kabul vs. dubai

Dubai is a mash up of Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego and Saudi Arabia. It's an empty city of perfectly new malls and hotels. I don't mean empty in the metaphysical sense, although this is easy to argue, I mean there are hundreds, thousands of sparkling buildings for rent. It's a city that revels in its new magnificence and holds no shame for aping ancient citadels and Disney theme parks. How else to wrap your head around the Dubai Mall's giant fish tanks marveled at by women in full hijabs and a palm-shaped island built into the Arabian bay so as to maximize the seaside view of each cook cutter villa. It's a city that doles out life sentences for selling marijuana cigarettes, yet is infamous for its sex trade. Like Vegas, Dubai is a place to visit, but if you stay you become a horrible person.
Kabul is a ringed by mountains and the dust winds that sweep into the city mingling with the smog. It's a city of taxis, mini-van buses, men in long beards riding bicycles. Women wearing bluish burkhas like suits of chain mail over their heads with flashy pajamas underneath.

I didn't know how to take it. Was this not a war zone? In Baghdad we wouldn't know if the city was becoming safer for Westerners because we don't see it but from behind bullet proof glass. But in Kabul you can walk out of compounds, walk on the streets, no problems. This guy named Dallas who's an embedded consultant at the Ministry of Finance told me he takes the bus to work. I was incredulous. So when I walked outside the small guest house I was staying in for the first time, my instincts squirmed. I had my camera in hand. The guards from the embassy across the street shouted at me. They wanted to see if I'd taken pictures of their security set up. I hadn't, but I got spooked. I walked a few blocks down the dusty streets with a brave face and turned back to the guest house.

An hour later, I couldn't afford the beers, a $7 a pop price jacking in preparation for the thirsty journos descending on Kabul to cover the national election on Aug. 20th. So I went out again, walked past the embassies, past a man picking through the remnants of food garbage on the sidewalk, and headed towards the intersection where the houses clung to the hills rising into mountains. I bought a big bottle of water for one U.S. dollar. Highly useful. But I felt people were watching me, following me, call it the Baghdad syndrome.

The air was pitiful, dust particled and smog choked. A woman walked by with a perfectly made up face. I closed my mouth, bent my head downward and walked swiftly back to the guarded gates of the guest house where aid and embassy folks are drinking in a garden and being served something that smells Italian.