Bombs and sugar water

Nuria, 7, rests in the burn unit of Herat Regional Hospital on May 10.

She was taking shelter with her mother and two sisters in a housing compound on May 4th, when U.S. forces used air strikes to quell a day-long battle against the Taliban in the village of Garani, Farah province, Afghanistan. Nuria's mother died during the bombardment, and her sisters were both badly burned.

NPR's Soraya Nelson, Los Angeles Times' Laura King and I traveled to west Afghanistan to report on the incident, which had the potential to be the largest civilian casualty occurrence since the U.S. invasion in 2001. Please listen to Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson's report for National Public Radio here and read Laura King's LA Times story here. This was an extremely complicated, nuanced story that they worked on for a full week, reconstructing and comparing events through countless interviews. They both did an amazing job, in my opinion.

We started in northwest Afghanistan at Herat Regional Hospital's burn unit, where we found five survivors: one woman and four young girls.


Nurse Marie-Jose Brunel tries to help 12-year-old Tallah Barakat straighten her legs in the hospital's burn unit. In addition to her burns, Tallah also had a compound fracture of her leg.


Naeem Barakat, 13, supports his sister Tallah while she takes a drink of water.


Barakat prays next to the bed of his youngest daughter, 5-year-old Fereshte. His wife, the mother of Fereshte, Nuria, Tallah and Naeem, was killed.


Tallah is soothed by her father.




From Herat, we flew south to Farah City, an hour's drive from Garani. However, this police checkpoint just outside of the provincial capital was as close as we were able to get to the village. A secured ring surrounds Farah City. Outside the last checkpoint, danger for Afghans and foreigners alike is very real. A 10-km stretch of the highway to Garani passes through an area occupied by hundreds of Taliban, according to Garani tribal elders, Afghan police and international coalition forces. As a result, neither the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission nor the United Nations, nor we journalists were able to view and investigate the area first-hand in the days following the incident.

We may have been alright getting to the bombed area--it's getting back out that probably would have been a problem.


The day after we arrived in Farah City, the Afghan government held a reparations ceremony for families of the civilian victims. This was another chance to talk to villagers who witnessed the events on May 4th and their aftermath. Above, a Garani resident weeps during an opening prayer for the victims.

According to residents of Garani, the first U.S. strikes came long after the Taliban had fled the village, perhaps as long as 90 minutes. The first bomb hit a mosque, and villagers, many of them children, took cover in two housing compounds. Bombs hit both compounds, killing as many as 140 civilians. The U.S. military has stated the civilian death count as low as 20-30, but recently admitted mistakes in the incident: "U.S. Report Finds Errors in Afghan Airstrikes," New York Times, June 2, 2009.


A resident of Garani meets with Afghan government officials during the reparations ceremony in Farah City.


Family members were paid $2,000 for each death, for a grand total of $180,000.


Each recipient was recorded and fingerprinted so that reparations couldn't be claimed twice.


Brothers Humayun, left, and Yassin accept money for their dead family members from Farah province governor Rahoul Amin. The brothers came to collect for their deceased parents and nine siblings, but only nine family members were on the Afghan government's list of dead civilians from the village of Garani.

I can't really imagine losing my entire family and my house just like that.


Mohammad Ayub's son Dawajan, 1, plays peek-a-boo in his father's clothing while they wait for the reparations ceremony to begin. Ayub's wife and 2-year-old son were missing and presumed dead.

While we interviewed and photographed the farmer, a pall of hopelessness fell on his features. He asked if one of us would take Dawajan, as the baby was still nursing when his mother died, and Ayub didn't know how he would be able to care for him. His livestock had been destroyed along with his house. He had no money for milk.

Dawajan's diet had become the only thing his father had left: a bit of sugar mixed with water.

Courage

Schools for girls have never been plentiful in Kandahar. (Find Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson's NPR report on girls' education in Kandahar here.)

Some blame this on the Pashtun honor code, known as Pashtunwali, a male-dominated tradition that, among other things, advocates "protecting" women. Especially in rural areas, this generally keeps women at home, covered and away from the prying eyes of unrelated males. A family's honor is only as pure as its women's virtue. However, there are also economic factors--some families simply can't afford to send their children to school. Added to this are three decades of war and general lack of security throughout Afghanistan. Sometimes, it's just not safe to go anywhere. Unfortunately, this all means that many girls are not allowed by their families to go to school and never get the opportunity to learn to read, write or realize their full human potential.

The years under the Taliban's strict reign did not help matters. A sort of Pashtunwali on Islamic steroids, the Taliban institutionalized women's existence to roughly around the Dark Ages. A list of restrictions imposed on women by the Taliban published online by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) includes the prohibition of women's education, work outside the home, and any activity outside the home unaccompanied by a close male relative. (Afghanistan has always been a conservative place. Women have been wearing burqas for centuries. RAWA also notes that many of the restrictions on their list were first put into practice during the time of Ahmed Shah Massoud's government from 1992-1996, before the Taliban came to power.)

Billions of dollars in aid have poured into Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Some of this money has been earmarked specifically for girls' education. In the past eight years, girls' schools have been built, teachers have been trained and girls' school enrollment has increased even in Kandahar, although it still lags behind much of the rest of the country, according to Afghanistan's education minister.

In the past couple of years, security in Kandahar has deteriorated, and with that, gains in women's education have slid backwards. A number of acid attacks on school girls, threats on students and teachers, and the very real fear of assassination of anyone willing to speak out for women's rights or human rights, have contributed to a drastic decrease in girls' enrollment at public schools.

So, what did women do when the Taliban closed girls' schools in the late 1990's? They formed secret schools in people's homes, of course! Hundreds of literacy programs and schools for girls and women have sprung up in Kandahar city homes.


Marzia, 17, teaches the first grade to a group of girls and women aged 14-40 in the courtyard of her Kandahar home. She was teaching as part of a World Food Program (WFP) and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) program that exchanges women's participation in the 10-month long class for monthly food rations.

More than 400 micro-schools exist in Kandahar just through the WFP/CIDA program. There are hundreds of home schools in Afghanistan founded through other non-governmental organization like these. And who knows how many more informal schools and tutoring programs operate in secret?


A student answers questions about the Dari alphabet at the front of the class.

All of the women wore burqas for our visit, except Marzia, the teacher. She refused to cover her face or hide her identity. She told us that she strongly believes in serving her country and that her faith in God gives her courage and strength to continue this work.


The women were sheltered from the sun by a plastic blue tarp overhead.


Two young women whisper during the lesson.


A student recites letters of the Dari alphabet while the rest of class repeats after her.


Hands folded, a woman listens.


A woman peeks over the wall separating her house from the class next door.


The youngest student in the class, a 14-year-old.


Tents pitched in the courtyard serve as classrooms for overcrowded Mirwais School for Girls. On Nov. 12, 2008, men on motorcycles splashed acid on 11 students and four teachers as they walked to the school.


Shamsia Husseini, 17, shown in her Dari class, is the only one of those attacked who has returned to school.

The older girls in Shamsia's class are still very much afraid. They also expressed anger and hostility at the many foreigners who came to talk to them, but who were unable to help make their lives safer. They questioned how such a thing could happen with so many foreign soldiers in Kandahar; did the Americans just not care about them? (I should note here that most Afghans don't make a distinction between the Americans and other armies--German, Canadian or anyone else. All of the soldiers are American.)


A student clears the chalkboard at the front of a classroom.


Girls chatter and mill about during a break between classes.


Three students share a textbook during class in a tent outside the main building.

"Do you want to go to Kandahar?"

This was a question I really didn’t expect to hear, not on this trip, maybe not ever.

Kandahar didn’t factor into my plans. I just didn’t think it was a possibility, not just because it is considered dangerous enough to keep most un-embedded foreigners out, but also because of the high cost of secure lodging and transportation.

But, to my surprise, NPR’s Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson was asking me to accompany her on a week-long reporting trip to the city in one of Afghanistan’s most volatile southern provinces.

I wouldn’t have gone to Kandahar on my own, but this was to be Soraya’s third trip there and she has been reporting from conflict zones for 10 years. She has lived and worked in Afghanistan for the past three years. I trust her judgment. And she offered me the opportunity not just to provide visual content for NPR’s website, but also to experience a place and a people that few outsiders get to see, and to do it relatively safely.

It was too tempting to pass up.

Journalists take calculated risks everyday. Just being here in Afghanistan is risky. Every time we leave the security of the hotel or guest house, there are risks. We weigh the need to work on an important and compelling story with the ability to do it as safely as possible.

Working in Kandahar presented some challenges.

For the first time ever, I wore a burqa to work. I had to work quickly, never staying in one place for longer than 20 minutes. I tried not to attract attention to myself, the car, the driver, the translator or Soraya. I traveled in a nondescript small car, changed my daily routine outside of the guest house and tried to think a little like the enemy. I thought about where I would strike if I was a bomber or a kidnapper and tried not to put myself in those situations; or if I had to go there, I didn't stay long. And some places were simply off limits.

No matter how many precautions you take, or how many things you do to try to prevent something bad from happening, bad things can still happen. But if we let fear completely take over, no stories would be written, no photographs would be taken. One piece of advice somebody gave me before I left for Kandahar was, "Just do your work and take care of yourself and don't worry about the rest." A way of saying, you can only worry about what is in your control.

A few street scenes:


Women's market. (Unlike in Kabul, in Kandahar it is rare to see a woman not wearing a burqa. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the wide range of colors--green, brown, lavender, rose, peach and olive--worn by the women in public. I had only seen the stereotypical blue burqa and occasionally a white one.)


Flat bread frying in a bazaar stall.


Rickshaw driver. Afghans consider the rickshaw the mode of transport least likely to be targeted by roadside bombs.


Radio salesman. During the reign of the Taliban, music, dancing, television, cinemas and many other aspects of cultural life were against the law.


Bike traffic.


Women's market.


Tea shop.


Chawk-e Madat Square.

A photojournalist friend once told me that Afghanistan feels safe until it isn't. The feeling of security one can have in Kabul is deceiving. A bomb can come out of nowhere.

I got a different feeling when I was in Kandahar. People there live with a much more frequent and sustained level of violence. Afghans die as they go about their daily lives. Kidnappings occur regularly. Assassinations have become terrifyingly efficient. As both the seat of provincial government and the largest city in the southern part of the country, frequent suicide attacks and IED's aim to destabilize the entire region.


The day after we arrived in Kandahar, a man detonated an IED just outside the main gate of Mirwais Hospital, the city's main public hospital. The intended target was a passing Afghan National Police truck. Two people were killed. The five injured included Nassir Ahmad, 8, shown in the emergency ward at the hospital.


Forty-five minutes after the blast, only some bits of blood and debris from the trees overhead remained.


I don't think I was imagining the underlying dark vibe I felt from strangers, subjects and others I met. The people of Kandahar are weary. There is no security and life is cheap.


The dead woman's young daughter was seriously injured and on an operating table somewhere in the hospital.



More from Kandahar coming up...

Drugs, Part 2

The second part of the NPR drug series focused on the former Russian Cultural Center, a bombed-out campus of buildings in Kabul that has become a notorious addict hangout used primarily by men.

You can look at Part 2 of Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson's series on NPR's website here.

According to a February 2009 United Nations survey, around 650 addicts live in the buildings at the Russian Cultural Center, and officials estimate 1500-2000 additional people come everyday to buy and use drugs. Heroin is the drug of choice, with 98 percent of the residents either smoking or injecting it. The drug is cheap. Unemployment, poverty and despair are all in ample supply.

Conditions at the site are terrible. The buildings provide little shelter from the elements. There is no electricity, plumbing, heat or clean water. The floors inside are covered in trash, dirt and human waste, a ripe place for disease to spread. The UN says that during the winter months, 2-4 people died each day at the center.

To stem these daily deaths, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime set up an emergency detox program on the grounds of the center in February. They also began feeding the residents one hot meal per day, so at least they wouldn't starve to death. Although meant merely as a stop-gap measure, this program has become the largest ad-hoc drug treatment center in Afghanistan.

The Russian Cultural Center was an experience. We decided to go mid-morning, hoping people would be stirring before the day's midday meal. Soraya asked both her driver and her fixer to come in with us. The "counter-narcotics" police wanted to accompany us as well (for our own security--why else?), but we refused. We were saved from that situation by allowing a doctor from the detox program to come in with us. Better than the police any day. (Part of Afghanistan's problem is that everyone is involved in the drug trade. It's just too lucrative. Police, members of Parliament, government ministers...)

So, we were five people. To me, that's way too many. In Afghanistan, it's true, I never just go off and shoot by myself. I always have somebody with me, whether it is a driver, translator or another photographer. Especially going into a potentially risky environment, I'd rather not go alone. People can get pretty agitated about photographs even if they're not high on narcotics. But it's very difficult to be unobtrusive with five people.

So, in we went.


A drug dealer sits at the entrance to one of the buildings. Heroin is cheap and readily available at the former cultural center, despite the so-called counter-narcotics police just outside.


When we actually got inside, I was totally shocked by what I saw: room after room packed with men all squatting and in various stages of smoking heroin. I've definitely never seen anything like it.


Addicts light up in a dilapidated room. Users melt the heroin paste then inhale the smoke to feel the effects of the drug.

Some people were definitely upset that we were there, others graciously allowed me and Soraya to talk to them and photograph them. It's always amazing to me what people are willing to share of themselves, even something like their addiction. But I think doing this kind of work would be impossible if I didn't always try to treat everyone I meet with basic respect and humanity, no matter what their situation.


Heroin paste that has already been melted and is ready to smoke.


Ruhollah, 25, an Afghan refugee returnee from Iran, smokes heroin.




We only had 15 minutes or so before it was time to go. Soraya, who understands Dari (Afghanistan's Farsi dialect) said she could hear people threatening us.


A bombed building serves as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime emergency detox program, where addicts can try to quit. The detox center serves the 650 residents with a daily hot meal, and if they choose, detoxification assistance, medical aid and counseling.


Muhammad Rahim, 28, sits in an acute detox room where he will spend a week before moving to a second recovery area.


It's Muhammad's first time trying to quit.


A recovering addict in the final phase of detox sits next to the fire at the center.


Each of the former Russian Cultural Center's 650 residents will receive soup, bread and a little fruit for lunch.


Hundreds of men line up and wait patiently to receive a portion of food.


A man sits hunched over his soup and bread, the first and only meal of the day, just outside the emergency detox center.


Afghans have very few options for treatment of drug addiction. International donors have spent lots on opium eradication, but almost nothing on treatment.

Drugs, Part 1

The first assignment I worked on in Kabul was a two-part series with National Public Radio's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson about Afghanistan's growing drug addiction problem. You can see NPR's web presentation of Part 1 here. (Please listen to Soraya's audio piece. It's good.)

The Afghan government is doing little to treat its own addict population, and funding for treatment from international organizations lags way behind funding and support for opium eradication. Experts we talked to said that a new United Nations survey being conducted is expected to show that 1 in 12 Afghans abuses drugs.

For the first part of the series, we visited Karima and her six children in the neighborhood of Shahre-Kohne, literally translated as "Broken City", in Kabul. Karima is addicted to heroin, opium and hashish and the week before we visited her, she was so desperate for cash that she tried to sell her 5-year-old daughter. Karima has exposed all of her children to the drugs from pregnancy onward.

A nearby drug treatment program, the Nejat Center, has been reaching out to Karima. Counselors and doctors have been visiting the small room where the family lives, trying to convince Karima to quit. She says that she wants to quit, but so far hasn't been able to.


Karima prepares her morning fix--a mixture of heroin and opium rolled in a cigarette.


Rika, 3, sits next to her mother and watches the process.


Karima said that her husband got her hooked on the drugs. That's 5-year-old Raisa (the one Karima tried to sell) on the far right and 3-year-old Rika, playing with her mother's cigarettes.


Fahima, 12, watches her mother. Karima makes Fahima go out and buy her drugs for her.


Rika, 3.


Fahima sits calmly while her grandmother Fariba, left, and Karima, right, giggle from the effects of the drugs. Both of Karima's parents are also drug addicts.


Pooh and cigarettes.


Fahima answers the door. Her hair is falling out in chunks and she has kidney stones. All of the children suffer from their exposure to heroin and opium smoke, as well as malnutrition.


Karima reaches for her few cooking utensils so she can begin to prepare lunch. Private donations to the Nejat Center were used to buy Karima a small stove and some gas for cooking, as well a few cans of food and cooking oil.


For lunch, potato soup with a little onion.


Arun, 7, and Raisa, 5, wait while Karima slices onion and potato. Karima's addiction means that sometimes there is just enough food to stifle the hunger pangs, but not enough for the children to thrive. And sometimes no food at all.


The youngest, 1-year-old Ghodratullah, sleeps soundly in his crib.


Karima hands off her still smoking cigarette to Fahima. The Nejat Center counselors recently discovered to their horror that the 12-year-old girl also smokes some of her mother's heroin and opium.

Afghanistan: Orientation

To the annoyance of my parents, I am here in Afghanistan once again.

I arrived in Kabul two weeks ago and am hoping to stay a month or two, continuing work on a couple of projects and making myself available for assignments. (Hint, hint. Hello? Hello?! Anybody???)

A friend and colleague has graciously offered to put me up in her house for awhile--and I finally know how to give people directions on how to get here. One of Kabul's many challenges is the lack of actual street names, let alone house numbers. Some streets are so famous that everybody knows them, like Flower Street, which is a well-known street full of shops. Some streets have mysterious names, like Toilet Street. Others are simply called Line 5 or Line 8 (although many Afghans don't seem to know these streets), with one unnumbered door in the wall following another.

Still other streets are known only by their landmarks, like mosques, bazaars, stores or restaurants. I can't post my exact location on the Internet, so I'll just say that my street is unofficially known by the name of a restaurant serving a popular fried food. I feel like laughing every time I have to give people directions but hey, whatever gets me here.

I've gotten a couple of assignments, which I'll share later. Until then, I'll wow you with a few images from my daily existence here...


This is an Afghan dish called palaw, which I call "lunch", served nearly every day where I am staying. The dish is a giant plate of meaty rice cooked in meat juices (often lamb) with some kind of stew to eat with each spoonful. I always get a portion of yogurt, which I never touch. The bread is actually very good and fresh from the bakery everyday.


Walls, razor wire, fences: the view from the second-story balcony. Oh, yeah--by the way, this is pretty typical of the weather we've been having. Rainy, chilly, muddy...


...which is why I am thankful for the wood stove in my room. My friend Taimani (the dog) loves it too.

Gaza Part 2

Plastic flowers in Abed Rabbo.


Dunya, 12. Her house fell on her after it was bombed. Her family dug her out from underneath the rubble.


Tossing stones from the top of a collapsed mosque in Jabaliya, the scene of heavy fighting.


A woman whose son was shot by Israeli soldiers while the family tried to bring wounded women and children to the hospital. When the family fled, Israeli soldiers occupied her home. They wrote offensive graffiti on the walls, left trash everywhere and used the pots and pans as toilets.


A man warms his hands by a fire in his temporary shelter next to his destroyed home in Abed Rabbo.

I am OK. (Gaza is not.)

A man prays next to his home in Abed Rabbo, Jabaliya, Gaza.


Temporary shelter in Abed Rabbo.


White phosphorus bomb victim. This woman's husband and four of her children died when the bombs hit her home.


Her father died.


El-Attatra


El-Attatra


Destroyed chicken farm in Zeitoun.


Children playing on the remains of a bombed-out mosque in Jabaliya.


People praying on the remains of the mosque.


Gaza Zoo


Zeitoun


A father and son in their living room, El-Attatra.


Graffiti left behind in Zeitoun.


El-Attatra


Abed Rabbo

Day 15: 271 dead children

Before leaving Rafah for Cairo last night, I went to the border terminal one last time.

Just after the end of the daily so-called cease fire from 1-4 p.m., a convoy of at least 10 ambulances arrived from Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The crowd of media pounced on the first few ambulances to arrive, as paramedics began to transfer the patients to Egyptian ambulances. I was standing at a distance, having decided the compelling stories were slipping through the cracks with such a frenzy.

As I stood there alone, a paramedic walked toward me saying, "Come, look. A baby." I followed him to his ambulance and looked inside. When I saw the 3-year-old girl lying there, face covered in burns and bruises, both legs and an arm broken, I felt something inside me break.

Her mother, I was told, was also injured and coming in an ambulance to join her daughter at the border. The Israeli bomb killed three other members of the family. The baby's grandfather was standing nearby and I told him I was sorry for what happened. Then I held up my camera and said, "Is it okay?" He nodded yes.

I turned back toward the little girl and sat on the steps of the ambulance in the open doorway. She immediately began to wail. I didn't want her to be afraid of me. So I started talking to her, telling her she was going to be okay, that her mom would soon be there and that she was safe. Of course she couldn't understand a word of what I was saying, but something in my voice must have calmed her down, because she stopped crying. I took four photographs.


The girl's mother arrived, and the grandfather went to the side of her gurney to help move her. The mom sat up and tried to move on her own to the Egyptian gurney, but maybe it was too painful. She collapsed into her father's arms. I think she just wanted to be with her little girl. Mother and daughter were transported together to Al-Arish's military hospital.


Above, a paramedic waits in the doorway of a Palestinian ambulance next to her patient, a 15-year-old boy who was injured when Israeli bombs hit the mosque where he was praying in Gaza City.

The convoy of ambulances also brought two Norwegian doctors who amazingly had been working at Al-Shifa hospital alongside the Gazan doctors and nurses for the past 11 days. They somehow received approval to go across as part of the Norwegian Aid Committee. Dr. Mads Gilbert called the Palestinian doctors heroes and said their homes had been bombed and some members of their families had been killed and they still stayed at the hospital working around the clock, without proper equipment and sometimes without electricity.

He mentioned that 11 paramedics and one doctor had been "killed in action," that is, while driving clearly marked, uniformed ambulances to hospitals or to the border to try to save a patient. Dr. Gilbert also said that a bomb landed almost right in front of the convoy, shortly before their arrival at the border crossing.


A young man reaches toward his wounds in pain.

Happy New Year Gaza!!!

I spent the last few days at Egypt's border with Gaza, in a town called Rafah.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Gaza, here are a few facts:
1. With around 1.5 million residents squeezed into 139 square miles, it is one of the most population dense areas in the world.

2. Although Gaza is ruled by Hamas, Israel controls Gaza's borders, airspace and territorial waters, which allows Israel to control the flow of goods and people into and out of the strip. This includes food, fuel and medical supplies, as well as weapons. Since Hamas took full power of Gaza in June 2007, Israel has severely limited its exports to Gaza.

3. Egypt is the only country besides Israel that shares a border with Gaza. To the consternation of the Egyptian government, which is trying to control its own widely popular Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas enjoys widespread support throughout the Egyptian populace. Egypt's border at Rafah has been closed for all but select humanitarian aid since June 2007.

4. Yes there are probably Palestinians who would like to bomb Israel off the face of the earth (with their homemade rockets), just as there are Israelis who actually are bombing Gaza off the face of the earth--and neither side seems to care if non-combatant civilians are killed in the process. The fact is, Palestinian civilians essentially have no place to go. They can't flee to Egypt. They certainly can't get into Israel. They are trapped on this tiny island with bombs falling all around them.

I arrived at the Rafah border crossing on Sunday, Dec. 28, a day after Israel's air strikes began. I hired a driver to pick me up at 5 a.m. and make the 4-hour jaunt to the Rafah border post. I arrived around 9:15 a.m., just minutes after the first bombs of the day fell on Rafah, I was told by the cadre of journalists lined up outside the gate.

Incredibly, the Egyptian officials allowed all of us journalists past the front gate to the actual border crossing area. We merely had to give them our passports and press cards, as assurances that we wouldn't be able to cross into Gaza. (See Mom, I couldn't even get in to Gaza if I tried.) That's pretty amazing access from the Egyptian government, which more often than not obstructs the work of journalists here.

I understood why we were allowed inside when I saw the 50 or so ambulances and 15-20 trucks packed with donated medical supplies from around Egypt. Since Egypt has refused a complete opening of its border to refugees and supplies, its important for it to be seen by the Egyptian citizenry and by other Arab nations as helping the Gazans somehow, at the very least allowing humanitarian aid to pass through the border.

It's all political.

Bizarrely, the ambulances were sitting there empty and no wounded people were being allowed in to Egypt. The trucks full of medical supplies were sitting there not being allowed to cross into Gaza. We waited all day for something, anything to happen. Hamas officials came, gave interviews and left again. Palestinian Red Crescent workers could be seen pacing through the open gate on the Gaza side of the border. An Egyptian official showed up mid-afternoon, stating that the Hamas officials hadn't "coordinated" enough with the Egyptian government to allow the humanitarian aid process to begin. Hamas left in a huff.

Finally, around 4:30 p.m., the supply trucks began to line up. It appeared they suddenly had the green light to unload and that the transfer of medical supplies was about to begin.

It's a bit of a blur now, but as I remember it, my back was turned away from the border gate, toward the trucks, when I heard, and felt with my whole body, several massive explosions. The ground shook. I turned to see the smoke rising from an Israeli air strike just on the other side of the border wall. More explosions followed, and just when I thought they would stop, there were more. I could barely lift my camera to my face. The bombs felt so close. People were yelling and running.

A total of 20 bombs were directed at Gaza's system of underground smuggling tunnels leading into Egypt. The tunnels are used to import all kinds of goods into Egypt--food, electronics, livestock and, Israel claims, weapons.


The bombs seemed to jar the many volunteers and police on both sides of the border to action. Since the Egyptian supply trucks were not allowed to drive into Gaza, all of the medical supplies had to be unloaded and carried or rolled, box by box, across the border. Men frantically stuffed ambulances with pharmaceuticals and syringes. Even the Egyptian police were lending a hand, running boxes and beds to the Gaza side. Within an hour, the trucks were empty.


The next afternoon, more trucks of supplies were transported across the border.


In January 2008, the Rafah border was breached when somebody in Gaza exploded a hole in the barrier. A mass of humanity swelled into Egypt to buy all kinds of goods--everything from food to televisions. The government decided it didn't want this scenario to be repeated, so in preparation for the transfer of injured Palestinians into Egypt, the riot police stood in formation near the gate, and truckloads more waited outside the border crossing in case of emergency.


Over the next couple days, I shot the wounded being transferred to Egypt for medical treatment. The first day I saw nine Palestinians transported to Egypt. Gaza's medical facilities have been crippled by the inability to get adequate supplies, among other things. And the hospital in Rafah was not well-equipped enough to deal with the most critically injured.


Shooting this was not fun. The crowd of photographers and television cameras was extremely aggressive. There were also a bunch of random people crowding around gawking, taking pictures with their stupid cell phone cameras. It was really strange. Sometimes the paramedics could hardly get the injured person from one ambulance to the other. All anyone seemed to care about was getting their pictures, instead of caring about the people they were photographing.

I asked one of the wire photographers if this was the norm, if it's always such a feeding frenzy when wounded people are brought in. He confirmed that that behavior was typical in the Middle East.


It's also pretty interesting that nobody, from the families of the injured to the police, volunteers and journalists, seemed concerned with patient privacy. Of course this transfer was happening within a public space, but still. People wanted us to take pictures. They wanted the world to see what was happening.

However, in the U.S., it doesn't matter how big of a story it is, you still need release forms and spokespeople and lawyers to make sure it's all right to take such photographs. Nobody wants to get sued. Just an interesting cultural side note.


The emergency volunteers treated the patients with care and compassion.


Women, children, and men were among the wounded.


People even have to bring their own sheets, pillows and blankets when they go to the hospital.

East

I have been embedded with U.S. Army in Paktya province, Afghanistan, near Pakistan, for the past week. Above is the view from a dusty humvee window.

(Sorry mom and dad. I didn't want you to worry.)

Atlas Press photo agency agreed to write my accreditation letter for the embed, so they are distributing the photos to various newspapers and magazines. (If you'd like to check out all the pictures I have uploaded, go to atlaspressphoto.com and do a search for my name.) I bought my own body armor, which is of course required, and a winter sleeping bag in Jerusalem.

It took a few weeks for the embed to be approved--I went to Kabul not knowing if it would come through at all. But on Nov. 25, I received notice that the embed had been approved and that I was expected at Bagram Air Field the next afternoon.

From Bagram I was transported the same day to Salerno Foward Operating Base in Khost province, where I spent Thanksgiving and the following day waiting for a helicopter flight to FOB Herrera in Paktya province.

So first of all, I haven't been shot at. Just fyi. I haven't come across any IED's, haven't been at the FOB for any rockets or indirect fire. According to the soldiers here, things have calmed down considerably. September was bad. October was quieter but not great. By the time I arrived at the end of November, it was starting to get cold and hopefully the Taliban will go into hibernation or back to whatever country they came from for the winter.


Being able to talk to the soldiers who put their lives on the line everyday has opened my eyes. The soldiers joined the Army for different reasons: ROTC college scholarships, to find some direction in life, and because they believed in serving their country. After 8 months here in Afghanistan, most of the people I have talked to just want to go home. Many of them are on their second or third deployment. Most have been to Iraq for a year or more. They have experienced IED explosions, rocket fire, bullets and ambushes. They have all experienced the pain of losing one of their own.

Having said all that, they are quite honestly doing the best they can. They go out every day and try to keep each other safe, but with courage, toughness and dedication.


I have accompanied two different platoons on missions every day since I arrived. The Calvalry Scouts are part of the 1st Squadron, 61st Calvalry, 4th Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. They are trained to find and kill "the bad guys," as many of them put it. They travel in convoys of humvees. Above, a gunner looks out from the gun turret of a humvee.


A few days ago, one of the missions got sidetracked when one of the platoon leaders saw a group of men parked next to the FOB, taking photographs with a cell phone. They appeared to be taking photographs of the convoy of soldiers as they drove down the road next to the FOB. Photographs of certain aspects of the FOB or the soldiers could be a serious security risk.

When confronted, the group was uncooperative and acting suspicious. They refused to give up the cell phone. Then they took the battery out so the soldiers couldn't see what photographs had been taken. They said they were Afghans, but they could have been Pakistanis, as the border is a short drive.


The man in this photograph was the one with the cell phone. He was actually staring down the individual soldiers. Obviously not a friend of American forces. He was also on his way back to his madrassa, a religious school.

The cell phone was confiscated for a week, and the men were questioned, but other than that, they couldn't be detained further. Being suspicious is not enough. This situation just illustrates one of the many difficulties of this war: the enemy doesn't wear a uniform.


The other platoon that I've spent time with is the first platoon from the 549th Military Police Company. Traditionally, the military police were "combat support," meaning the infantry would be on the front lines and the MP's and many others were in the back, supporting their work in various ways.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Military Police have been moved to the front. They are conducting missions similar to the Cavalry Scouts. Both platoons that I have been following have conducted many "key leader engagements," meaning they visit a village, seek out the tribal/village elders and talk to them. They ask about the welfare of the villagers, security threats from Taliban and foreign fighters, education, health, basic necessities like food and water, power and road projects and voter registration. Often, they end the visit with a distribution of HA: humanitarian aid. Hearts and Minds missions. Above, the MP platoon leader, Sgt. First Class Hermes Acevedo, chats with elders in a village.


I accompanied the MP's to another village, one that hadn't seen many visitors at all. We were there for a long time and the villagers, especially the children, were interacting a lot with the soldiers.

The little girls were very camera shy and the first few times I approached them, they scattered in all directions. I don't think they were less curious about what was going on, but girls just don't get the opportunities for education, fun and outside contact that boys do. It's a cultural thing, but it really sucks. My opinion. The excuse is that they are "protecting" the women, but really it just comes across as selfish.

The girls and women here are incredibly beautiful, even when they are completely covered, because they dress in bright colors--red, green, hot pink, purple, orange. They decorate their scarves and dresses with little mirrors and sparkling jewels. They are the splashes of color in this land of brown and grey.


This particular village was very poor. They were very nice though, and welcomed the soldiers with smiles. At one time the village had a river nearby, which helped them irrigate their crops. But recently a neighboring village built a hydroelectric project and the river dried up.

When the soldiers starting unloading the humanitarian aid, the people immediately began fighting and grabbing at items. Unfortunately, the soldiers had to separate the people from the food, radios and toys until it was all unloaded.


Some of the soldiers occupied the crowds of curious children who gathered around to ask questions and make friends with them. Above, one of the children asks by pantomime if these soldiers are the ones with aircraft that fly overhead.


One little boy, an 8-year-old named Khan, was having trouble walking because he had stepped on a land mine a few days earlier. The platoon medic, PFC Colin Thon, cleaned and dressed the infected wound and told him how to clean it. Some villages are doing better than others and even have their own medical clinics. This village had no medical help nearby.


One of the times I approached the group of girls with my camera, one of the interpreters helped me out by saying something to the effect of: "She's not going to hurt you. Don't you want your picture taken?" A little while later I noticed them smiling and motioning me to come to them. Some of the girls still ran away, but a few stayed right in front of me and let me make some photographs. They loved seeing the pictures on the LCD screen on the back of the camera.

Then the boys came over and told the to go away and shook their fingers at me. It's like they don't want the girls to have any fun at all.


This is Spc. Ernie Ruiz, a gunner with the MP's right before a test fire of the rounds in the humvee gun turret.

The MP's and Scouts have been taking good care of me and watching out for my safety. I am thankful for all of them.


Afghanistan is actually a beautiful place in many ways. Too bad it's so messed up.

In Afghanistan

I arrived at Kabul International Airport Wednesday morning to take on a month or so of work here in Afghanistan. It has been a goal of mine to get here for the past several years. After over a month of planning, I finally made it--just in time for winter to start.

I have had the great fortune of finding a place to stay with a friend rent-free, for the moment. I am being careful. In Kabul these days that means I don't get to walk from place to place, and if I am out of the car, I am not alone and it's quick. The place where I am staying is guarded, as are many guesthouses, hotels and restaurants. Roadblocks, checkpoints and barricaded streets are part of life here. Power outages are common.

It's all taking some getting used to. Luckily, there is a cadre of supportive and experienced journalists and aid workers here who have been endless founts of information and assistance.

One of the most unexpected things for me is how much this place reminds me of Montana. It may be the cool mountain air or the thousands of stars filling the night sky. I sleep in my sleeping bag and use my flashlight frequently. My hiking boots are my preferred footwear. Whatever the reason, I am thankful to feel a connection to home.

More to come...

Readjustments

I am happy to be back in Cairo--aside from the fact that I can't seem to sleep before 3 a.m. I always did have a messed up schedule here though. For some reason finding appetizing food is also proving to be a challenge, but at least I haven't gotten sick yet. Knock on wood.

So, I'm here, and I'm in it for the long haul. Chipping away at old projects, starting new ones and making plans...

By the way, I overhauled my blog, with help from top-notch photojournalists Sol Neelman and Kevin German. The pictures on the Blogger template were just too darn small. I also found out why, no matter how much saturation or contrast I add, my photographs often appear completely flat on my blog. (The secret is: convert each photo's profile to sRGB! Doh.) Still working on updating everything, but I am really happy with how it looks.

My German colleagues

I'm outta here, Deutschland! (Actually, I have already left.)

The journalists I was privileged to work with while on my fellowship were great--talented, witty and fun.

In tribute, here are some of my favorite images of my co-workers. (Above is Christina, the sex columnist, writing her last text on a Friday evening.)


Andreas


Max and the 5-minute table soccer world championships.


It's the Jetzt-Arena.


Philipp, Dirk and Christina racking their brains for story ideas in the daily morning news conference. Dirk is pretty much the coolest section editor I have ever met. He's full of good energy and really good at pushing people in a positive way. And he's damn smart.


Peter and Katarina, ins Konferens. Peter was basically the driving force behind my success at the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He convinced the section editor to bring me, a lowly photographer, on board. He brainstormed stories with me, edited my writing, found me an apartment, took me hiking and supported me in a hundred other ways during my two months at the newspaper.


Judith


Philipp, asleep in a park in Athens, Greece, next to Ziyad, a homeless Iraqi refugee.


Thanks for your dedication, Philipp.


Dirk, the man with a plan, and Peter out to grab a beer after work.


Dirk and Peter again.


Peter, Max, Astra beer and a Spritz cocktail at Cosmos.


Dirk at Cosmos.


I never worked with Vodkarella, but I really like her outfit.


Wolfgang, roommate and colleague, on the way to see "Dark Knight" dubbed in German.


Judith sings during Oktoberfest.


Wolfgang, Niko, Sebastian and Katharina at Oktoberfest.


Peter, Oktoberfest.


Peter, yes I will hold your hat while you run a half marathon.


Peter, above the Höllenbach Alm.

Without my brother

This is Petrus, about to be roused from a late-morning sleep by his 18-month-old nephew Mario.

(If you're totally lost on this post, see the previous post here with background on this Iraqi refugee story.)

Petrus was granted "Duldung," a kind of temporary residency in Germany while his brother Ziyad was deported to Greece. He's living with his eldest sibling and her family in Munich.


He seems to be doing well, except for the fact that his brother is stuck homeless in Greece.


Abir, left, is Petrus and Ziyad's sister. She and her husband have been in Germany for the past 10 years. When they were all children, Abir was always the one who looked after the younger ones, because she was the eldest and also female. So in some ways, Abir has been a mother all her life.


Breakfast.


Alejandro and Manuel, two more of Abir's children, help Petrus learn how to say and write his phone number and birth date in German. Petrus was living in a refugee housing complex in Baden-Württemburg up until just a few weeks ago, when he was granted permission to move to Munich to be close to family.


Petrus quit school after 4th grade, so learning the new language is a challenge for him.


Abir, who can speak German, steps in to help. In Iraq, the children all learned Arabic in school, but the family spoke only Aramaic at home.


Tickle fight with Manuel, 6.


Adel is Abir's husband. He said he feels a huge responsibility for Ziyad, whom he views as a son.


Petrus heads off to his first day of work. (I haven't gained access there yet, but I think it'll happen eventually...)