I receive an invitation to teach at a workshop in Kabul. Undeniably, it delights me. In his book My war gone by, I miss it so , Anthony Loyd remarked on how, as a journalist pretending to be just another person in Sarajevo, he was “day-tripping through somebody else’s nightmare.” His job was to report what was happening, but it was easy enough to trick yourself into believing you are experiencing the real hardship of people who had no choice, and could not just buy a ticket and be whisked away home.

I read Loyd’s book 17 years ago, but that note of caution, even of self-disgust, remains with me. As much as it is important to teach journalists in the driest country in South Asia about how to report on the challenges that they face, I know my excitement is more about flying into a place of danger.

Not that I am allowed to experience any of it. An armoured car collects me from the airport. My driver jokes that his last name, “Omar”, is the same as my first name. His first name is “Boris”. He laughs as he says that he doesn’t know why his father chose the Russian name, but that it got him into trouble in the Taliban years.

The traffic is a mess. An American had died in the suicide attack against an ISAF convoy a day prior. Huge security vehicles ply through the traffic the wrong way. I admire the graffiti on the blast walls. It is done by a group called Art Lords, and there is one that catches my eye — of two human figures carrying a large red heart, and another transporting a heart in a wheelbarrow.

The hotel is super secure. We go through two checkpoints, a steel door, a security check, a set of two steel doors, and then another, before arriving at the reception. I check in, dump my luggage, and violate the security briefing immediately by stepping out. The hotel is pretty enough, but there is nothing to do, nobody to talk to. The security feels like a noose around my neck that makes it difficult to breathe.

Out on the street I get no second glances. I am too normal, maybe with skin a shade darker than most, but certainly not the best dressed, or the richest person on the streets. The aroma of kebabs and shawarma swamps the air. People sit on the pavement selling shelled walnuts, a wandering cart piled high with pomegranates sells fresh juice. I wander for an hour, pick up pistachios, change a few dollars for Afghanis, give change to some of the poor on the streets, and head back in. As I am patted down again, I notice that one of the guards is bowed in prayer. There is a kind of hurt to that, to this chap who smiled so hospitably to me, and who stands, his life in front of mine, against the possible attack by those who would kill us in the name of our religion.

The workshop the next day goes well, largely led by Afghan experts on water tables, agriculture and the government’s plan to deal with the problems. In the evening, the organisers ask if I will join them for dinner outside. I’m more than happy. But on the way we run into Shoaib, our security in charge. He asks why I am on the road, and then immediately suggests I should come to his place, or his office to eat — neither of which is part of my security brief. Afghan hospitality is an aggressive, wonderful thing.

The next day our group leaves for Kol-e-Hashmat Khan, the largest wetland in Kabul. On Google Maps it is a large blue area. It has hosted 190 species of birds, and many types of fish. It is largely dry now, encircled by illegal encroachments that have squeezed the passageway of water from the Kabul river, by houses on the surrounding mountains where the snow would fall, melt, and feed water to the wetlands. There is a patch of green, and the director of the centre, a national heritage site, says there is water within, but it is little and dwindling.

We come back from the excursion with many of the journalists who had known nothing of Kol-e-Hashmat Khan in their own city fired up with the desire to save it. They suggest stories they could write, investigative pieces on land encroachments, on volunteerism and how it might help, on how to save this dwindling green space in a dry city and a drier country. It gives me some hope, salves my conscience, and I feel just a little less like a tourist in somebody else’s tragedy.

Omair Ahmad is the South Asia Editor for The Third Pole, reporting on water issues in the Himalayas

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