PART I - THE ADVENTURE BEGINS/CHAPTER 1-INTO THE ABYSS

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS: CHAPTER I

AFTER THE CALL/INTO THE ABYSS

My entire insides felt as if I was sitting in a blender as Mustafa lasered the big Hummer around another hair raising corner...
with the camera hanging from a cord around my neck swinging violently through the turns. I couldn't help also feeling the entire vehicle lifting slightly and I began praying the prayer of the KNOWINGLY DOOMED. But, in truth I trust my mate implicitly. 

Although at the moment, my knees were giving some indication of perhaps rethinking that. Then again...

We were driving in absolute silence (except for the somewhat discomfiting sound of the squealing of tires on the cobbled pavement) and I had all I could do to hang on while trying as well to keep an eye on him, and each time I turned in my seat and looked at his face I saw it at once both ashen and stern. I knew he was focused on what lay ahead and neither of us was too sure what we would find there. But I had gathered from his reaction in the cafe after he had taken the call that it hadn't sounded good.

REFLECTIONS:

It never ceases to amaze me. 
Rather, HE doesn't. Mustafa, that is.

I consider myself a relatively competent journalist and writer. An observer of the human condition in all kinds of situations and circumstances. A keeper of my version of 'THE DIARY OF LIFE', if you will. Making my entries as faithfully as I know how, and knowing how inadequate I feel to the task. But I do my best and hope it will be enough. 

I do what I am trained to do, but more...what I instinctively FEEL it is my duty to do in order to get the facts, whatever they may be and wherever they may lead me, and REPORT them. Share them.
My stories on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina being a case in point. Standing or sometimes in a heliocopter...looking at floating dead bodies is a grossly unnerving spectacle, and I can assure you it will haunt me to the end. That combined with seeing people, real human beings, stranded on rooftops and caught high up in trees and wherever else they could find to try to hold on.

Holding on is also in a way what the Afghan people have been doing for God knows how long and there are some similiarities to be sure.

But in many ways this was different. Very different. 

It was and I knew it and had known it right from the first day I had met Mustafa.

Mustafa Kazemi. This Afghan Combat Journalist. Always so calm, cool, collected to all outward appearances, and yet...the tautness of the face I was seeing now made it abundantly clear. 

He was deeply troubled. I could see that and feel it by both his intense expression and the deep-seated intensity that I could see in his eyes and I could not help but be moved, for EVERY FIBRE OF HIS BEING bespoke a driving desire in him to see and to tell. To BE there, wherever this headed-for there was...and not merely to get reports and then pass them along. That has NEVER been Mustafa's style. HIS brand if you will...and from what I know of him it NEVER WILL be. 

The Mustafa I know needs to tell the story he SEES, and not from some air-conditioned office hive far far away from unfolding events and oh how I respect him for that. I'm the same way.

To me, as a trained journalist, it was CLEAR. The story here is about Afghanistan. About its people. About its unfortunately beleaguered history...and YET. While yes to me the story here IS that and about that and all that, it's ALSO inextricably intertwined if you will, with the story of Mustafa Kazemi. Why? I'm not sure. 
I am just totally convinced that it is. 

Perhaps, it's because he represents the HOPE of Afghanistan. The FUTURE. The new young up-and-coming generation of well-educated Afghans...
seemingly more open 'to the outside world'. 

A move FORWARD, fortunately becoming a bit more prevalent...that in time hopefully will completely replace the steadfast and persistent clinging to the past common among  past generations.

There is now an emerging generation of Afghans who QUESTION. Who are curious. Who are more adventurous. & who WANT BETTER for themselves and their country and its people. I think the advent of technology, the rise of the internet and social media and the availability of it has enhanced the overall experience of the average Afghan youth today.

Yes, Perhaps...and perhaps also it's because Mustafa understands his country AND is able to articulate its reality in a way better than most. He knows how to tell the story and at the same time put a human face on it. Make it possible to feel 'connected' to the story he is telling.

All I know at this point is, Mustafa has inspired me. Made me WANT to help him tell the story of Afghanistan, and in the process...I think HIS story is very important as well. 
The two go together...and I am proud to know him. 

PROUD TO CALL HIM 'FRIEND', or as he calls me...'MATE', a term not just of endearment but of acceptance too. Not easily achieved considering the Afghan people's tendency to distrust those from elsewhere. Can you blame them? Trust to the average Afghan is something you EARN. Actually, that's not something so different there than anywhere else.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS AND CONTINUES:

We drove on and soon we emerged from the city proper...and the terrain began to get hillier. A LOT hillier, and as we began to move upward like two peas in a very large steel cylindrical pod...
with the entire SUV rocking and rolling quickly over the war-degraded pavement (to the point of frequent stretches of NO pavement), suddenly I felt his hand on mine. I turned...and saw 
a trace of a grin.

"Be ok, Mate. Be ok," and then he turned back to focus once again on his driving.

"I sure hope so, Mustafa," I thought to myself, 
"I SURE AS HELL HOPE SO," 
but I kept that thought to myself...not wanting to inflict an unnecessary distraction on him and definitely not wanting to share whatever uneasiness I might be feeling. THAT he surely 
did not need at the moment.

We continued driving...at breakneck speed. Up and down hills, and my heart was no longer in my body. I was definitely sure of that...not to mention that my liver was now playing a game of tickles with my tonsils.

ABOUT NOW: 

I should stop for a minute and confess that if anyone had told me even a few short weeks ago that I would be TOOLING AROUND THE AFGHAN COUNTRYSIDE with this lunati...uh, 
ABSOLUTELY WUNNAFUL war correspondent?

(One can't be too careful when you're only a passenger. LOL.) 

Well, I can tell you this much. Hearing that I would have laughed...
while simultaneously spitting coffee through my nose.
I would have then coughed and sneezed and ultimately...
NOT believed it, and YET...here I am, fearing for life and camera and feeling a WHOLE LOT CLOSER to the God of my eternal soul than I have EVER wanted to be...not for a LONG time to come. 

But why you might ask?

REALLY GOOD QUESTION, but the short answer is...
Mustafa asked me to be. (Fool that he be). 

See, I had talked to him about writing a book about him...and his country.  (Fool that I be).

He thought up close and personal would be the best way to do that. Okay, but why I would EVER have agreed to DO that is 
BY NOW WAY BEYOND what my currently addled/churned mind can wrap itself around. But agreed I did, so here we are...
wherever HERE is, and my life is now LITERALLY in Mustafa's hands and while yes he does have nice hands, HOWEVER...

GETTING CLOSER:

All of a sudden, we came to one of those absolutely-breathtakingly-wonderful hair-raising hair-pin curves I am 
SOOO INCREDIBLY fond of...note the dripping sarcasm here, 
and by God we did...raise the wheels on MY side of this great big bodaciously expensive DEATH TRAP ON WHEELS a teench. 

Course, by now I was beginning to fear an equally as sudden teench in my undies.

But before I could even begin to contemplate that, we finished rounding the curve and Mustafa immediately swung the wheel hard to the right. We proceeded into a parking area and screeched to a stop. 

Rather abruptly too I might add. Since my nose was now where the HOOD ORNAMENT is normally supposed to be residing in all its majestic chrominess...and we had no more than done our best to impersonate a 
'vehicle-hits-wall/STOP!' 
thingy than Mustafa's door went flying open...
and with that he was GONE.

'UHHHH...' and the thought of hollering 'WAIT FOR ME' did cross what little was left of whatever mind I USED to have before the NASCAR AFGHAN DEMOLITION DERBY began. But before I could do anything more than turn my head while looking COMPLETELY STUPID (or maybe dazed) in the process I suppose, MY door came  flying open. He immediately, and rather unceremoniously I might add, reached in and pulled me out...and with his hand encircling mine I found myself quite literally on a dead run...being nicely helped along to keep up with him, I note here, by him PULLING ME HARD like a runaway freight train going downhill (only we were headed uphill)...to the point that I was afraid that my hand was never going to touch piano keys ever again.

After a few feet, I turned my head and looked...at the most intense-looking face that I have ever seen and it was 
AT THAT MOMENT THAT I FIRMLY DECIDED right then and there that ME BEING REALLY WELL-BEHAVED was a stunningly good idea about now. Oh you can bet your ass I intended being just the bestest little whatever I am on the planet. 

(Course I have made promises like that before, AND...with mixed results I might add). BUT...this time I meant it, cross my heart 
and hope to...

CRAP.  
Why did I have to pick NOW to come up with THAT little brainturd.

CHAPTER 2-Click here