Crossing the Wire

by AnnaMaria Cardinalli

  I now buy out the stock whenever the store has a shipment of stomach medicine. (Our own troops, and the Brits, have plenty of access to Pepto through their official medical supplies.) Finally, I can return to the nearby villages able to demonstrate to my interview subjects that I respond to their needs and am interested in building a relationship—not just exploiting them for information.

  It is only now, after beginning to share bottles of Pepto, that I have begun to understand the look in the eyes of the villagers. They are sick, uncomfortable, unhappy, and there is no modern medical aid available to them. It seems that the medicine they use, with apparent frequency, is whatever comes from grandma’s kitchen, and from the opium poppies and wild marijuana trees that grow in abundance wherever one looks.

  I’ve been asking around about this. Older women tell me if that if a child is teething and inconsolable, why not soothe the baby with a bit of gum from the poppy? If your stomach hurts, why not do the same? It was only a few generations ago that this would have been considered valid medical advice in the U.S.—our medicines consisted of drugs that we now consider illegal, and harmful as well. It would be hard for any adult raised from infancy with this kind of medical “care” not to suffer some damage or dependency, and drug addiction appears widespread beyond anyone’s capabilities to estimate.

  Day 57

  The only thing interesting about the patrol today was a straggly black goat in a tree. What passes for a tree here is really more of a large dead bush with some thin extending branches. That’s what makes it surprising that the goat was there. He was standing with all four hooves balanced on the end of what was essentially a twig, holding him hovering just off the ground. I wasn’t sure what he had accomplished by managing the feat.

  I’ve met goats before. They’re rambunctious and curious. This one offered only a deadpan stare and an angry “Blaaaanh.”

  “Hi, Goat.”

  “Blaaaaaaaanh.”

  “Okay, okay. Sorry!”

  “Blaaaaaaaaaaaaanh!”

  I gave him a wide berth as I walked past his “tree.”

  Even the goats here seem different in a way I just don’t understand. Everything still feels like a strange planet, and I can’t yet quite find a key to translation—even with a goat! How will I ever find that translation with the people, as I’ve been tasked to do? I console myself with the thought that articulating my confusion is the first step in sorting it all out.

  Day 60

  I am still trying to work out the drug dependency issue I have begun to observe. I’m not sure that medical issues are the only factors at play in this phenomenon, but I can’t understand what else there might be. Much earlier, in Kandahar, I met trainers of Afghan military and police forces, who interact on an almost constant basis with young local men. They spoke of drug issues too, but I didn’t record our brief and casual conversation. That’s always a mistake.

  Yesterday I sought to remedy my error and gather some greater detail by interviewing another one of these trainers. Fortunately, I met one at lunch last week. (As HTT training taught me, it usually pays to be chatty.) He was an officer among the few Army personnel (as opposed to Marines or civilians) walking around Leatherneck lately, so he was easy to spot, and he was happy to oblige after a small bribe of the “good” energy drink—the blue one—that is only occasionally in the chow halls. Everyone hoards it and then uses it for barter.

  Conference after harvesting wheat.

  He began by expressing his affection for the young men he trains and his hopes that they will be able to take on the security challenges of Afghanistan’s future. After the energy drink, however, he started to express his doubts that they could do it. He worried about his trainees’ tendency to want to “block out the world,” and to “avoid obvious reality”—a dangerous leaning when weapons training is involved, so he had become extremely aware of this oddly prevalent trait.

  He then told me a story of the time he provided a brand new government-funded truck for the use of a just-graduated class of Afghan policeman. Not long after, he also provided the young men with a box of metallic stickers featuring the Afghan flag. These were part of a campaign to build a sense of national awareness and identity among Pashtun children—a necessary development if Afghanistan is ever to function under a sovereign government instead of in two halves, with the southern half effectively ungoverned by anything but tribal rule.

  The police were to distribute the flags to children they encountered, thereby beginning to build a friendly relationship with the community, as well as teaching an important point regarding nationalism. Instead, the young men returned the next day with their truck “decorated.” Afghans love to decorate their trucks, and vehicles are often brightly painted with beautiful designs on the sides and furnished with pretty curtains and tassels around the edges of the windows.

  The young policemen, however, had done something entirely different. They had covered every inch of clear glass on the truck with the flag stickers—the front windshield included. They couldn’t see to drive, but were unbothered by the fact as they rolled down the road, the driver relying on the guidance of the men that rode in the truck bed. The trainer did not mention drug use specifically, but he pointed out that their desire not to see, or to “block out the world,” to use his words, had been taken to an extreme.

  This led me back to many earlier field notes I reviewed today. Often, the commander wanted to know who the inhabitants of certain villages went to in case of trouble. It was a question I asked often. We always hoped the answer would be U.S. forces or, even better, local government authorities.

  While the answers varied, they consistently conveyed that people felt they could not go to the police, who they viewed as notorious for being nearly constantly intoxicated on marijuana or opium and not caring about the needs of the community. People frequently characterized the police as living together in their stations and not dealing much with the world outside—except on the occasions that corrupt officers stole from the villagers. One interviewee in my notes accused the police of being more interested in the young serving boys they kept at their stations than in anyone else in the community.

  If I were to summarize the general local sentiment, it appeared that the police saw their position as one of privilege in the community, evidenced and reinforced by their weapons and authority, which entitled them to take what they wanted. Perhaps this meant they viewed those of lesser station as “servants.” I wasn’t sure.

  While I met some truly heroic Afghan policemen, this general distrust of the police was one of the most compelling reasons for villages to look to the Taliban for some hope of assistance and rough justice. The best Afghan policemen were aware of this problem and did their utmost to combat it. Nevertheless, the situation was utterly disheartening.

  The information on the police—recruited from local young men—was somewhat helpful in understanding the greater picture of the drug problem, but ultimately, of course, it was not only the police who bore the appearance of frequent drug use. Most young men appeared troubled, and no wonder. Few positive prospects existed for their future.

  It seems illogical that there could be a further shared cause for the problem of drug dependency and/or reality avoidance that affects so much of Afghanistan other than the natural availability of drugs and the misery of poverty, since such a cause would have to be equally widespread. Still, it nags me that something else must certainly be at play to create such an extreme dependency. I have now spent days running in a research circle that has led me nowhere except to more questions.

  No report will come of this, so I am going to chow. By the way, when is that big chow hall going to open? We’re still eating in the miserable little field tents.

  Chapter 9

  Boots Don’t Bend

  Day 67

  Boots don’t bend. I found today this was a critically important point that no one has considered except, of course, the people who suffer from the issue. However, they can�
��t do much about the boots.

  Today, I accompanied a Marine patrol, and we encountered a few young men lounging around a dirt-bike repair shop. The day was already hot, and they had no business, so they sat, smoking and talking. Seeing them, it was only appropriate to take a moment, say hello, and ask them a bit about their local circumstances.

  I didn’t get the feeling that they necessarily liked us, but they were obliging. One of the men ducked inside to bring everyone some tea. They invited us to sit with them in their circle in front of their shop and served us.

  The problem is this: the men in these rural areas rarely sit on chairs. Instead, from the time they are children, they sit balanced above the ground, their legs bent in front of them and their weight resting on their heels. They are so comfortable in this position, and their requisite muscles are so strong and accustomed, that they will sit and chat for hours like this without giving it a second thought.

  To sit otherwise is to appear very “off.” To stand when you are invited to sit and join conversation is to appear very rude. To sit with your rear on the ground is to appear embarrassingly dirty. The only way to avoid all of this, then, is to attempt adopting the hovering, weight-on-your-heels position.

  The conversation was sparse. The young men were just as polite as necessary, and answered my questions—where they were from, how was business (with the actual curiosity whether many people owned dirt bikes nearby), and what they felt was most needed in their area. Basically, we just attempted to offer a friendly hello and let them know we were around to be helpful.

  We finished our tea. We tried to rise to leave. We failed.

  “Okay, well, goodbye!” We tried to extend the conversation while we wondered how to get ourselves up.

  “Alright, goodbye, then…”

  “It’s been nice talking to you…”

  “Yes, very nice…”

  “See you again sometime…”

  “Um, certainly…”

  This went on interminably. Our problem was that our boots didn’t bend. In order to balance on your heels, your toes have to flex to touch the ground. Ours wouldn’t, until that painful moment when, under the complete weight of body, armor, and pack, the top leather finally “snapped” into a sharp crease, cutting our feet just above the instep.

  Then our feet were basically trapped and painfully immobile, but that wasn’t the whole problem. The small muscles of our legs, along with our knees, were the mechanism needed to lift not only our bodies but the crushing weight of our gear off from the crouched position. After we made our first attempt, it occurred to us that this wasn’t easily accomplished, and we needed to devise some alternate strategy.

  Unfortunately, all of our alternate strategies involved something like waddling, tipping ourselves to one side, falling forward onto our knees, or just reaching out a hand to one of our colleagues who had already managed to stand.

  Of course, at that point, our legs and feet were either in pain too excruciating to walk or completely asleep, so we still needed to find some excuse to stay put while we allowed those issues to resolve. We said goodbye one unbearably unnecessary last time. We smiled broad confident smiles and finally walked away with all the dignity we could muster.

  Chapter 10

  “…Too Damn Cruel”

  Day 70

  I backtracked to the sleeping tent today because I had forgotten a notebook there that I needed in the work tent. It’s bizarre, but the idea of walking back to the sleeping tent in the middle of the day is far more intimidating than it sounds. It’s almost a 20-minute challenge each way, not so much because of the distance but because of the heat. With no shade between the tents, the new high of 117 degrees outside is so extreme it immediately drains you of any physical strength. (This is why we patrol only in the mornings or evenings.)

  One must prepare for such a journey, and almost needs a firm handshake from colleagues before setting off. First, it is important to drink a bottle of water. Second, it is important to take a bottle of water. Third, it is important to plan out an ideal pacing. If you start out too fast because you don’t initially feel the full effect of the heat, you’ll suddenly find yourself too exhausted to continue in the middle.

  If you do this and faint, you’ll probably not live down the teasing for a long while. If you’re female and you faint, you’ll likely be labeled as too weak to belong here. However, if you walk slowly enough to avoid the burn-out, but fast enough to get out of the sun quickly, you’ll be fine. It’s an art.

  Feeling happily accomplished for having managed all of the above, I was surprised to find another woman in the sleeping tent when I walked in. I didn’t know her, but I hardly knew any of the women who shared the tent. My work schedule meant that I usually arrived just as the lights were out and quiet was expected, so lately I rarely talked with or even saw most of them. They often knew one another from working together, but I wasn’t a part of any of their teams.

  It appeared she was hurriedly packing her gear. Everyone was still just arriving at the camp in recent months, so it seemed an unusual time for anyone to be leaving. She turned to me suddenly, her eyes filled unexpectedly with tears and anger.

  “Have you seen a hairbrush?” she asked agitatedly. “It was my good one, from a salon.”

  “I’m sorry, no.”

  “See?” she fumed, “That’s the way it is around here. They take what they want, regardless of what it might have cost me. It’s completely f*cked up—it’s too damn cruel!” She gasped and turned away.

  It promptly occurred to me that we weren’t talking about a hairbrush anymore, but that’s all we would say, just then, about her rape.

  “Okay, honey, now you listen to me,” I said, shaking her just a bit out of her tears. “Your hair is gorgeous, and it has not a damn thing to do with that brush.” I lifted her hair a bit out of her eyes. “The brush doesn’t matter one little bit. You’re beautiful, regardless of the heartless things other people might do. Those things matter nothing. Nothing. They can’t take anything away from your real beauty. They can steal from you, but they can take nothing away from you. You understand that?”

  “The bastard. That f*cking bastard,” she cried.

  “I know, sweetie, I know.” As I sat with her, I wondered how it happened. Perhaps he hit her over the head, and she never saw it coming. Perhaps she did see him first, though. I thought about how the ladies in the shower and I once faced down our potential attacker and won. That’s often what it took, I thought, to keep from getting hurt.

  But how, just how, was she supposed to know that? From her soft eyes and gentle round face, I wondered how she would pull off the stupid confidence game, even if she knew. Her eyes would harden now, I was certain.

  “I think I ought to just have my hair cut short,” she finally sniffed and sighed.

  “No, sweetie, you wear it long and defiantly.”

  I thought to pull her hair up gently into the Marine bun she was too shaken to make herself, without her brush, but she suddenly and wordlessly stormed from the tent. By evening, her things were gone. I never saw her again.

  Nothing was acknowledged, perhaps because she herself had requested it be kept quiet. I doubted many people knew her any more than I did or noticed her presence missing. Suddenly, however, word went around camp to be especially cautious when alone in the dark.

  Lanky took Tex and me aside to inform us that he’d had a “special talk” with the Commander, and that she and I were to walk only together at night. I’m still not sure how two women are safer together than they would be with a man. They might just be a bigger target, but Lanky wasn’t offering to walk with us himself.

  At this point, I’m getting beyond the expectation (if not the hope) that help or security will come from anyone else. I remember fondly the two soldiers who rushed to my aid when I cut my hand, but I’ve learned in general that you can’t bet anything on “waiting for the cavalry,” and you’re safe only when you have your own wits about you. It’s sa
d, but it’s old news now, and it’s better to know than not.

  This evening I started walking with Tex. We walked all the way to the store at Camp Bastion. We bought little flashlights and speculated. We trusted Marines. We trusted them implicitly.

  Still, our camp was truly nothing but thousands of strangers in this wild isolation. We have started to see building contractors and food workers and laundry workers and sanitation workers and who knows who else from all over the world. It was frightening. Among the thousands, there could even be a single Marine gone wrong, and it was so profoundly dark at night.

  On the way, we were surprised that we both found sentimental the same old songs in Spanish. One speaks to the ghost of a weeping woman—La Llorona—a favorite fixture of Hispanic folklore. It reminded me of home, but the melancholy melody was haunting on the desert wind.

  Dicen que no tengo duelo, Llorona,

  Porque no me ven llorar.

  Dicen que no tengo duelo, Llorona,

  Porque no me ven llorar.

  Hay muertos que no hacen ruido, Llorona,

  Y es mas grande su pena.

  They say that I have no sorrow, Llorona,

  Because they don’t see me cry.

  They say that I have no sorrow, Llorona,

  Because they don’t see me cry.

  But there are the dead who are silent, Llorona,

  And for that they suffer the greater.

  We sang together as we walked the dusty road and watched the sun set. I kept the hairbrush drama to myself, but I hope that woman finds her peace. I hope she keeps her hair long.