It is that time again, when two worlds clash and everything becomes surreal.
In the span of one day I went from a battleground in downtown Kabul to a five-star hotel where the “Piano Room” with its glass ceiling looks like the grand entrance to heaven.
One day staff photographer Edward Ornelas and I ran down streets littered with brass shell casings, blood stains and the air filled with the smell of gunsmoke, and 48 hours later we strolled through a ritzy mall within walking distance of the world’s tallest building.
Those are just two of the many differences between Kabul and Dubai, towns that — like Baghdad and Kuwait City — bring back many ghosts whose faces and voices call to me. Some are people I knew who died, either in the war zone or later. Others are still in this business and now work in Haiti or Baghdad or at their papers back in the United States.
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