Golden Kettle Photostory

Photos by Gustavo Montes de Oca

In West Kabul there is a street that rival factions faught over, taking turns occupying or bombing. A majestic palace stands on a hill looking down the long street, once perhaps a grand march or promenade. Now the palace looks like the shell whose snail died a long time ago. Decorative plasterwork has been remodelled by bullets. Round windows have turned into gaping holes by rocket attacks. Its sweeping approach road curling up the gentle hill has deep bomb craters. There are sandbags in some of the french windows. Columns start at the floor but come to a jagged end short of the ceiling. Once a place to welcome and house important people (more research to come), there is a forbidding ring of razor wire around it. Signs in four languages warn visitors not to take photos. They fear it could be used once again as a staging post for attacks; this time against the Canadian and American army bases in the plains below.

Within sight of the palace there is the wreck of a government building. Inside that wreck live destitute families. We talked to one whose previous accomodation was a tent in Kabul Stadium, but with the return of sporting competitions, they were left homeless again. They have endured two bitter winters in the shell of a building. There are no doors and no windows. Walls and roofs have been blasted apart. This is scarcely shelter.

The family of 15 live in what used to be the kitchens for the civil servant canteen. They have a dog, a rug, a quilt, two mattresses and a pillow, a television powered by a car battery, cutlery, a gas ring, a pot, and a golden kettle.




They have so little, but when we walk in, they offer us tea. Najibullah is sent to fetch water from the pump. To get there he has to clamber through a rocket hole in the wall and over barbed wire. He has to clamber over rubble and to the neighbouring ruins of a block of flats where at least 250 other people live and share the pump. There he has to fend off the other children fighting for the water, pleading with them that he needs tea for guests.

He makes the journey back while his father scavenges sugar from another family in the complex. The baby the father carries is naked, has a distended belly, and a cluster of flies around an open wound on its arm. It stops crying when both its arms are firmly around his 22 year old fathers neck, or it is cramming sugar sweets into its mouth. His mother knows its bad for his teeth, but it keeps him quiet.




Najibullah fires up the gas ring and stands guard over it while his father entertains Jamie, welcoming him onto the riased concrete platform where the red quilt is offered as a seat. The setting sun streams through the damaged walls.

Najibullah pours a little boiling water into the glass mugs to clean them. His father comes to collect the kettle and the black tea leaves. The younger generation has done its bit for hospitality, now the head of the household takes over.


Father asks if we want sugar, it is a luxury he doesn't own.As soon as any glass approaches its last sips, he tops it up, then pats the naked childs tiny bum because as his fathers attention shifted, hed begun to cry.

They have nothing, and they made us tea. In a gold teapot.

I am crying.