Free It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario Page B

perhaps there were many women in Afghanistan happy with how they lived: their days spent baking bread in the countryside and caring for their families in the crisp, clean Afghan air. My own life choices must have been equally as confounding to people like Mr. Faiz.
    “Mr. Faiz,” I said, “I love your country. I only wish Taliban rules permitted foreigners like myself to openly engage in conversation with the locals. It is very difficult for me, and for journalists, to visit Afghanistan and have anything positive to write about, given such restrictions on our interaction with the Afghans.” Mr. Faiz, of course, didn’t know I had broken their rules by meeting with some Afghans on my own. “It is a culture renowned for its hospitality and warmth.”
    “I understand,” he said.
    I looked down at the last sip of room-temperature green tea in my china cup and felt oddly comfortable. I didn’t want the moment to end.
    “It is not time yet. When we are ready to have you meet with our women and our people, we will definitely invite you in.”
    I smiled, and as our eyes met Mr. Faiz did not look away. I finished the last cup of tea, and as I left I pulled my chador tightly around my head and neck, making sure it wouldn’t slip from my hairline in the wind.
    I returned to Afghanistan twice in the next year. Between trips I found a photo agency willing to distribute my work. But for a long time no newspaper or magazine bought them. In the year 2000 no one in New York was interested in Afghanistan.

CHAPTER 3
    We Are at War
    I returned to New Delhi and kept shooting, traveling throughout India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nepal, focusing on human rights and women’s issues. Marion and I fueled each other with story ideas and motivated each other when we were tired or frustrated or in a rut. It was also easier for us to get assignments as a team, so when Marion decided to move to Mexico in 2001—because she had always wanted to live in Latin America, and she and John had broken up—I did, too. It was on to the next adventure.
    I never considered going back to live in New York and didn’t even stop home to see my family. By the time I finished college, my family had scattered across the country. My sister Lauren moved to New Mexico to paint when I was still in high school. Lesley moved to Los Angeles to work for Walt Disney when I was in college, and Lisa followed a few years later to write movies with her partner. Christmas became our time to gather as a family, a reunion we all looked forward to.
    We remained close despite the geographical distance, but life abroad had its costs. While I was in India, my sister Lauren’s first husband was diagnosed with lung cancer and died thirty days later. I never got to say good-bye to him or comfort her. That same year my mother was in a car accident that left her unconscious for three days; my family chose not to tell me, because I was far away and there was nothing I could do. I often lived with an aching emptiness inside me. I learned early on that living a world away meant I would have to work harder to stay close to the people I loved.
     • • • 
    M EXICO C ITY was about to empty out for a holiday weekend. El Distrito Federal, or el D.F., as Mexicans called the capital city, was a sprawling mass of concrete blocks, intricately designed bronze statues, and colonial-era buildings, some bereft of character, others lovely Latin American haciendas. A thick haze of pollution formed a perpetual milky umbrella over the city; cars, especially lime-green Volkswagen Bug taxis, choked the wide avenues. The DF’s sprawl and chaos was intimidating, uninviting.
    Marion already had a new boyfriend, a professional mountain biker who led tours through the countryside for semiprofessional mountain bikers. On Easter weekend, they were going to the nearby state of Veracruz, and I suggested that Marion and I go along with them. I was a tomboy growing up and didn’t think it could be that