Dangers and Delights of Jogging in Kabul

K A B U L, Afghanistan, April 26 -- Kabul has everything a jogger hates — traffic, pollution, dust, uneven, pot-holed roads and trails, and residents who love to stare, follow and even toss the occasional rock at foreign passers-by.

I was sure Kabul was a good place to forget exercise, but I found out today I was wrong. In a place where foreigners too often tend to see the country from behind the windows of air-conditioned SUV's, a jog is a great way to slow down and feel the place.

My first run started at the Kabul stadium — scene of frequent executions during the Taliban and a weekly soccer game today. Some reporters here have taken to running laps around the track, but I decided to head for the suburbs — through the many adobe-walled villages surrounding the city.

The streets here transport you back in time. Except for the intermittent power lines, the homes look like the set of Ben Hur. Waddle and daub walls, pounded dirt floors, open sewers in ditches down the middle of tiny alleyways. Forty-five percent of children die before their first birthday.

Innocence Amid Destruction

But the streets and alleys are still filled with children's laughter — especially when a lumbering, 6 foot-3 American jogs by. As schools let out at 10:30 a.m., I ran through a sea of bemused, frenetic, ogling pre-teens. The group quickly thinned to six or seven amateur joggers and leading the pack was a thin, smiling, dark-haired boy who had no trouble keeping up.

With my nominal Pashtu, I found out his name was Anwar and he's 11 years old. He looked about 7. But he had a runner's gait. And every few minutes he'd dash ahead, daring me to catch up.

With Anwar at my side, I recognized the village where I'd been shooting for a story the day before. A few yards down the hill from where I was running was a house that had been leveled by an errant U.S. bomb during the first days of the war. Two kids who recognized me screamed with delight when they spotted me. Azizullah, a 21-year-old who lost his left leg in the attack also came out. He was wearing his artificial leg. My gut knotted as I ran by him.