When I started looking at the pictures of the ruins of Kabul
by Salgado, I was reminded of the book The
Kite Runner. In the beginning of the book, we see the childhood of Amir who
lives in Kabul in Afghanistan. He lives in a big house, which he loves. One
day, he hears the bombs start going off. He and his father flee Afghanistan to
the United States. Later he returns to Afghanistan and his beloved home and
finds it in ruins. He was devastated to have lost his childhood home (Hosseini). Looking at these pictures made me think of that and
what it would be like. What would it be like to one day have to flee everything
you know and love to go to a completely new place where you knew no one? Then,
what would it be like to return to everything you love only to see that it has
been destroyed?
Kabul has been emptied of most of its population because of
the war. When it was first abandoned in the 1980s, it was still mostly intact,
but now after numerous battles, all that is left are ruins (Salgado Pamphlet 6).
The picture that really caught my eye was one of a man on crutches limping
through the ruins of Jade Maiwan Avenue in Kabul. He is missing one leg. He is the only one you see, the only other thing around are ruins of a city that once had many inhabitants, that once had lots of life. (Salgado 80/81). In one of the picture descriptions
in the Salgado Pamphlet, it says, “It is a measure of the devastation suffered
by Afghanistan that production of prostheses has become an important industry.”
This really got to me because there shouldn’t be so many people missing limbs
in one place that prostheses becomes a major, important industry! It’s not something that I ever would have thought about before seeing this
picture. It's such a different world from the one we live in.
Works cited
Hosseini, Khaled. The
Kite Runner. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2003. Print
Salgado, Sebastião. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. (Pamphlet) New York: Aperture, 2000. 6 Print
I love how you related the picture to something which made it more understandable for you. I agree I could not imagine fleeing everything I have. It is bizarre to think that Kabul has been emptied. I can't imagine my home being reduced to a ghost town and then just ruins. It really is a completely different world. Something that I am completely incapable of understanding. I think that's what Salgado wants to accomplish. He wants us to look outside of our "first world" lives and see that we are not the only ones on the planet and that the rest of the world is going through horrible things while we try and deal with our comparatively very small issues.
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