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."