Dispatches from Afghanistan -- Part Two
Weekend Edition Saturday Producer Writes from War Zone

Longtime NPR senior producer Peter Breslow has covered trouble spots around the world including Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, the Middle East and Central America. In 1988 he won a Peabody Award for his series of reports documenting a mountain climbing team's efforts to scale Mt. Everest. Since 1992, Breslow has been a senior producer with Weekend Edition Saturday. For three weeks in January and February, he produced Scott Simon's reports from Afghanistan, and sent back these dispatches.

Dear All,

Feb. 11, 2002 -- Today I paid my first bribe ever for electricity. If it works it will be well worth it. For the past three weeks life has revolved around an endless tango of extension cords, generators and outlets hot and cold. When the electricity works it is often in only part of the house and so it is your task to find the hot outlets and run enough extension cords to them to power what you need... usually a laptop and maybe an Iranian space heater.

Peter and the generator in Kabul Photo: Scott Simon, NPR

Bamiyan, Afghanistan Photo: Peter Breslow, NPR

Bamiyan, Afghanistan Photo: Peter Breslow, NPR

But when the electricity is totally out... as it is during most daylight hours... we must use a generator, which involves even more extension cords. There is only so much power to go around, so if you want hot water or to flush the toilet you have to unplug your space heater or maybe the satellite TV (which seems to mainly show the Romanian Home Shopping Network and repeats of Italian indoor soccer matches). But our two small generators have not been powerful enough to run even the most minimal of equipment, so this week we sprang for a shiny new red Sawafuji SH 6000 DX. And this baby does hum. 4.5 kilowatts of gasoline-fueled fun. We can even hook a car battery up to it, which has become necessary because the charger to our sat. phone is burned out and the only way to charge the phone is to plug it into the extra car battery sitting on the floor in my room (or drive around with it dangling from the cigarette lighter in the car.) Naturally, the car battery drains down every day or two so we have to schlep it outside to the generator and recharge it. I'll be very sorry to leave the SH 6000 DX behind when I depart. As a matter of fact I'm looking into a special 4.5-kilowatt visa for her from the U.S. Embassy.

We recently discovered that if you get friendly with the local "electrician" -- the person in charge of power in your immediate neighborhood -- he can make sure that electricity always flows to your house. This afternoon a gnarly older gentleman in a brown turban came by to explain that he could guarantee us power all the time, all over the house. What could we do for him in return, he asked, noting that the government hadn't paid him in a very long time? Fifty dollars a month was the figure we agreed upon and our personal voltage regulator left with a smile. He warned us we against turning our lights on during the day, however, so as to avoid arousing the suspicions of our electrically deprived neighbors. But tonight, alas, the electricity has gone off in half the house and we’re wondering about the honesty of a man who would renege on a bribe -- or maybe it's just a blown fuse.

In Bamiyan you don’t have to worry about the electricity going off because it never comes on. We drove to this ancient place earlier this week to see what remains of the giant Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban last year. The journey there is a filling-rattling eight-hour struggle over narrow, washboard, dirt roads clinging to icy mountainsides, plunging into dust-choking valleys and up and over the desolate Shebar Pass at about 10,000 feet. When a car comes the other direction you scramble for a nook in which to pull over.

Along the route you pass tiny baked-mud villages where the main occupation appears to be squatting and watching the very occasional car or truck pass by. There is a shop or two selling purple plastic shoes and oranges, and an inordinate number of pharmacies. We are told these places sell an array of mainly useless watered down medicines manufactured in Pakistan. Local people can't afford the real stuff and doctors make a bit more profit by steering patients to the drug store owned by a relative.

Also en route you pass young kids and grown men throwing shovels full of dirt in the road as you approach, ostensibly to help repair the ruts, but mainly they’re looking for a tip... a clever moneymaking scheme in a place where there is no work. Our driver occasionally obliges with a 10,000 Afghani note tossed out the window. Sometimes, too, you pass a disabled tank with a kid playing on top, twirling on the turret.

But before you get on the dirt road on the way to Bamiyan you ride north out of Kabul through the Shomali Plain. This is a scene of complete devastation orchestrated by the Taliban in the late 90s to wipe out resistance. The place is littered with the carcasses of tanks, destroyed vineyards, burned-out houses and huge twisted metal shipping containers that people had used as shops or even homes. Once, the Shomali was a garden spot where people from Kabul used to visit for picnics. Then came the Taliban and the drought. Now, it's an empty series of ghost towns where the remnants of bombed out mud homes look like giant anthills. We're told that the Talib paid people from Kabul $3 a day (a lot of money here) to come out to the Shomali to cut down the trees and help destroy buildings.

As you drive through the plain the stones on the side of the road tell you where it's safe to venture off the pockmarked blacktop. Rocks painted red mean land mines. White rocks signify an area that has been cleared. All over the region you spot these markers along with the acronyms of the mine-clearing group that’s done the work painted on a nearby wall.

We arrived in Bamiyan, our spines slightly compressed from the bumps, in the late afternoon. It is a dazzling place sitting at 7500 feet. Snow encrusted 14-and-15,000 foot peaks stare across a valley at a giant sandstone colored cliff into which the Buddhas were carved almost 2,000 years ago. Now, they've been blasted away so only the faintest outline exists like the spirit of some dead person that lingers because it doesn't know it's really deceased.

Within minutes of getting into town we heard about a mass grave of Taliban victims that had just been unearthed. We sped to the scene and in a barren valley found two old men with shovels standing over a now empty hole. Beside them we could make out a skull, some vertebrae, a watch, a cigarette lighter and some decayed clothing. One man told us that four years ago he was ordered by the Taliban to bury four people in this spot. They had been shot in the head, their hands tied behind their backs. Now, he had unearthed them in order to give them a proper burial. The Taliban had also killed one of the men's brothers. He was 77 years old when he was shot. The Taliban were particularly vicious in Bamiyan because it is the home of the Hazara people, an ethnic minority in Afghanistan. The Hazaras are known as fierce fighters and they proved themselves against the Taliban.

Cave dwellings in Bamiyan, Afghanistan Photo: Peter Breslow, NPR

A Buddha once stood in the indentation in the cliffs behind Peter. Photo: Scott Simon, NPR

With the sun setting and the temperature rapidly approaching single digits we hunted around for a place to spend the night. There are no hotels in Bamiyan. Eventually, someone took pity on us and invited us to the guesthouse of the Hazara leader and warlord, Karim Khalili. Five of us slept in one big wood heated room, dinner included... compliments of the warlord. I forgot to offer him an NPR pen.

The next day we checked out the Buddhas close up... scampered through tunnels and up decaying stone staircases to inspect the damage wrought by the Taliban and vandals. In addition to the two giant statues there are countless portrayals of Buddha etched into the walls of the caverns surrounding the sculptures. The Taliban, whose distorted version of Islam banned all portrayals of the human and animal forms, had scratched out the face on every single image.

At the base of the cliff we came upon 37-year-old Mirza, who had participated in the destruction of the Buddhas. We followed him up the cliffside to the six-by-12-foot cave where he lives with his wife, mother, sister and numerous children. The escarpment is dotted with tiny caverns where returning refugees have set up shop. It was cold in the cave and everyone was coughing. Mirza had little food, no job and no wood for his stove.

He said that four years ago when he was slow to vacate his cave on orders from the Taliban they shot and killed his five-year-old son. Later, after his family did flee he snuck back into Bamiyan to buy food. The Talibs nabbed him and forced him to unload dynamite for the Buddhas destruction. While it's Buddhists and not Muslims for whom the statues were holy this man respected them for their historical importance. Now, all he can do is shake his head and wonder what his family will eat today. We helped him out a little bit.

After an interview with Mr. Khalili, who insisted he is more than willing to work with the central government, we raced the sunlight back to Kabul, desperate to clear the dirt road before dark. We were 45 minutes late on that count but made it back safe and sound. When we walked in the door to our house -- dust encrusted and desperate for a shower -- we were greeted by overflowing toilets and backed-up pipes. Maybe we can bribe the plumber.

Return to Part One, Feb. 5, 2002.

In Depth

 NPR correspondent Steve Inskeep's photos of war-ravaged Afghanistan from Dec. 10, 2001.

 Pictures and audio from Afghanistan by NPR correspondent Eric Weiner.