the Great to the Mughals to the British. Not far from here a few weeks back the USA dropped a few bombs - you probably saw pictures of Peshawar's streets in the paper, whether you knew it or not. But, alas, a riot of a hundred in the streets causes an international media fiasco while millions sit silently loving Americans and American-ness, but hating both political sides of this ongoing "war." The man from Afghanistan on the bus exclaimed, "I think USA people are very nice...really!" and so far, we've found no reason to be more afraid than elsewhere on this planet....except, that is, of the stifling, oppressing, constraining feeling from continuous invitations for dinner, tea, lunch, breakfast, tea, talking, laughing, going to homes, etc.

I still don't know enough....but then, no one ever does. Or, that is, everyone always does. Either way, we continue...