Pakistan was the country closest to India that had a working Afghan Embassy, where I could apply for a visa. Several colleagues at the Associated Press in New Delhi recommended that I contact the AP correspondent in Pakistan, Kathy Gannon, to help facilitate the visa process and brief me on the logistics of operating as a woman in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Kathy, like very few other journalists in the world, had been working there for more than a decade. Over a drink at the UN club in Islamabad, she casually navigated me through the process of working under the Taliban, offered me a place to stay at the AP house in Kabul, and put me in touch with Amir Shah, the AP’s local stringer. Her enthusiasm eased some of my fear.
The next morning I wondered what to wear to the Embassy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. I forgot to ask Kathy that most basic question. But I knew that modesty was essential. Afghan women wore burqas, but Western women in Pakistan did not. I settled on a salwar kameez (the traditional baggy pants and long shirt worn in the region) and a wide, draping head scarf, referred to as either a chador or hijab, depending on what part of the Muslim world one was traveling through. I opted for a large head scarf rather than the type of all-encompassing fabric that wrapped around both the head and the body. I prepared my papers, passport photos—ones I had shot with me wearing a heavy black head scarf—and made my way with all my paperwork to the embassy. For journalists, no matter who they are, there are few experiences filled with more terror than the infuriating, bureaucratic, often arbitrary, but necessary process of getting a visa.
Ed’s advice rang in my ear: “Do not look any Afghan male directly in the eye. Keep your head, your face, and your body covered. Don’t laugh or joke under any circumstance. And most important, sit each day in the visa office and drink tea with the visa clerk, Mohammed, to ensure that your application will actually get sent to Kabul and processed.”
The Afghan Embassy was a rudimentary, nondescript building in the diplomatic quarter of the city, and the visa office was a small, bland room off to the side with its own entrance from the outside. The other officials inside the embassy could see what happened in the visa office through a small window. The air inside was stiff with body odor. A youngish man with puffy cheeks and a white turban piled atop his head, a dark beard hovering above his chest, and a prematurely aged face—Mohammed—sat behind a desk across from a tattered couch and a few chairs. A steady stream of UN workers and their Afghan drivers shuffled in and out of the room. They were all men. When I entered, Mohammed registered my gender with a faint flicker of surprise, directed me with his eyes to the ratty couch, and proceeded to attend to every male in the room, whether they’d come in before me or not.
He finally called me to the desk. He spoke simple English. I handed him my passport, wondering if he would eject me because I was American.
“Are you married?” he asked.
“Yes, married,” I said. “With two boys back in New York.”
He took my papers and told me to return in three weeks. I nodded. I returned the next day.
He didn’t seem to mind. I was careful not to speak to him unless he first directed a question to me. For the first two of what would be nine mornings, we sat in silence. On the third morning I decided to break Ed’s rule.
“Are you married, Mohammed?”
Without missing a beat, he replied: “No. No wife. My mother died, and there is no wife. I cannot find one. My brothers are looking, but it is taking too long.”
His body language changed as he talked about himself; he lifted his chin and directed his eyes toward me. It was clear the woman issue made him fearful and sad. An Afghan man’s status depended in part on having sons.
“But there must be a woman for you,” I said.
“Too difficult . . . ,” he explained, suddenly seeming vulnerable. “It is impossible to meet a wife in Afghanistan without the help of mother, sisters. Men and women do not mix outside. I need my family to find me a wife.”
At that point another embassy worker walked in the room, and Mohammed shut down. I dropped my eyes to the floor and left.
The next morning Mohammed grinned when I entered.
“Your visa application has gone to Kabul.” He spoke to me in front of a fellow Taliban member for the first time. “You can remove your hijab here. No need to wear this—you are not Muslim.”
I had come to appreciate the respect I’d showed Mohammed and his colleagues by arriving at the embassy in proper hijab (which generally means being covered and wearing modest, unrevealing clothing). The notion of revealing so much of my hair and face to two male strangers made me uncomfortable. I also feared that Mohammed’s comment might have been an obscene request from Taliban officials who wanted to take advantage of an American woman’s openness.
“No, thank you. I will wear it.”
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THAT WEEKEND I WENT to the Pakistani town of Peshawar to photograph the Afghan refugee camps set up to accommodate the thousands of Afghans who fled during the wars. When I returned to the embassy that Monday, Mohammed projected a strange ease, smiling and acting as if he had been happily anticipating my visit. We shared our morning tea.
“There is no word yet from Kabul on your visa.” He was busy, and there were many officials around, so I lingered until we were alone again. “How was your weekend?” he asked.
“I went to the Afghan refugee camps in Peshawar.” I offered this but little else. I didn’t know what might offend him.