It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario Page B
Authors: Lynsey Addario
Ads: Link
correspondent I had been paired with decided to profile Gul Agha Shirzai, an anti-Taliban warlord helping the Americans, who had appointed himself the new governor of Kandahar. But he, too, had killed a lot of people in his time. I assumed that the writer and I would work as a team and that the writer would help secure access for me, because writers generally want to have good pictures for their story.
On the first morning we were slated to go out together, I bounded up to him with a huge smile. “Hi!”
The fall of the Taliban in Kandahar, December 2001. Afghan men sit around outside self-appointed governor Gul Agha’s mansion.
Gul Agha after iftar dinner with supporters.
Young Afghans listen to music publicly for the first time since the fall of the Taliban.
“I think that, as a woman, you are going to ruin our access,” he said, “so it’s probably best if we do this story separately.” And he walked away. I was dumbfounded.
My survival instinct kicked in. I asked one of the interpreters from the Times team to help me get into Gul Agha’s mansion. He smiled. He knew the new governor well.
I was soon seated beside the burly Gul Agha and sharing iftar —the evening meal breaking the day’s fast during Ramadan—with a bunch of male villagers who had definitively never shared a meal with a woman outside of their family. The whole mansion was carpeted and without furniture, and rows and rows of men from surrounding areas had come to break their fast with their new leader. They looked as if they had walked out of the tenth century, cloaked in turbans and capes, their kohl-laden eyes fixed on me as they ate. I stayed close to Gul Agha, unsure of my boundaries. He encouraged me to take pictures. I lifted my camera tentatively at first and photographed the sprawling table laid out on the tattered carpet as the men feasted.
When the correspondent entered, I was still seated beside the governor. He gave me a faint nod, and I felt triumphant. His presence also emboldened me to move around the room, to photograph Gul Agha surrounded by villagers in various states of postprandial repose. The photographs were intimate, a new window into the lives of the conquering warlords who declared themselves in charge and whom the Americans would eventually prop up. My editor was pleased with the candor of the images, knowing I was working under difficult conditions.
Several days later, as the city celebrated, dozens of men and boys gathered around speakers screaming Bollywood tunes that had been banned under the Taliban. It was Christmas, and I told my editors I wouldn’t be able to stay on. It was time to go home to Uxval, my other life.
• • •
U XVAL PLANNED OUR C HRISTMAS VACATION in a beach village on the Oaxacan coast. Within seventy-two hours of leaving Afghanistan, where I had been swaddled in scarves and couldn’t look men in the eye, I was wearing a bikini and kissing Uxval on the beach. After three weeks surrounded by thousands of refugees living in squalor in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I struggled to acclimate to the vapid world of partying Mexicans and Americans who smoked pot and drank beer all day and all night. Uxval had signed us up for surfing lessons. I was exhausted and weak from giardia, a nasty stomach ailment caused by unhygienic foods and water most probably tainted with feces, which caused constant diarrhea, burps of sulfur, weight loss, and days and nights of little sleep. But I had to step up and be a real girlfriend—an exciting, attentive, normal girlfriend—to make up for the weeks away.
I couldn’t do it. I was unable to switch off my brain. I admired the lithe, smiling women, surfing effortlessly. They seemed so happy. At night I drank a few glasses of wine, and by eleven I went home to sleep. Uxval stayed out partying until dawn. I couldn’t muster up the strength or desire to go out with people with whom I had little in common. By then most of my friends were photographers
On the first morning we were slated to go out together, I bounded up to him with a huge smile. “Hi!”
The fall of the Taliban in Kandahar, December 2001. Afghan men sit around outside self-appointed governor Gul Agha’s mansion.
Gul Agha after iftar dinner with supporters.
Young Afghans listen to music publicly for the first time since the fall of the Taliban.
“I think that, as a woman, you are going to ruin our access,” he said, “so it’s probably best if we do this story separately.” And he walked away. I was dumbfounded.
My survival instinct kicked in. I asked one of the interpreters from the Times team to help me get into Gul Agha’s mansion. He smiled. He knew the new governor well.
I was soon seated beside the burly Gul Agha and sharing iftar —the evening meal breaking the day’s fast during Ramadan—with a bunch of male villagers who had definitively never shared a meal with a woman outside of their family. The whole mansion was carpeted and without furniture, and rows and rows of men from surrounding areas had come to break their fast with their new leader. They looked as if they had walked out of the tenth century, cloaked in turbans and capes, their kohl-laden eyes fixed on me as they ate. I stayed close to Gul Agha, unsure of my boundaries. He encouraged me to take pictures. I lifted my camera tentatively at first and photographed the sprawling table laid out on the tattered carpet as the men feasted.
When the correspondent entered, I was still seated beside the governor. He gave me a faint nod, and I felt triumphant. His presence also emboldened me to move around the room, to photograph Gul Agha surrounded by villagers in various states of postprandial repose. The photographs were intimate, a new window into the lives of the conquering warlords who declared themselves in charge and whom the Americans would eventually prop up. My editor was pleased with the candor of the images, knowing I was working under difficult conditions.
Several days later, as the city celebrated, dozens of men and boys gathered around speakers screaming Bollywood tunes that had been banned under the Taliban. It was Christmas, and I told my editors I wouldn’t be able to stay on. It was time to go home to Uxval, my other life.
• • •
U XVAL PLANNED OUR C HRISTMAS VACATION in a beach village on the Oaxacan coast. Within seventy-two hours of leaving Afghanistan, where I had been swaddled in scarves and couldn’t look men in the eye, I was wearing a bikini and kissing Uxval on the beach. After three weeks surrounded by thousands of refugees living in squalor in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I struggled to acclimate to the vapid world of partying Mexicans and Americans who smoked pot and drank beer all day and all night. Uxval had signed us up for surfing lessons. I was exhausted and weak from giardia, a nasty stomach ailment caused by unhygienic foods and water most probably tainted with feces, which caused constant diarrhea, burps of sulfur, weight loss, and days and nights of little sleep. But I had to step up and be a real girlfriend—an exciting, attentive, normal girlfriend—to make up for the weeks away.
I couldn’t do it. I was unable to switch off my brain. I admired the lithe, smiling women, surfing effortlessly. They seemed so happy. At night I drank a few glasses of wine, and by eleven I went home to sleep. Uxval stayed out partying until dawn. I couldn’t muster up the strength or desire to go out with people with whom I had little in common. By then most of my friends were photographers
Similar Books
