FROM AFGHANISTAN: Scott Carrier Addendums
Notes on Sounds: stereo ambience

Street ambience in Kabul: (1:30) | (1:36) | (0:49) | (1:33) | (1:25)

The highest building in Kabul is the one built by the phone company. The building also houses the post office and a bank. It's located near the Kabul river, in one of the city's centers, and at some point in the not too distant past there were actually people who worked inside the building and made these things function. Now, however, the building is vacant and many of the windows are missing. Outside, on the street, it's busy with traffic -- cars, bicycles, and pedestrians -- and people selling things from carts along the side of the road--carpets, clothes, soap, shampoo, scissors, mirrors, shoes -- and down by the river people are washing carpets and scrubbing pots and watering their goats. Naji keeps telling me to watch were I'm going, that I'm going to get hit by a car. He says men are saying bad things about me, calling me a horiji, the bad kind of foreigner, and making threats, but I don't see it or hear it. I see men holding hands, glowing, so much in love. I see men who have no money, hungry, but too afraid to act. Prisoners? Slaves? Shell shocked in any event.

Evening prayer: (1:06) | (1:26) | (2:16)

It was the same guy every evening, the same prayer, just after the sun had set. To me he's saying, there are these mysteries that we will never understand. There are mysteries that make us look like sand.

The dogs: (1:45)

They'd start barking as soon as the streets were clear, the sun down, the evening prayer, darkness. Nobody would go out in the dark because the border lines between the 'hoods, between the gangs and the families, disappeared. The dogs knew this, that the lines were gone, and they took the turf with their barks.

The song: (3:38)

This is the dirge of battles fought bravely sung at Dostrum's compound.

Shouting about shooting: (3:53)

These are the guys who were standing around near the van that had been hit with, I think, a rocket powered grenade, or rpg, while going through Balkh. The passenger (left side) window had been shattered away and the windshield was broken into a complex web, but I don't remember bullet holes. One of the wounded passengers had suffered a gut wound, I was told, and was taken to the hospital in Mazar by commandeering some passing vehicle, another man was standing with the aid of a crutch on the road, his foot black and bloody, and still another was inside the van with a bandaged forehead, looking very much in shock. The men who are shouting are telling me what's happened and what's going on and trying to make the point that I need to get out of there as soon as possible. They are saying, basically, that everything is okay now, that it was a mistake, but things are okay now but I should go away and come back tomorrow. I know this because I had my translator, Naji, listen to this tape and try to explain what was going on. The thing I like about this tape is that this is often what it feels like in Afghanistan, this experience of having several men yell at you at the same time. And it's not like they don't know what they're doing. It's like they are giving you everything all at once, making it happen in that space between you. And you either get it or you don't.

The tunnel: (2:10)

Recorded inside the Salang Tunnel.

Email: Back in the U.S.A.

Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001
Subject: battle mountain
From: Scott Carrier
To: HearingVoices

I got back Friday night. That prison revolt was a bloody fiasco. Some kind of cruel joke. The fact the soldiers didn't search the prisoners because it was Ramadan and they wanted to go home and eat; that the Americans dropped nine big bombs and seven of them missed, killing more Northern Alliance soldiers than died fighting, and maybe killing a couple of Americans that the Red Cross photographed the two-day dead bodies before they dumped them in a mass grave because seeing the dead person is a good thing for the families; that they sent old street workers down in to the basement to recover the bodies and that they got shot by prisoners who were still alive; that they then dropped bombs into the basement and then poured in diesel fuel and lit it and then flooded it causing the dead bodies to float and drowning those who couldn't stand up; that when they surrendered one of them turned out to be an American upper middle class kid who'd read the autobiography of Malcolm X and converted to Islam; that the Pastun Afghans still believe that women should wear veils: that nothing in Afghanistan seems to be in any way connected to the attacks in New York and Washington except that the two things are inverse relations; that the Afghans are glad we bombed their country, absolutely delighted; that they believe America will now rebuild their lousy country, the poorest in the world, when they seem to be committed to blowing it up just for the sport of it; that they think we care that much; that they have nothing to offer other than their skill in extortion and carpets; that vaginas can be so frightening; that the inside of their Toyotas are covered in rugs and spotless clean with little stickers with hearts and the word "love" written in 60s psychedelic script plastered over the dash board among plastic flowers and many colored cotton balls; that humans can live with almost nothing believing that in heaven they will have everything they can dream of; that they will invite you into their homes telling you that they are the best hosts in the world and then refuse to even let you see, let alone meet, their wife and their daughters; that the birthrate is 5.6 kids per woman; that the GNP per capita is $246 (probably including sales in opium and heroin); that this military action will do anything to stop terrorism; and so on. A cruel joke. The Soviets were better suited for Afghanistan because they were excellent in saying no, it's not possible. (I got quite a bit of this in Uzbekistan, but was able to counter it by persistence and patience and just the understanding that I was an American and not able to understand their ways, that I was handicapped.) The Soviets built apartment complexes and bridges that asked to be destroyed. They built the better machine guns and tanks. Their helicopters could be shot down and their bombs were stupid. But America and Afghanistan will be a difficult match. First, everyone in Afghanistan would sell their first child in order to move to America, and they will be insulted when we don't allow it. Then, America will insist that they repair their plumbing and that they stop beating the women. Then when they blow up the nice things we've made for them and laugh about it, we will be insulted. When we buy a new wheel chair for a land mine victim and he sells it; when we send them movies and all they want to watch is Jean Claude van Dam and Jackie Chan; when they see the Titanic as a fashion statement; when they can't manage to have a postal system; when they outlaw the internet and Britney Spears; when they chop off a thief's hands; when they shoot some tourists; when they attack Pakistan; when they can't stop asking for more money... America will grow tired of its new friends, and will want to ditch them.

They are good at building mosques. The Islamic State of Afghanistan this week is offering a special deal on Mosques -- for the neighborhood, the mall, perhaps even in your own backyard. We have them in turquoise blue, gold, and ivory. Big and small. Designs from the eighth and thirteen centuries. Please call now for to place your order.

Scott