Kittery resident records his experiences in remote places

“By a busy intersection, two men with machine guns guarded tall green gates, which opened onto a garden where women could feel at peace. The moment they stepped inside, the women would remove their headscarves or pull their burqas off their body in a single, graceful motion. Although I had only been in Afghanistan a few days, the sight of their unburdened hair seemed to carry a rare power.”

With these words, Devin Foxall reveals an oasis of peace and freedom within the maelstrom of violence that currently consumes Afghanstan. In his new book, “The Ghostly Ones: And Other Travels,” Foxall exposes the hidden determination and human spirit in some of the most depressed regions of the world. His book consists of 16 chapters, each dedicated to an individual place. In each vignette, he provides a lens on the world through which few Americans would dare look, uncomfortable with what they might discover. “For many Americans, these are stories about people that they would never meet and never imagine meeting,” Foxall said in a recent interview with The Wire.

In 2003, while American bombs were dropping on Afghanistan and Iraq, the majority of Westerners heading to the Middle East wore combat fatigues and carried M-16s. Foxall, however, wore a backpack and carried a pen. The Kittery native had just graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in English, but he felt his education was still incomplete. “It used to be to complete your personal education you had to go on a quest to explore, discover and bring back a pearl,” Foxall said. He discovered his own pearl of experience in the Middle East.

“In 21st century America, there is a lot of emotion and taboos that have been covered over by technology. Death in the Middle East is on public display. These basic human experiences are no longer visible here,” Foxall said. “Traveling to far-off places, you find something that connects you to the past. I think just to be fully human you have to open yourself up to a lot of things that are painful. At the end of it you will have a fuller understanding of the world. Most of these places are pretty pro-American. I’ve never felt in danger for being an American.” 

Before the fall of 2003, the only place Foxall had been outside the United States was Montreal. Since then, he’s spent five weeks in the Middle East visiting Iran, Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. He’s taken the trans-Siberian railway between Europe and China, and has also traveled to Central and South America, India and Afghanistan.

For each of the last four years, Foxall has spent four to five months outside the country. He went to Afghanistan with a San Francisco group called Global Exchange. The group was on a fact-finding mission to enhance understanding of Islam and Afghan culture, visiting schools, hospitals, traditional craftsmen and a women’s group. He traveled to China with a close friend, but the rest of the time Foxall traveled alone, relying on people he met to put him up and point him in different directions. While at home in the states, he works in bars, does construction and writes.

Foxall’s talent for setting the scene allows him to effortlessly bring readers along as he bumps over mountain roads in Kashmir, pedals through Beijing’s back allies or wanders the streets of La Paz, Bolivia. “Old men in the outdoor cafés poured syrupy coffee into brass thimbles and breathed coils of cigarette smoke,” he writes. “Squat women tumbled past us, long black braids dropping like rescue ropes from their bowler hats.”

Following his most recent trip, Foxall sequestered himself in a room and wrote for four straight months. “The biggest challenge was the enforced isolation over four months. I didn’t realize what kind of job it would be,” he said. “Every day I sat at a desk for seven or eight hours.” Foxall edited the book himself, which both helped and hurt the final product. It helped because the creative integrity of the book was never compromised. It hurt because an editor would have cut some of the more verbose entries and fixed the few spelling and grammatical errors that sprinkle the book. It always helps to step back from the work and have a second set of eyes check over the text.

After pitching the book to several publishers, Foxall used an Internet-based publishing service to publish it himself. He uploaded the text, designed the cover, pressed enter and a soon received 200 copies of “The Ghostly Ones,” delivered to his doorstep. So far, Foxall has sold 150 copies, taking orders from as far away as England.

At times, Foxall seems to drown the reader in details and tiptoe around what he is actually trying to say. Often, one line of explanation would cut through some of the wordier entries. “Some of the stories are vague, but in that sense I was just being honest about the travel experience,” the author said. “You meet someone really incredible and the next minute they’re gone. You sort of never really get the full story. You get hints of it, and then it passes and you have to move on to something else.”  

The last four chapters of the book include stories from Foxall’s 2003 trip to Iran, Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. This section shares the book’s title, which has multiple meanings. “The Ghostly Ones” refers to the women in Iran who wear all black and glide through the streets with spectral grace. The title also reflects all the people in the world who are forced to lead half-lives. “People that have had their souls amputated,” Foxall said, referring to those who live one way before the eyes of their government or religion, but lead different lives within their hearts and imaginations. 

Foxall plans to return to Afghanistan in September before visiting Yemen and a number of countries in Southern Africa. As always, he will write about his experiences. “The Ghostly Ones” is available at RiverRun Bookstore and Gulliver’s Travel bookstore in Portsmouth, Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, or at www.devinfoxall.com.