The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010 by Stephanie Elizondo Griest

Author:Stephanie Elizondo Griest
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Travelers' Tales
Published: 2010-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Shauna Sweeney lives in Santa Monica and teaches writing at the University of Southern California. She has circumnavigated the globe on a ship, traveled extensively through Southeast Asia, and slept in more airports than she’d care to admit. She is currently finishing her first novel.

MALIHA MASOOD

Breaking Frontiers

A writer returns to her war-weary motherland.

The bazaar in Landi Kotal is a gunsmith’s paradise: an impressive display of Kalashnikovs, pistols, and hand grenades. I ask one of the merchants if he still has the Stinger missiles that the CIA supplied to the Afghan mujahideen resistance. “They were brave men,” he says. “They fight Russians for USA.”

A nasty cough ripples from his lungs and then the merchant draws my attention to an authentic Chinese assault rifle. Would I care to see the famous Israeli Uzi submachine gun? He also has some old Enfield .303 rifles.

“From India,” he points out. “Indian woman very beautiful. I watch movie on VCR.”

I lead him back to the question of Stingers, many of which were unused after the Soviet withdrawal. The U.S. government had spent vast amounts of time and money to recover the surface-to-air missiles, but the covert nature and lack of oversight of arms shipments made it virtually impossible to keep track of what happened once the weapons left American hands and got funneled into Pakistan.

“My friend in Dara,” the old merchant says. “He have. Many people buy to fight war in Kashmir.”

I turn down his request to see his collection of revolvers. Apparently, he’s quite proud of the local knockoffs of the .32 caliber Webley. They’re made by a factory in Peshawar, where you can also buy top-quality hashish. He can get me some smuggled stash from yet another friend.

Landi Kotal is an old garrison town, dating back to the days of the Raj. Crumbling watchtowers and insignias of various British regiments still guard this highest point on the Khyber Pass. We drive slowly through the cantonment, past the barracks and the Khyber rifles mess. The driver pulls into what appears to be a spacious guesthouse and salutes a slew of approaching servants. Anwar leads me into a tasteful salon decorated with ethnic handicrafts and black-and-white photographs of former VIP guests. I recognize Prince Charles, Nehru, Jinnah, and the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir. After washing up, we settle down to a meal of daal, chapati, bhindi and mutton pulao strongly flavored with cardamom.

The Pashtun waitstaff hovers around Anwar and me, clearly not accustomed to serving such insignificant company. The two of us sit around a huge teak table that could accommodate at least twenty. Anwar eats quickly and lapses into an awkward silence, eyeing me furtively from time to time. Despite his friendly chatter on the drive, I sense his discomfort in my presence. Underneath his brandy and cigar exterior, he conceals centuries of Rajput blood that has neatly divided the world of men and women into two separate chambers. I am clearly breaching protocol. Nonetheless, Anwar has

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