© Michael Obert

Since the fall of the Taliban at the end of 2001, camping is back in. This time behind reinforced concrete, sandbags, and barbed wire. Travel journalist Michael Obert asks himself if the tourists are self-destructive adrenaline junkies – and meets a German soldier who can hardly cope with meeting an unarmed fellow countryman.

At the end of 1978, the hippy-dream came to an abrupt halt. Under cover of night, fighter jets flew in over Kabul, some of their bombs falling scarcely 100 yards from Karimi’s campgrounds. On the next day, the hippies were gone. The communists staged a coup and seized power. When Islamic forces rose up against them, the Soviets moved in. There followed three decades of war, and civil war, that reduced the country to rubble. And now, finally – Karimi takes off his cap puts it over his knee – we’ve come full circle.

Since the fall of the Taliban at the end of 2001, camping is back in Kabul. This time behind reinforced concrete, sandbags, and barbed wire. White Toyota Landcruisers (the most visible sign of the presence of international aid organizations in conflict areas of the world) pack the streets of downtown Kabul at noon. The United Nations and its retinue of do-gooders have landed on Kabul – and with them the harbingers of globalization: speculators and tourists. The freaks are back on Chicken Street.

Tanya and Richard, for example. Tanya is a nutritionist from South Africa, Richard a political scientist from Australia, both in their early thirties. I get to know them during lunch in the Herat, an Afghani restaurant. Richard wears a full beard, the local style of longshirt, and traditional, loose-fitting short pants. Tanya, white clothes and a headscarf. They came to Kabul via Pakistan on their yearlong trip through Asia, traveling over the Khyber Pass and through the tribal lands in an overfilled minibus. “Afghanistan has fascinated us ever since university,” she says beaming. “This trip to Kabul is something we’ve dreamed of for a long time.” Are they crazy? Self-destructive adrenaline junkies? Over the course of our conversation, it becomes clear that they are genuinely interested in Afghanistan and wanted to see with their own eyes what it’s like here.

© Michael Obert

Later, Alan joins us. He’s Irish, in his mid-fifties. He’s backpacking through Central Asia, having arrived in Kabul via Tajikistan. “The media always shows the same images,” he says as he takes grilled pieces of lamb from a skewer and puts them onto his plate. “Suicide bombings, kidnappings, these video messages from al-Qaida. And then you’re standing in front of the vegetable stand in the bazaar, you want a couple of tomatoes, and the guy is smiling at you. And all of the images you’ve got through the media just suddenly fall away and all that’s left is the interaction between two human beings – as human beings.” That alone, he tells me, makes all of the risks of traveling to Afghanistan worthwhile.

And the risks are considerable. The official warnings from governmental organizations all over the world make it sound as if any foreigner who so much as sets foot on Afghani soil is as good as dead: “…the threat of terrorism or criminally motivated acts of violence…” “…terrorist attacks throughout the country…” “…armed robbery in Kabul, even during the day…” “kidnappings” “…interurban travel only in armed convoys…” This afternoon, as I make my way down to the bazaar surrounded by a stream of Afghanis, there suddenly appear in front of me several armored cars. Above, a soldier cowers behind a machine gun. It’s then that I notice the flags on the sides of the car and understand: These are my countrymen. These are Germans.

Just identify yourself, say anything. “Hey. How’s it going?” I hear myself saying. “You okay up there?”

The man takes his hands away from his weapon, shoves his sunglasses up onto his forehead and calls out, in a Berlin accent – horrified, “What… man, what the hell are ya doin’ down there? You can’t just… just run around here like that.” The convoy springs back into motion, and the soldier calls out as it pulls away, “Hey, just take care of yourself!” I have the feeling the soldier experiences Afghanistan from the perspective of a prisoner. Maybe he can’t imagine in his armored world that out here, there are also completely normal, peaceful Afghanis.

© Michael Obert

A few minutes later in Zarnegar Park: On a bench, in the shadows of a pine tree, a bearded man sits in traditional Afghani clothing – simple, cream-colored – with his two small boys. In front of the bench, standing in the dust, is a plastic leg. The foot is hidden in a brown, woolen sock and a leather sandal; the rest is a bare, shiny, white. A leg without a body. The man sees me looking vexed, smiles, and with a gesture, invites me to sit down. The boys slide over. I sit. Nobody really seems to know what to do next. We continue to sit in silence. Then, without any introduction, he says the following to me in English: “It happened in my house.”

During the civil war, Qasem, who owned an electrical appliance store, fled, like many Kabulis, to Peshawar in neighboring Pakistan. Under the strict control of the Taliban, the security situation quickly improved. He came back and cried tears of joy, he says, but when he got home, he saw his house in ruins. He went inside to see if anything could be saved – that’s when the mine exploded that tore off his leg.

Again, we are silent. Afghanistan is littered with millions of landmines and unexploded munitions. No one knows exactly where they are. Every year, they claim hundreds of Afghanis’ lives, among them many children. Qasem leans back against the bench seat. Beneath his robe, the stump of his leg slips out. It has healed well. He takes his cap from his head and hangs it on the prosthesis as if on a hat stand. All at once, he says, “Do you see the trees, the sky, the birds, the rose blossoms around the fountain?” Then after a while: “I could have died. Instead, life has given me two sons.”

Camping in Kabul, Part II: „Every hippie loved my super Payan Camping“
Camping in Kabul, Part I: Afghanistan – hot off the presses from Lonely Planet

Michael Obert, born in 1966, is a German book author and journalist who writes for Geo, Stern and other periodicals in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, as well for Courrier International (Paris), The Journal (New York) and Himal Southasian (Katmandu). He reports mainly from Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia, and has written books on the Islamic world. Obert currently lives in Berlin. „Camping in Kabul” was also published in his book „Die Ränder der Welt“.