When I finished college, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my life. I tried working as a busboy for about a month until my tuxedo got stolen out of my car. Call it fate or call it serendipity, or call it just wanderlust, but I knew at that moment that I wanted to travel. A week later I sold my car, and with the money I had made, roughly $5000 I bought a ticket to Jerusalem for the millennium celebration. I ended up traveling a lot that year, between Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. And I had some incredible experiences. For a while I lived in a cave in the Syrian monastery of Deir Mar Musa and spent my days meditating on what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. I learned a lot in my time there.
Luxor, Egypt 2000 Daniel Sullivan
Several months later I bought a plane ticket from Istanbull to Pakistan. I landed in Karachi, and after checking into one of the darkest hotels I've ever seen, I took a rickshaw to see the cities biggest mosque. It was big modern mosque, packed with Muslims late Friday afternoon. I was immediately befriended by 6 Muslim men who were so excited to have an American to show around that they insisted on taking me to eat at all of their houses. What soon became a late night became even more bazaar when at 2 am they took me to a large warehouse where jihadis were getting ready to make the pilgrimage to Afghanistan, to join "the holy war". Apparently the six Muslim men had believed my coming to them had been a sign from Allah and this was where I was supposed to be. The warehouse was a bizarre scene of men dressed in shalwar chemises and black white and green turbans sleeping, praying and sitting in small groups.
Dera Smugglers Bizzar, Pakistan Photo by Daniel Sullivan
As I had no desire to join the great holy war, I convinced the men that I had to return to my hotel to get my bags. As they waited outside I snuck out the back door and caught a taxi that happened to be parked on the back street. I had him drop me off at the train station where outside there were so many homeless people sleeping in the street I could barely walk with out falling over them.
I bought a ticket for Lahore, in third class, the only ticket available and hoped my new friends wouldn't catch up to me. In Pakistan third class is bench class and you don't actually have a seat. I sat crunched between two men from the Sind whose wives sat across from me covered from head to toe in black chadwor. As the train made its way through the dust desserts of Pakistan, sand and dust swept through the passenger train covering everyone and everything. The two men next to me covered their faces with their turbans and I just closed my eyes trying to keep the sand out.
It wasn't until about ten hours later that someone spoke to me in english. I'll never forget his words. He said. 'Do you know, Bin Ladin? He is a great hero.' It was November of 2000 and 9/11 had yet to happen, but I still knew very well who he was. The USS Cole had been bombed just two months before and Osama's name had widely been circulated in the news.
Tribal Borderland Between Pakistan and Afghanistan Photo by Daniel Sullivan
'Yes I know him,' I answered, 'he is very infamous where I come from.' The man seemed satisfied with my answer, though I don't think he knew what infamous meant.
After several weeks in Lahoree, then on the Islamabad, I found myself ever drawn to Peshawar and the Afghan Refugees who lived there. I had spend the past year reading about the camps there and the 4 million refuges who had been forced to flee during the years of Civil War. In a mosque one day I became friends with a young Afghan boy by the name of Azos Ahmend, who invited me to live with him and his family. He had been studying english for several years and spoke almost fluently.
His house which was no more that a mud room, housed, himself, his brother, his sister, his two mothers, his two uncles and their wives, their countless children and his two grandfathers and grandmothers. The room was kept divided be thick velvet curtain and when it was time to eat, a tray would slide under. The men would then sit around the food, usually rice in a circle and share nan, oval Afghan bread baked in a tandor. We ate with our hands which always made a good laugh with the kids watching me make a mess of myself, usually dropping more rice then I got in my mouth. After dinner we would listen to news from the fighting in Afghanistan, they always hoping they might someday return.
Homeless boy in Peshawar Photo by Daniel Sullivan
During the day Azos and I would walk through the market place and I soon began to love the many hanging rugs, pillows and saddle bags displayed in the markets. It was one such day that I couldn't resist myself and after getting into a bidding war with a rather shrewd Afghan rug dealer(they are all shrewd), I ended up with and 8x10 rug. The investment was quite silly, as I had no home, no way to send it anywhere and it far exceeded the size of my backpack. Later that night as the family sat admiring my new rug, and telling how I paid way too much and they were going to go out and beat up that rug seller, the family mentioned that their was a famous American man in town who knew a lot about rugs and might be able to help me get my rug home.
The next day Azos took me to a big rundown old hotel in the middle of Peshawar's old city. The American was sleeping at the time in the back room, and when they awoke him he sounded like a big bear being woken from a great slumber. I was actually a little nervous. The American whose name was Terry Reid and I became friends and over the next few day we worked out a deal in exchange for me photographing his rug production he agreed to ship my rug home for me.
Continued next week....
