Podcasts Culture Life in a Pandemic Kabul's Burden

Kabul's Burden

Published: March 31, 2020, 4 a.m.

Part of my podcast series on life in a pandemic. I first visited Afghanistan in 1996, shortly after the Taleban had taken Kabul - to everyone's surprise. At Kabul airport the Reuters stringer, Salahuddin, was there to meet me and by the time we got to the guest house we were both rolling around with laughter in the back seat of the taxi. Given the dire straits of the country it probably wasn't the best look but his dark humour and my silliness forged a tight bond between us. But there's never a fairy-tale ending for Afghanistan, and Salahuddin has stayed on when he could so easily have left, continuing to report on the country. When I caught up with him in March 2020, his laughter was still there, in the background, but Salahuddin fears Covid-19 may be one crisis too many for his country.

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Email us at pandemic@cleftstick.com. Life in a Pandemic is produced by Jeremy Wagstaff and Sari Sudarsono for CleftStick.com.