Letter to Zerky

From Kandahar with love

In 1967 a young American family embarked on a round-the-world trip that included Pakistan and Afghanistan. Bill and JoAnne Raney, along with their 18-month-old son Zerky, drove around the Middle East in their Volkswagen camper. But not long after arriving back on U.S. soil, JoAnne died of a cerebral aneurism and a year later Zerky was run over and killed by a truck. He was only four years old. Forty years on, Bill Raney has published a book of letters he wrote to his young son describing the adventures they had been on. In this extract, the foursome arrive at the gates to Kandahar.

Kandahar is Afghanistan's second largest city and we approached it with great apprehension. After Tehran, I will never again be the same upon driving into a large Asian city. Although we almost never drive after dark, the road was nearly empty last night, and we were so excited about being in Afghanistan that we just couldn't bring ourselves to stop.

Shortly after dark, we finally saw some bright lights in the distance. Kandahar at last, we figured. It turned out to be Kandahar International Airport. A large, well-lit sign proclaimed so in English to anyone who might be able to read English. It told them that Afghanistan's finest airport was built by Americans as a token of their everlasting friendship. Row upon row of silver mercury vapour lights lit up the runways. Other than that, everything was dark. The airport was totally deserted. It appeared to have no terminal at all, no buildings, nary an aeroplane, nothing but row upon row of extremely bright lights behind a chain-link fence with a locked gate and those two spotlights shining on that very lonely sign. We drove on, talking about how Kandahar International looked like a ghost ship adrift upon the ocean.

A half-hour later the desert gave way to a smattering of darkened mud houses. The outskirts of Kandahar, no doubt. But after driving for another fifteen minutes, we still couldn't find anything resembling the centre of a town, let alone a number two city. All we could find were more scattered mud houses. We continued driving. Before long we were lost. We spotted some sort of military-looking guy in a uniform, standing in the middle of a crossroads. I drove up to him and stopped. “Where is Kandahar?” I asked. “Kandahar! Kan-da-har! KAN-DA-HAR!” I yelled.

“KAN-DA-HAR!” he yelled back, inscribing an expansive arc forcefully with his finger and outstretched arm. Confused, we looked around. Could this be the centre of Kandahar? Not likely – just another mud village. After some more driving around, we finally had to admit that this place seemed to be a very large mud village. And then it dawned on me: Kandahar doesn't have electric lights. All the electricity is out at the airport. Where the people are not. Compliments of everlasting friendship. Afghanistan's number-two city is a city of candles and kerosene lanterns.

Now that eternal question: where are we going to stay tonight? We drove back and forth some more through the dark “downtown”, looking for a hotel or at least somewhere to park for the night. We also looked for a bank to get money for the following morning. We found neither. Just as we were about to give up and head back out into the desert, we spotted a sign in English advertising the Kandahar Hotel, with an arrow pointing the direction. We followed it and soon ran into another arrow a few blocks away. And then another, and another, until, voila: here we are at the Kandahar Hotel!

To our great surprise, the Kandahar has turned out to be an extremely interesting, western-style Victorian hotel left over from a previous era. I suspect it was built by the British when they were in control of nearby West Pakistan, then part of their colony of India. Although in crumbling condition, it remains one of those grand old dowager hotels that live forever off a once-glorious past. The hotel has a wall around it with a very large gate, which we drove through, grandly, into the compound. Your mother, the most respectable-looking among the four of us, got out and went inside. When she returned, she was all smiles. We were welcome to camp in the courtyard, she said, inside the walls. Then she said we were even more welcome to have dinner in the hotel's very impressive-looking restaurant. What a stroke of luck! We would celebrate our arrival in Afghanistan with dinner at a very fancy hotel! Who would have ever thought? The food was excellent, I might add. There was even a fine bottle of wine. And then we went back to the bus, turned on the heater, and celebrated our arrival with a joint.

Love, Dad.

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