You know you've been in Kabul too long when...

By Emira Shafiqa (with thanks to my boy friends who contributed to the writing of this blog)

You know you’ve been in Kabul too long when…

1. You can drive 100kph, next to a tank, overtaking a donkey, in a head on collision with a Russian taxi and a Pakistani truck and not bat an eyelid.
2. You can eat a local kebab, drink a glass of tap water and put ice in your cocktail and not shit like a fire hydrant for the next month
3. You can weave through the back streets of Kola Pushta, through Shar-e Naw, Taimani and into Qali Fatullah, on a route designed simply to avoid bomb holes in the road.
4. A male colleague says “that head veil looks great on you. Very Greta Garbo”. (Actually that’s a sign he’s been here too long)
5. Afghan men start stoning you and instead of running away, you heave rocks back and let out a stream of vitriolic expletives
6. You drive over the Hindu Kush and don’t even take any photos
7. You realize, in fact, you haven’t taken any photos for five months
8. The food at L’Atmosphere starts tasting good
9. You haven’t shaved your legs for 4 months and don’t care
10. You start partying with Dyncorp for lack of anything else to do
11. You start partying with the French for lack of anything else to do
12. You notice a male friend getting turned on at the sight of a woman’s finely turned ankle peeking out from under her trousers (Again, that’s a sign he’s been here too long)
13. You actually remember to do radio check
14. You wake up at 6am on the floor of someone’s guesthouse who you’ve never met before, after a particularly hard night on the merlot when you missed curfew and had to stay put for the night, with the breath of a thousand dead donkeys, face like a Big Mac and hair like a bird’s nest and the first thing you think is, “where’s my burqa when I need it?”
15. Being stopped at road blocks with AK47s pointing at your head is considered mildly annoying
16. You’ve neglected your bikini line so long you need a weed whacker to get through it.
17. You get asked out on 8 dates in one day by seemingly nice guys but say no to all because you now know they have just come from, or are going to, a Chinese brothel
18. It takes you three weeks to get out of the post-R&R blues; then you spend the next three weeks planning your next R&R, avoiding work the whole time because you are a) too depressed or b) too excited.
19. Your iPod drowns in spilled champagne which sets off a three-week phase of chronic depression, feelings of loneliness, isolation and thoughts of suicide.
20. You light your own bukhari by pouring 3 litres of diesel on some wood and throwing in a match
21. The staff at Vila Velabita know you by name and actually smile at you.
22. You look around the Elbow Room and realize there’s not a single person there you don’t know
23. You don’t even need to see the menu at the Elbow Room but can recite it in its entirety in manner of Koran
24. You go home on R&R and describe your location to a taxi driver as the 3rd lane off 6th street of the north road, through the roundabout, past the tree, look for the school, and it’s the 2nd green gate on the right. Beware of the dog.
25. You have seen every DVD available on Chicken Street
26. An Afghan flutters his eyelids at a donkey but you don’t even bat yours
27. “I married my first cousin” is not longer shocking, but in fact, seems kinda nice.
28. You ask your friend to buy a large stash of mace, pepper spray and stun guns next time he goes to USA
29. You dream of sticking a stun gun on the hairy jugular of an imaginary kidnapper, then flipping him in judo-style throw, kneeing him in the balls, stomping your stiletto in his eyeball, grabbing his gun and shoving it up his arse.
30. You go shopping and think, “oooh, that head veil’s nice.”
31. You’ve referred to every male friend you know as your husband at least twice
32. You have no qualms grabbing the nearest foreign man whether you’ve met him or not, and call him your husband if the need arises
33. Seeing a shotgun under your boyfriend’s bed seems comforting rather than disturbing
34. Finishing your contract and going home to walk into the bowels of middle class mediocrity doesn’t seem that bad anymore.
35. You automatically get in the back seat of every vehicle because that’s where women belong
36. You have perfected procrastinating to an art form. You look at your email, get up, walk away and wander aimlessly
37. You see five women in burqas walking towards you and you can tell which one is your cleaning lady

From the boys…

38. You no longer bother removing the prehistoric insects from the bath before you shower.
39. After throwing up for six hours, you wash your face, brush your teeth, and have a drink.
40. The bottle of whiskey you kept under your pillow starts to travel to work with you.
41. You no longer flinch when thirteen Afghan men line up to kiss you on the cheek in the morning (for men only).
42. You cannot figure out what to think about when you are masturbating.
43. You begin to contemplate whether or not you like women with downy upper lips.
44. You use farting as a tactic to keep people out of your office.
45. Your homepage is reliefweb.org/jobs
46. You know that you are spending the prime of your life in hell, yet you don’t remember what prime means, or life.
47. The pentagonal Chinese women at Supreme wink at you, and you consider…
48. You have sent a mass-email to all the girls you have ever slept with, asking their whereabouts, dating-status, and adding how much you have changed.
49. The first thing you think when you wake up every morning is: ‘fuck! I’m in Afghanistan.’
50. You no longer take showers even on the rare occasion there is hot water.
51. You think it’s funny to play pool at Chinese whorehouses as it’s the only time you’re in a room with more women than men.
52. The black phlegm you hack up all morning, every day, doesn’t scare you.
53. Your phone is full of people who have left.
54. Various parts of you twitch and you don’t even notice.
55. Making a drunken ass out of yourself is a regular occurrence, but you still have friends.
56. You begin making regular trips to Baghram bazaar for contraband, and start taking orders for friends.
57. You get in your car, drunk, with your flatmate to find the scene of the rocket impact, sharing a six-pack with your chowkidor, who’s holding a shotgun in the backseat.
58. Dog food tastes better than anything at the French restaurant.
59. You eat MREs to stay regular.
60. MREs don’t keep you regular.
61. You mistake other people’s gas for body odor and visa versa.
62. You can’t remember why you ever came here.
63. You’re in the middle of complaining about life when you don’t realize just how much worse it is for the average Afghan.
64. Yu start spaling licke the Afghans in yer afice.
65. You spend most of every day looking for a job, and not even looking busy doing it.
66. You step into a sewer and don’t even wash your foot.
67. You’re leaving tomorrow and aren’t even sure if you should pack everything or go at all.
68. you don’t mind when the barber smears lamb fat on your face to smoothen the shave
69. you think your driver isn't using his horn enough
70. you don't wonder why that guy is pointing his gun at you
71. instead of daydreaming about women, you daydream about heroically battling your way free of would-be kidnappers
72. you start using bastardized Afghan-English words like "fillanger" (a car part) because you don't know, or can't remember, the proper English term. Ex: "The fillanger is broken AGAIN? How much does a new fillanger cost? Buy two."

A Backhanded Compliment

One fine day when I dared to wear a short jumper as opposed to covering my posterior with swathes of voluminous fabric, I was met with smiles and admiration from the domestic staff. This was then followed on by comments from the drivers and guards that “you look very nice today Emira jan” [smirk, grim, sly wink]. This was then promptly followed on by comment from female Afghan colleague commenting that I looked very beautiful today.

Finally deciding to enquire as to how and why I was having a ‘hot day’, in hope that I had magically morphed into Heidi Klum overnight, she says, “It’s those jeans Emira jan.”

“In Afghanistan, men and women, we love big wide bottoms just like yours.”

Oh... James...

It's 2.10am. My phone rings.
"This is the State Department, Washington DC. The Undersecretary for ______ would like to speak to you."

"Um, yes, sure, ok." I splutter with the 2am phlegm getting caught in the back of my throat.

"Emira, it's good to speak to you again. I see you have left [your old job]. Of course, I didn't have your new number so I had to use a locator to find you," says the Undersecretary for ______

"Um, yes, great. A locator..."

A locator, for those outside of Kabul, is not Google, nor a GPS device, or a pager. Nor is it the act of phoning the Embassy here and simply asking for my number. How they knew, in Washington, who my new employer was, in Kabul, or get my number is mildly disarming considering I am in a country with no phone book, no directory, no landlines, no faxes, no street names, no house numbers or maps. It's a place you come to hide where no one can ever find you.

Or so I thought.

A locator, quelle horreur, is one of three things: 1) C 2) I 3) A. Between my recent run-in with MI5 (subject for another blog) and now the CIA I feel like a regular Bond Girl -- although somewhat lacking in height, cheekbones and long flowing shiny hair. Actually, there are a million other things that separate me from the giddying heights of Bond Girl status, but I feel like flattering myself today.

Finger Food

just to give you an idea of how weird it is here. I ordered lunch the other day and specifically asked for the greasy, lukewarm fries to be left off. When my plate arrived, it was, of course, covered in fries. I humphed, and said I didn't want the fries.

The waiter then reaches down with his never-been-washed-hands and starts picking the fries off my plate, one by one, and sticking them in his pockets.

the rising tide of stink

There is something horrendously foul and odiferous about the odour of the local populous. It’s not like the smell of diary products on sweaty Americans, seaweed on Japanese, curry on Indians, or corn mealies on someone from Swaziland.

No, this has nothing to do with over consumption of one particularly delightful food item.

Instead, it is the stench of rancid perspiration that has been left to rot in the Afghan sun; annihilating any weaker aroma that surrounds. Even the smell of roasted coffee cannot permeate this peculiarly Afghan reek; nor can the pungent fumes of blue cheese over ride – and think, dear reader, if blue cheese smells better than Afghan sweat, that’s saying something about… Afghan sweat.

I do not mean to point the finger in racial distinction; this isn’t about race. It’s about no-running-water, never-heard-of-soap, bathe-once-a-year habits that anyone in a god-forsaken backward country that hasn’t progressed since Our Lord Jesus walked the earth, is bound to have. Heck, give me a month in a mud hut in Kandahar and I too would have the caustic tang of stale urine seeping from my armpits.

Take now, my office: a small cubicle of around 3m x 3m. As the IT technician approaches, I can smell his imminent arrival, even though he has approximately 150m to go. An opaque yellow cloud enfolds him, announcing his journey; warning me to turn the aircon on max, open all the windows and keep the door as open as a prostitute’s legs.

Alas, despite my measures to lessen the whiff, I am now left sitting in a septic tank even though he has been gone three hours thus. His gag-inducing body odour had a fart-like quality that is alarmingly reminiscent of the days my brother pinned me down, sat on my face and let one rip. I digress… I now must cope with the sad truth that this inside-of-the-bowel smell has been absorbed into the walls and I am left to gasp and wheeze my way to the end of the day.

As for women, they smell too but have the beauty of the burqa to disguise; the blue sheet forms a wall to quash the rising tide of stink but even if you do smell, no one knows who you are so who cares?

And why the hey nonny nonny worry about being kidnapped or blown up when in fact the biggest threat to my life is the inhalation of male stench? I may have a bullet-proof burqa but it cannot protect me against this chiefest of evils.

How to avoid being taken hostage

I woke up to this email in my in-box this morning. I thought it was a particularly nice way to start the day. It has certainly cheered me no end.

"Due to the escalation of agency activity ... The risk of becoming caught in the wrong place at the wrong time is possible. The potential of being kidnapped or taken hostage should be considered. Staff members should be reminded of some guidelines that may be of assistance during such a crisis."

I wonder how advice such as "Be reluctant to give up your identification or clothes," is really going to help me if kidnapped by the uncivilised animals that are Talibs. I think I would have as much luck as if I had been advised to flip up my burqa, stick my fingers up my nose, and beat the hostage takers over the head with day-old naan.

Having survived being stoned* in Jalalabad by screaming blue murder at the top of my lungs, I have discovered that Afghan men are actually complete pansies (or poppies as the case may be). One minute of screaming vitriolic expletives from a Western woman, who actually had the balls to biff a rock back at them, and they were all crapping their kameez and about to cry. The stones dropped, bottom lips quivered and the god-fearing terrorists ran home to their mummies. They may be men, but without guns and subservient women, they are nothing more than smelly edjits.

* Not sure why it is called 'stoning' when in fact it should be called 'rocking'. These weren't no beach pebbles , but fist-size lumps of Muslim death.