Baby Blue at the Border

by Olly Lawson (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Afghanistan

I meet Safi Usmani in unusual circumstances. There are packs of heavily armed men prowling around us. There is a caged bridge that does not invite crossing. There is a tobacco-coloured river surging with snowmelt, crenellated fences, coils of barbed wire, and padlocks the size of mess tins. And then there is Safi—all baby blue robes, jet-black hair, and fiercely tanned skin. “Hello my friend!” he says with a wave. He has a reedy, singsong voice—not unlike Kermit the frog’s—but it betrays the seriousness of his ambitions: he is determined to show travellers the beauty of his country. His country being Afghanistan. “Come, come,” he says again, beckoning me past the pack of surly looking Tajik border-guards. “We stay at Marco Polo tonight—very nice guesthouse, you will see.” And so I do. I follow Safi through the Afghan checkpoints and into the front of an Opel. He drives us into the frontier town of Ishkashim, where we stop outside a sand-coloured house tucked away between high metal fences. He leaps out of the car, bangs twice on the gate and then proceeds to steer us through the opening that appears. This is the guesthouse. Were it not for Safi’s word, there would be no way of knowing this. He encourages me to settle in and shower before joining him for food. I do as he says, noting the AK-47 hanging from the wall of my room and the swaying marijuana plants in the garden. By the time I am clean and hungry, Safi is waiting for me cross-legged in the dining room. He has an air of timelessness about him—an elegance and economy of movement that is almost feline. I ask him if he is always like this: “Oh yes,” he replies, his brown eyes twinkling. “Always relaxed with guests. I enjoy their company too much.” This is one of the great perks of his job, he tells me. Two years ago he decided to set up Noshkh Wakhan tours—a travel agency specialising in trips to the Wakhan Corridor. In 2017 170 people visited the region. In 2019 the annual figure reached 408. “It has been a long time coming,” says Safi. “Before 9/11 many tourists come to Afghanistan. They come for shrines, fortresses and nature, but then the war changed everything.” Safi is reluctant to talk about those years, but he does say that he held various jobs during them. He was a teacher at Ishkashim high school, an officer for the World Food Programme, and a clerk for the Independent Election Commission. In 2009 he started learning English and computer programming—skills he now employs to advertise his business on social media. He says it is his new job that gives him the greatest satisfaction: “I have gained many friends in this role,” he says, as he pours out a cup of tea. “I have also learned about many different countries and cultures. What is best of all however, is that I am able to employ many local people. Cooks, drivers, guides. Tourism brings more facilities to Ishkashim—this after many difficult times with no jobs, no money, no hope.” And what does he make of the Chinese-funded highway being built down the Wakhan as part of the Belt and Road scheme? To me it seems a horrifying prospect—a tarmac scar mutilating the wilderness of the valley—but Safi, as I get the feeling he does with each and every tourist he receives, challenges my preconceptions. “For tourists this is not good news. China wants access to Afghanistan, and Westerners think this is a deal with the devil. But for us this offers healthcare, schools, transportation. I think also hope.” And if it affects the tourism trade? “Then so be it my friend,” says Safi with a smile. “Tourism is our best way of improving our lives today, but if tomorrow the best way is with China, then that is okay.” His selflessness is touching. It’s also unusual. The tourism industry typically rewards brash, insatiable greed, but I don’t see it here. Safi’s country has been through too much to be hoodwinked by such promises. Either way it seems—road or no road—the future looks brighter for Afghanistan’s brutal, beautiful, eastern frontier.