Forgiving Rashid Kruschev

There are many reasons one will hit the ground in sheer terror in Afghanistan. Gun shots, rocket fire, Kuchi dogs, Taliban utility vehicles, would-be kidnappers or in my friend Rashid Kruschev’s case, throwing a magnesium "flare" into your outdoor toilet and blowing it sky high.

Foreigners here live under the constant threat that Someone Is Trying To Kill You. This is usually an external threat from any one of the numerous enclaves of Islamic militants, criminals, drug gangs, mullahs or just general shitheads that plague the landscape of this dustbowl. We live under security rules not dissimilar from a prison-slash-convent and must, at all times, lock our doors, cover our heads, stay off the streets and keep the bunker full of water, fuel, tinned food and vodka.

It is therefore, rather strange, to go to expat party only to be blown up by fellow expat. Rashid, Rashid, Rashid… what were you thinking?

So there we are, mud toilet blown sky high, all windows blown out, an angry mob gathering in the street, police, army and UN protection unit all converging on a scene that should have by rights been a pant-filling experience. Thankfully for some of us, the deafening explosion was more cause for amusement that animosity. That said, Rashid has kissed a few friends goodbye over this one who insist he is an Arse. Dear friends, please forgive our young friend. He was only trying to brighten up an otherwise dull party. He didn’t mean to cause an explosion the size of a Russian rocket or raise an enraged mob outside the front gates.

Sadly, in true karmic retribution, the magnesium flare-cum-bomb incident has now bitten Rashid on his bum. After a Loya Jirga with his neighbours, he has been banned from throwing any more parties. It seems they have been long discontent with his fiestas and the bomb incident the final straw to break the donkey’s back, so to speak. Interestingly, upon examination, it wasn’t actually the bomb that they objected to. Rather it was the “sound of women’s laughter” that they so loathed and therefore demanded that he henceforth cease from all forms of social entertainment.

In this country, there is only one thing worse than war, bombs, drugs, guns and violence. There is only one thing that is so loathsome to society, so solely responsible for the destruction of values and morals, and that, dear reader, is the light giggle of a girl.


[Despite its absurdity, I dare not laugh about this one for fear my head will end up being roasted on kabob stick somewhere down Butcher’s Lane.]

Arse fat from mutton buttocks

It is my wont when travelling to forgo the touristic in favor of the real, to persuade my kind hosts, whoever they may be, that an evening in the local, imbibing pints of whatever the natives use as intoxicants, would be more interesting than another espresso in another place called Cafe Opera. Chiefest among my interests is the Favorite Dish: the plate, cup, or bowl of whatever stuff my hosts consider most representative of the regions virtues. As I live in Kabul, this dish was of course arse fat.

(snd f/x: organ music in minor key - cresc. and out.)

The Afghans are remarkably single-minded in their attachment to the stuff. Every one of them would launch themselves into a hydrophobic frenzy of praise on the mere mention of the word. These panegyrics were as varied as they were fulsome, and were single minded in their testimonial to the recondite deliciousness of fist-size lumps of mutton arse fat shoved onto a rusty skewer and bbq’d over what used to be a car bonnet or cow trough.

Despite my misgivings, there was nothing for it but to actually try the stuff, as it was clearly the local delicacy. A plan was hatched whereby we would break all security rules and head to local chai khana and order rounds of fat kabobs. I would order something tame like Kabuli Pilau, and my hosts would order arse fat. The portions at this particular establishment were large, they assured me, and when I discovered for myself how scrumptious pure fat tasted, I could have an adequate amount from each of their plates to satiate my taste for this new-found treat.

Ah, but the best laid plans...

My host, clearly feeling in a holiday mood proceeded to order arse fat all round.

"But I was going to order Kabu..."

"Nonononono," he said, "you must have your own arse fat. It would be rude to bring you to Afghanistan and not give you your own lump of fat."

My mumbled suggestion that I had never been one to stand on formality went unnoticed, and moments later, somewhere in the farmyard that also doubled for a kitchen, there was a sheep being slaughtered for my sake.

The waiter, having conveyed this order to the cook, returned with a bottle of pepsi and three glasses and spent some time interrogating my host. He shook his head and politely grimaced a smile as he left, and I asked what he said.

"Oh he asked 'Is the foreigner going to pour whiskey into the pepsi?' and when I told him you weren’t, he said that he has a bottle out back if you want some."

"Like all good Muslims?" I replied.

"Of course." replied my host.

In the meantime, my host was busily decanting pepsi into the glasses and passing it my way. Soon after, another, already-opened can of pepsi was delivered to my table that did not smell at all like pepsi, but more like nuclear-strength home brew. It was just as well because a meal of arse fat needs alcohol not only induce you actually put the fork in your mouth, but to cut through the greasy rivets of fat that were soon to line my insides.

I soon appreciated the relationship between home brewed whiskey and arse fat and can share the experience with you. Here's an experiment you can do at home. In addition to whiskey, you will need a slice of lemon, a cracker, a dishtowel, ketchup, a piece of lettuce, some caviar, and a Kit-Kat candy bar.
1. Take a shot of whiskey.
2. Take two. (They're small.)
3. Put a bit of caviar on a bit of lettuce.
4. Put the lettuce on a cracker.
5. Squeeze some lemon juice on the caviar.
6. Pour some ketchup on the Kit-Kat bar.
7. Tie the dishtowel around your eyes.
If you can taste the difference between caviar on a cracker and ketchup on a Kit-Kat while blindfolded, you have not had enough whiskey to be ready for arse fat. Return to step one.

Soon our plates arrived, each containing the arse fat itself, fried potatoes, and a dish of oily okra from which all the color had been expertly tortured through three hours of boiling in vegetable oil. There was also a garnish of a slice of cucumber, a wedge of lemon, and a sliver of red pepper.

It was waiting for me to dig in. There being no time like the present, I tore a forkful away from the lump of pure fat, poked on a chip, doused it in tobasco sauce and lifted it to my mouth.

"Wait," said my host, "you can't eat it like that!"

"OK," I said, "how should I eat it?"

"Take everything off your fork. You eat the fat on its own," he said, forcing my hand from my mouth and crashing my fork back onto the plate.

I began to scrape the tobasco off the lump of fat. "No, not like that, like this" he said, forking into one of the four gargantuan pieces of arse fat and slicing into it with his blunt, dirty butter knife. The fat is grisly and doesn’t want to give way, resisting the dulled blade and wriggling out from under the knife like a child about to get a spanking. Finally, with some extra elbow grease, he comes away with a portion the size of a golf ball on the (very dirty) fork. White, jellied, wobbling and oh so not tempting.

"Now can I eat it?"

The moment every traveller lives for is the native dinner where, throwing caution to the wind and plunging into a local delicacy which ought by rights to be disgusting, one discovers that it is not only delicious but that it also contradicts a previously held prejudice about food, that it expands ones culinary horizons to include surprising new smells, tastes, and textures.

Arse fat is not such a dish.

Arse fat is instead pretty much what you'd expect of mutton arse fat – taken from the derrieres of sheep that have been feeding on street sewage their whole lives and storing up blubber mounds the size of footballs on each buttock; it is a foul glob, whose gelatinous texture and rancid oily taste are locked in spirited competition to see which can be the more responsible for rendering the whole completely inedible.

How to describe that first bite? It’s a bit like describing passing a kidneystone to the uninitiated. If you are talking to someone else who has lived through the experience, a nod will suffice to acknowledge your shared pain, but to explain it to the person who has not been there, mere words seem inadequate to the task. So it is with arse fat. One could bandy about the time honored phrases like "nauseating sordid gunk", "unimaginably horrific", "lasting psychological damage", but these seem hollow when applied to the task at hand.

The waiter, returning to clear our plates, surveyed the barely touched globs I had left.

He nodded conspiratorially at me, said something to my host, and left.

"What'd he say?” I asked.

"’Next time, I have real Russian vodka for her. It might help.'"

Bring back Drake

I have been accused, mon dieu, of writing nothing other that utter drivel. My chief accuser is actually myself, but it was done in an alcohol-induced out-of-body moment so can actually be counted as third party objectivity. It seems I shy from intellectual revelation and opt for banal statements – blogs that don’t even require full sentences but rather just lists of whatever drips from my brain. It’s like everyone here has the cerebral capacity of, say, the Economist whereas I just have a tattered, well worn copy of People.

I could join the minions of other workers here in Kabul and write my two cents worth over the establishment of democracy, the merits of counter narcotic efforts, state building and support to government… but will that actually help the situation? I fear there are already too many opinions out here, none of them constructive, all locked in a battle to prove themselves more intellectually superior than their overpaid, underqualified, UN-employed neighbour. An easy night out at l’Atmosphere can turn into a game of The Krypton Factor with each smart arse trying to out smart arse the next guy. GIVE IT UP ALREADY.

Bring back Drake Studdebakke and his lust for boxed red wine, shuttlecocks and long hard nights on the whiskey. As an unemployed bum, Studdebakke was quite possibly the most interesting shuttlecock salesmen in Kabul. Like Drake, I prefer observing the mating habits of expats than debating the virtues of Wolesi Jirgas or whether or not aid money should flow directly to the corrupt government or via the hoards of corrupt NGOs. I also advocate that badminton should be declared Afghanistan’s national sport, poppies should be legalised and Afghan women should be introduced to the thong. Just think what the thong could do for women’s sexual liberation? And for that matter, for men’s?

Musings

1. Is it cultural or is it just fucked, that men won’t even tell you the name of their wife in case you (a woman) want to sleep with her?
2. Why do local staff go home two hours earlier than the internationals?
3. … and take 2-day weekends?
4. Can the Afghan government find its way out of a paper bag?
5. Why is homosexuality so accepted here but hetero is not?
6. Why is Kabuli Pilau (rice) not called Kabuli Roghan (oil)?
7. When I feel sorry for myself because of the quality of life here, do I really understand how much worse it is for the average Afghan?
8. How do you tell someone that their body odour is so bad it makes you want to puke?
9. Will I really get fired if I get caught breaking security rules?
10. Why does the Lebanese restaurant have lamb on the menu but only ever serve chicken?
11. Will the French ever integrate with the rest of the expat community?
12. Is he staring at me because I am a) a foreigner b) a woman c) he is about to kidnap me?
13. Why are there flowers on Flower st but no chickens on Chicken st?
14. Why do I procrastinate by writing this shit when I have so much work to do?
15. Why is it called the “underground” church when in fact it meets at ground level in broad daylight?
16. Why won’t Drake Studebakke return to Kabul? Has he lost his love of shuttlecocks?
17. How can marrying your first cousin be so accepted? Does not the multitudes of deformed children and general spastic behaviour speak volumes…?
18. Where should I go for my next R&R?
19. Why am I single?
20. Does Bin Laden have one of those magic invisible cloaks like on Harry Potter? Why else can't the yanks find him? (It must be magic)
21. Does Bush/the American moral majority realise that democracy is a political theory not a religious theology?
22. Does that complete wanker, Dubya Bush realise he shits, eats, sweats and pisses like all regular humans and is not the saviour of the world?
23. Does America realise that every empire falls and that their demise is on the cards?
24. How many more songs can I fit on my iPod?
25. Why do I sound like a walrus on heat when I try to sing?

The full impact of summer

The full fury of an Afghan summer is upon us and the worst of it, surprisingly, is not the dust, the sleepless nights in 35 degrees or the general malaise of overheated offices. No dear folks. It's something far worse than I had ever anticipated.

The smell.

Now I know I have already written on this subject but I just have to vent again on the putrid tang of the local populous. I thought the Unwashed Winter Wiff was bad but I had not prepared myself for the Smelly Onslaught of Summer. I have a new colleague whose desk is two metres from mine and yet it feels like I have my nose firmly grafted to his encrusted, fetid armpits. It’s so ripe, so caustic, so entirely filthy that I have actually been dry-reaching onto my keyboard. I even went through half a bottle of my new Dubai duty-free perfume in half an hour by spraying the entire office. But no, the odour permeated the perfume and I am out for the count. I swear there are actually greem plumes of fumes arising from his pits.