A new CoHo photo exhibit by doctoral student René Morkos reflects on the fine line between life and death

For someone who spent 13 months in Afghanistan, René Morkos looks unexpectedly carefree and unworn. At age 28, he speaks and gestures with the hyper-enthusiasm of a rookie freshman. His giddy smile reveals two rows of braces.

It’s five minutes to seven and CoHo is permeated with the usual smell of fresh French fries, with a bustling background noise of espresso machines and cheerful dinner chatter. Dressed in a bright aqua T-shirt, Morkos is sitting on the edge of the stage beside the microphone and loudspeakers.

“Nervous?” a friend from San Francisco teases him.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” Morkos replies. From the looks of his calm complexion, it’s hard to imagine that he survived all the extremities of life in Afghanistan: dusty weather, deprivation of material supplies and land mine explosions.

Morkos is a doctoral student at the Stanford Center for Integrated Facility Engineering. Immediately after graduating from the American University of Beirut in 2005, he got a contract from a private company to work in Afghanistan as a ground construction engineer.

Tonight, Morkos is sharing his stories with Stanford. He looks at his watch, then without hesitation, begins speaking into the microphone.

“The big question is why did I go?” he says, in an attempt to capture the attention of 50 or so audience members mingled with CoHo patrons. Most are unaware that tonight is the reception for Morkos’ exhibition, “Death and Life; Afghanistan,” which is sponsored by the Student Organizing Committee for the Arts.

“I didn’t suddenly wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh, I want to go to Afghanistan.’ It took me eight months to think about whether this was the thing I wanted to do.”

Morkos is not a professional artist. He simply picked up a camera the day before he set off for Afghanistan and, once there, started shooting photos. But his narrative is powerful.

“To understand life you have to understand death,” he offers. “However, life is the only concept that we can’t explore its opposite. That means you can’t go dead and then come back. So what are we doing with that?”

During his stay in Afghanistan, Morkos led a construction team of 114 people–most of whom were locals–to build various military and civilian facilities. He also spent time traveling and taking thousands of photos to document the country’s poverty and misfortunes.

“Afghanistan was much more than an experiment between life and death,” Morkos tells the audience. “It’s really a magical place that I have the opportunity to see…whether it’s sitting with peacocks and alarm guards at a lake, watching birds slide by, going on a ride in the mountains, sleeping with guns under your pillow or taking an airplane flying over [the] Himalayas. It was really a wonderful experience.”

Morkos steps down from the stage and approaches one of the photos on the wall. About 20 people stand up and follow his steps. Audiences look caught up with his words; diners stop their conversations to watch him.

On the white foam-board mountings hang gray-hued photos of dilapidated buildings, dusty markets, deserted tanks and helpless people.

Bomb explosions and land mines, he says, were a frequent sight. De-miners, people paid to disable land mines, earn $1,500 per month plus bonuses for every disabled mine. Even in the wealthiest districts, children play with discarded Russian tanks on the street.

“I call this picture ‘Three people, three legs,’ ” Morkos says as he points to an image of three passengers waiting in a bus station. One person has one leg and the second, none. All three people appear numb and indifferent. “Afghanistan is the most heavily land-mined country in the world. Hundreds of people are still injured or killed every month.”

He moves on, the crowd trailing behind.

“This is a very powerful image,” Morkos says in reference to a photo of 30 to 40 girls, all wearing burqas and hijabs, squeezed in a single tent. “This is a girls’ school. The Taliban allowed no music. They don’t allow education. This school is the outcome after several compromises.”

Next to the picture of the tent school are several photos of villagers buying and selling opium, which historically has been prevalent in Afghanistan and in the world drug supply.

“People just sell it like this in the market,” he says. “I don’t think you can talk about Afghanistan without addressing the opium. The whole country just runs on it. Most of the guys there actually don’t know that the opium is addictive. It stopped children’s coughing in the winter. They gave it to babies and the babies get addicted.”

He moves on to talk about a photo featuring miscellaneous small cans and boxes atop a wooden trolley.

“This is a pharmacy,” he says. “When you buy medication in Afghanistan, it’s a 50 percent chance that it’s just sugar or something like that. Your risk of dying exponentially increases. The fuels are old, medication is old and nothing is reliable.”

The photo prompts Morkos to reflect on the contrast between technology in Afghanistan versus the U.S.

“It’s ironic that the lack of technology in [Afghanistan] makes you think how technology changes your life.”

He also notes that in Afghanistan, in order to achieve a simple goal it takes six tries because resources are scarce and the living environment is primitive and harsh.

“They are really tough guys,” Morkos continues, referring to the locals he befriended. “When I was working on a construction site outside, I would have four to five layers, including an $800 bulletproof jacket. These guys were just running with their T-shirts.”

“Without knowing about the outside world, it’s really difficult to communicate with people and let them know what our village is like and what our thoughts of life are,” he adds. “People would like to be suicide bombers for several thousand dollars. They don’t understand our life because they don’t actually get to see our life.”

About 20 minutes into the presentation, Morkos turns to a photo of an explosion on the side of the road. He explains that in this particular instance, a suicide bomber pulled strings 20 feet away from him, right next to a grocery store.

“It’s about experience,” he remarks. “In a situation, you have a number of options, but some of the options are wrong. I was driving down there when I got a phone call. So I stopped the car. Then I watched them blow up.”

Morkos continues, “Two people are killed and a taxi driver who loses his nerve tries to drive away through the checkpoint. He is shot dead. Five people lost their lives in 30 minutes.”

Morkos concludes his talk with a serious question. “What’s life really worth?”

“From this experience I get two things,” he offers. “I really don’t want to die, and one day I’m really going to. The life there wore out my nerves, but it helped me understand and appreciate my life. My ladder of values really changed.”

That’s why he came to Stanford, he said. “While I thought it would be cool to hang out with friends and drink the Saturday nights away, I only have 40 years left in my life. So why not choose to do things that are more meaningful–for example, spending this evening to learn to solve a difficult problem?”