I've been looking for a word to describe my status at the moment - any noun at all. The best that I can come up with is "detainee". I am essentially monitored on the phone, though I'm sure they don't understand what I'm saying except when I throw in "mother" or "father" for their benefit. I can't go anywhere at whim. I don't have my passport, laptop or camera. Yet, I am still called a guest and treated like a brother.
Today, I was supposed to have my "last" interrogation. I was taken around the front lines (the interviewer is the highest frontline commander), where I saw the Mujahideen lazing around. The Americans were just over the horizon, apparently just beyond reach.
At one point, I was finally driven home. The men geared up and cleared out when they got word of something, and I was left with one minder, who I convinced to take me to the net cafe, where I posted a few entries.
I became more visibly irate when the Mujahideen came back without my interrogator. They called him after some harassment, and he came some hours later. I had met this guy before, and knew he was a character, so I tried to remain composed.
"Sooooorrryy.. Excuuuuse me for choosing to inconvenience you for a day so I could direct an offensive." His hand gestures were dramatic and comical. "Would you miiinnnd if I go back to the battle? Would that be OK with you, sssiiirrr?"
We were nose-to-nose now, his eyes burning a hole in the back of my skull. All I wanted to do was laugh.
"You came all this way to reschedule?" I asked. He had, so we did. He disappeared as quickly as he came, and I sat back down on the cushion on the floor, a detainee for another day.
tarek