In this excerpt from "Come Back to Afghanistan" (see related story), Yale junior Hyder Akbar describes the scene after a bombing in a Kabul marketplace during his first trip to Afghanistan in 2002. Akbar, then 17, was lying on his bed listening to U2, one of his favorite bands, when his bed started shaking. He met up with a family friend and walked to the scene.
"The bomb has exploded in the middle of a marketplace -- probably one of the most crowded places in Kabul at this hour. Just days ago I was there with my father, who bought some freshly cracked almonds. Now on our way, Sartor and I see someone we know. 'Don't go there,' he warns us. 'You don't want to go there -- trust me. You don't want to see it. There are bodies and people injured everywhere. They'll probably block it off before you can get there.'
"Sure enough, there are barricades, a huge crowd. I get only a quick glimpse. Witnesses are saying there are hands and arms over there, unrecognizable pieces of human flesh. Were those things I saw limbs? It's too hard to process. On our way back to the hotel, I see the ambulances. A pair of headlights is smeared with blood. A driver we know from Karzai's presidential convoy appears. 'How many deaths?' we ask. 'How many injuries?'
"The driver just shakes his head. 'It's too numerous to count,' he tells us. Blood pools inside the open doors of the ambulance."
Later, in his hotel, the phones were constantly ringing with journalists calling Akbar's father, then the spokesperson for Afghan president Hamid Karzai. One reporter, angered when Akbar could not respond to his request, hung up on him, swearing. Akbar writes:
"This stuff is real to me, and it's just a job to them. The reporters go to bed cursing me out because they won't be able to file good stories; I go to bed having realized how easy it would be for it all to fall apart."
T H I S
W E E K ' SS T O R I E S
Summer program will send students to Singapore
Scientists say sediment layer may forecast greatest earthquakes
Yale receives $5.4 million NIH grant . . .
Trips to Afghanistan kindle student's love of parents' homeland
'How many deaths? ... How many injuries?'
Yale composer is elected the president of scholarly academy
ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS
Dirk Bergemann is appointed . . . Campbell Professor of Economics
Philip Haile is named the Ford Foundation Professor of Economics
Urry designated the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Warner is named the Avalon Professor of the History of MedicineSymposium pays tribute to noted architect Philip Johnson
Film explores evolution vs. intelligent design
Yale affiliates to be among featured guests at LEAP fundraising dinner
New test uses amniotic fluid to predict possibility of premature birth
Sex of fetus shown to affect severity of symptoms in women with asthma
Analyzing proteins in urine can help diagnose, classify preeclampsia'
Exhibit, symposium focus on two 'Witnesses to War and Revolution'
The 60-year history of the United Nations is celebrated in new library exhibit
Expert on global environmental issues named Distinguished Visiting Fellow
Issues of chronic illness explored in international conference
Readings celebrate 'London's River' in verse and prose
Campus Notes
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