Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [94]
By this time I was suffering from asthma, but much to my despair, there were no medicines or inhalers in Jalalabad. I was foolish not to have sneaked my medicine past my father, for my breathing difficulties were becoming worse with each passing day. My father noticed my ragged breathing and ordered one of his men to raid some hardworking bees of their honeycomb. My father watched carefully as I breathed through the comb, but his home remedies had never relieved my asthma. Once he had his mind set on a thing, my father was not one to give up. After he saw that the honey had no effect, he had one of his men boil some onions and squeeze the juice into a pan, telling me to breathe in the onion juice. That had no more effect than the honeycomb. Finally he instructed me to pour olive oil onto the burning embers of a fire and to drop my head over the smoke and inhale as deeply as I could. All that smoke only exacerbated my asthma, and breathing became so difficult that I feared I might die. Once when gasping, I thought I caught the scent of “grave dirt.” I was ready to trade my share of the bin Laden Mountain for a single puff from my inhaler.
Such was my condition when we started the dusty ride out of Jalalabad to the White Mountains where Tora Bora was located.
Chapter 16
Tora Bora Mountain
OMAR BIN LADEN
The roads to Tora Bora Mountain were unpaved, so the dust clouds were circling our white Toyota trucks, the vehicle of choice in Afghanistan. Since Jalalabad and its environs nestle on a flat plain, one would hope that even a dirt road would offer smooth travel, but that was not the case. I grumbled silently that the Afghan roads must surely be the most poorly maintained on earth. Other than one or two main city streets, all were dirt roads; therefore, passengers received teeth-rattling vibrations as the tires fought to escape potholes and roll over large stones. As I was tossed around the vehicle like a rag, I gasped in misery, regretting for the first time that I had been the son chosen to accompany our father on his journey.
I really could not believe that our lives had come to this. My father was a member of one of the wealthiest families of Saudi Arabia. My cousins were relaxing in fine homes and attending the best schools. Here I was, the son of a wealthy bin Laden, living in a lawless land, wheezing for air in a small Toyota truck, surrounded by Afghan warriors carrying powerful weapons, on my way to help my father claim a mountain hut for our family home.
I looked at my father. He did not seem to mind the trying conditions, but seemed exhilarated by them. Had his risky exploits as a warrior in Afghanistan created a lifelong need for stimulation? I hoped not! No matter what, my father was a tough man.
I caught a glimpse through the window of the Tora Bora mountains looming majestically thirty-five miles away. After leaving Jalalabad behind, the road became rougher still as it wound through little villages. The sights I saw were dismal, with meager bazaars lining the village streets, adolescent boys shoveling water on the roads to beat back the dust, and small boys pulling toys made of poppy husks along the roadside. As one might expect, females past the age of puberty were locked away in their homes, concealed from any strangers’ eyes.
The vast poppy fields took my mind off my troubles, and even prompted my father to demand, “What is the meaning of this?” as he gestured at the endless green fields of poppies. We all knew they were used to make opium, which would be turned into heroin.
The driver shrugged. “Farmers here say that Taliban leader Mullah Omar has made a fatwa saying that the Afghan people should cultivate and sell the poppy plant, but only if it will be sold to the United States. The mullah said that his goal was to send as many hard drugs to the United States