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.

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.)

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.