Bullet Proof Burqa

Get me to a spa

2006-07-25T08:48:00.000+04:30

"She looked at her hands and saw the desiccated skin hanging in Shar-Pei wrinkles, confetti-like freckles, and those dry, dry cuticles--even her "Fatale Crimson" nail colour had faded in the relentless sun to the colour of old sirloin--and she vowed if she ever got out of Kandahar alive, she'd never buy polish on sale at K-mart again."

Tough luck for Kosovo

2006-03-28T00:59:00.000+04:30

I saw this for the first time over a year ago and it still makes me laugh. Well worth the 3 minutes it takes to watch (turn volume down on computer if at work).
http://www.break.com/index/kosovo.html

Heavy Metal Discovery

2006-02-05T05:14:00.000+04:30

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery in Afghanistan of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named "UNium."

UNium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since UNium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of UNium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.

UNium has a normal half-life of four years; it does not decay but instead it undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, UNium's mass will actually increase over time since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that UNium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypocritical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass." You will know it when you see it.

When catalyzed with money, UNium becomes Bureaucracium, an element which radiates just as much energy since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

The honeymoon is over

2006-01-15T08:49:00.000+04:30

I’m not sure when it happened but one day Kabul ceased to amaze me. I no longer flinched when barreling towards a head on with a tank and a donkey; the Taliban became amusing rather than frightening and the sight of four toddlers on the knee of a woman in a burqa on the back of a motorbike no longer seemed that dangerous. Salmonella, giardia, chryptosporidium, and leptospirosis have become like treasured appendages to my body – I wouldn’t know what to do without them.

I’m now entirely immune to self humiliation because my column last month on my intestinal worms had to be a low point; I am clean out of pride. Kabul stole it.

I used to like meeting new arrivals who seemed normal and untainted, despite their wide-eyed naivety about what they had got themselves into. Now, I only have one question for them:
“Hi, nice to meet you. Do you have Hello?”
“Yes”
“Can I have it?”

But, Paris Hilton’s latest love trysts no longer titillate; I haven’t heard of 90% of the new “it” people and quite frankly the latest fashion in shoes has my metatarsals in a quiver. Instead, I now opt for gumboots for walking in the mud and a cardigan long enough to cover my behind. The latest fashion? Bite me.

I am disconnected from the real world and afraid that perhaps if I don’t leave soon, I’ll never fit in again. I’ll be one of those Fresh-Off-The-Boat immigrants who can’t use an escalator and stands at the top for three hours, too terrified to step onto the ‘magic dragon’. Or I’ll stare blankly at a supermarket shelf for 45 minutes trying to choose one of 43 brands of ketchup; so spoiled for choice that I can’t choose one.

Truth be told; there are things that utterly suck about Kabul and I am sure you’re all aware of them. I’m not sure who the miscreant is who inflicted Celine Dion’s “My Heart will go on” on Afghanistan, and I feel particularly Machiavellian about the sod who introduced Ricky Martin; these are definitely two dangerously low points about Afghanistan. I have an obvious level of antipathy for the reprobates who blow things up and make my life difficult and as for the pollution, clean air now hurts my lungs. This city is a festering cess pit of dust, faeces, guns, poverty and diesel grease. Kabul may be a toxic hellhole but it’s my toxic hellhole and I have grown strangely fond of it, and all its quirks. I have become a barnacle on the back of the beast and oddly feel quite at home in a sado-masochist kind of way.

The thing is, I know how to live here now. I have become somewhat of a fatalist and fully acknowledge that I will never be able to control my world, and oddly, I enjoy that feeling that comes from not knowing nothing. One day may be fascinating, and one day may be terrifying, but it will never be boring. I could be dodging bombs one day, or heaving over the toilet when the parasites throw a party in my intestines or disinfecting my boots after stepping in an open sewer… again. Or I could get that sense of satisfaction merely from watching a DVD that works all the way through to the end without bizarre flying graphics or people getting up and walking in front of the screen that it was illegally filmed in. Have you noticed how you never get depressed in Kabul? Angry, tired, disillusioned, fatigued and dissolute, but never depressed. How can you be depressed when the one thing you have here every day, is gratitude for being alive and that you’re not living in the bowels of the middle class suburb of whatever city it is you come from?

I could continue to live here, riding the gravy train of the UN and sucking the development industry for all it’s worth, however I have lately been bugged by an annoying little thing called ethics. My appointment to the UN was really just a terrible mistake. I have actually just been making it all up as I go along and I want to apologise to Afghanistan. I hope you understand, it’s just that I needed the pay check. It’s a large, tax-free pay check you see. I finally get what it is that the UN does – they alleviate poverty one staff member at a time. I have yet to work out how six-weekly R&Rs alleviate the suffering of those living on less than two dollars day; and it sure as hell beats me how those big white vehicles are fighting poverty. I just can’t work it out.

It was meeting Axe Max that finally tipped me off into this existential crisis. Axe Max has been here since September 12, 2001. He’s in golden handcuffs, strapped to a job he hates in a country he loathes earning a truck load of money but too scared to go home to his native country for fear of dying of boredom. Max earned his moniker: he goes at life like wants to kill it and everyone in his path. Expletives pour from his mouth as he vents on a daily basis about people he works with, his driver, his house, the milk in his tea or the smell of his dinner. The fuse on his temper is about as long as a sperm tail, and he gets drunk on such a regular basis that I cannot help but recommend that Alcoholics Anonymous branch out into Afghanistan. Staring at Axe Max, frothing at the mouth over some triviality, I stood back in fear, leant forward in curiosity, then screamed a muffled shriek in the horrifying realization, that I was… looking at… me?

I have become short-temper girl; whinging about the guards and going into a mental meltdown every time (ie all the time) a driver failed to show up. Instead of giving money to people in need with a glad heart, I started resenting that I was being seen as a walking ATM. I ignore beggars now whereas before they broke my heart. I have become my worst nightmare. I cringe to write this and I am loathe to admit; I’ve become hard and immune to it all—I write about poverty whilst ordering a steak. What the hell do I know about suffering? I am a fake, a fraud, a waste of space. If someone is going to earn a heap of dosh doing some menial and irrelevant task in the UN then they should at least enjoy earning that money instead of feeling guilty about it. And they should at least enjoy the wonderment and excitement that post-conflict development work in Afghanistan offered before you realized it was an illusion.

Is it, possibly, just maybe, time to go home?

The not-so secret service

2005-12-20T16:04:00.000+04:30

I went to the parliamentary inauguration yesterday. I sat 10 rows behind Dick[head] Cheney who caused a major military ruckus and shut the whole city down. It was like Armageddon of Chinooks, tanks, blockades and shooters… I was caught in a dust storm from chopper blades cutting up a few cubic tonnage of dust. Aside from the military brouhaha, the inauguration qualified as quite possibly the most boring event I have ever attended in my life.

But I did get whistled at by a sniper from the secret service although I suspect not too secret when they wear flak jackets with “secret service” written on them?

Eight inches of love

2005-12-06T10:57:00.000+04:30

After one year, in what I affectionately refer to as ‘fecal paradise’, I had reason to suspect that my gut might not be what it used to be. Fire hydrant explosions had blown out my sphincter on various occasions producing an odour so ripe, so caustic, so entirely filthy that I was tempted to vomit on my own shoes the moment the waft hit my nostrils. Intolerance to alcohol, bloating, breath like a dead donkey, flatulence that would make a camel weep and other such symptoms had become such a normal part of my day that I ceased to recognize them as odd—like you, I thought I was normal. Conversations with other expats confirmed that such rectal behaviour was indeed par the course of living in Afghanistan. A laugh and a shared wince at the common experience have been the foundations of many new friendships formed.

Oh, how I wish that I had listened to the corporeal screams—the cries for help coming from my colon.

On a recent trip home, I decided to take the holistic healing route and book myself in for a wee colonic irrigation. Thinking I would just wash out the side-effects of 12 months of kabobs, I was unprepared for the swarms of parasites and worms that henceforth spewed from my anus.

Yes, you read correctly.

Eight inches of Perspex, as wide as my thumb had been inserted into my back door, prior to the injection of a few litres of warm water. My lovely therapist who had the caring demeanour of Florence Nightingale, in a voice as sweet as honey, declared than in 20 years of caring for people’s colons, she had never seen so many, and so large, parasites. Such parasites should by right be half the size of a pin head. Mine however, were the size of sesame seeds and larger. And there were lots of them. Entire families—whole clusters of nests—were being vacuumed out in what I now refer to as the Holocaust Of The Amoebas.

The question, “Do you eat a lot of alfalfa sprouts?” [no] was followed by a grave declaration that there can only be one other thing that these minions of two-inch long worm-like creatures could be. Worms.

I was in trauma. Advanced trauma.

Lying in the foetal position on the table, shaking uncontrollably I went into an anxiety so strong that my rectal muscles froze, making it impossible for Florence to withdraw the hosepipe. But wait, there’s more! Once I calmed down, she attempted to slide it out it again, however this time the suction hole at the tip of pipe got hooked on an internal hemorrhoid. Apparently, hemorrhoids are not just a symptom of constipation in the over 50’s as one might incorrectly imagine; they also develop through diahorrea when your body is always trying to forcefully expel an alien invasion.

Are you now feeling my pain sufficiently to be motivated to do something about your own?

What can you do here in fecal paradise to alleviate the situation? Firstly, consume garlic as an ingredient rather than condiment. I shelled an entire bulb of garlic then swallowed all the cloves with water like they were vitamin C pills. The next day I breathed directly in my sister’s face (I love my sister) to check the vile consequences of my home cure, who surprisingly said I didn’t smell at all. One can only imagine that my body absorbed it all because it was in such dire need of whatever properties it is that garlic offers. You can also try to find black walnut extract. (Believe me, it works. Upon inspection of my fecal deposits every day now, the dead parasites are still coming out in droves.) Wash your hands with disinfectant before touching food or drink, wash veges in bottled water and stop eating carbohydrates as parasites love starchy foods. (Are you craving carbs? I wonder why…)

When on R&R, go crap in a dish with a pathologist, get a series of colonics, and a rectal exam. Do something, do anything, to kill what I guarantee is growing in your gut. It’s not nice, it’s not comfortable, but neither is colon cancer which you’ll get if the parasite nests attach to the colon wall and turn tumourous.

And for those of you who pride yourself on your iron constitution, just be warned that worms and parasites often have no side effects and can go undetected for years. Undetected that is, until they have wormed their way into your liver (and your vagina if you’re a woman) and cause liver failure or acute vulvovaginitis requiring a radical vulvectomy. Do you want that to happen? No, I didn’t think so. So grunt up, stop being such a pansy and go get eight-inches of love.

I just got dumped... again.

2005-10-19T10:42:00.000+04:30

I think perhaps I smell real bad. Or maybe my butt is a whole lot bigger than what I realise it actually is (and believe me, I realise it is damn big). Perhaps I have a personality disorder, halitosis, a sullen soul, or maybe I am just wholly unloveable??

All I can say is that Kabul is a bitch of a place to get dumped. Firstly, how can you go on a shopping spree and buy shoes you will never wear? How can you drown you sorrows in vodka when your fridge is empty and the only place to buy any more is a dangerous trip down Jalalabad Road to Supreme and security won’t let you go? And how are you supposed to have a best-friend vent/rant/cry session when she lives on the other side of this damn planet? And how the hey nonny nonny are you supposed to lose weight, get a cool haircut and look gorgeous to make him jealous when in fact you look like shit on a regular basis here? I tell you, Kabul is not the place to get dumped; this is a place where products passed their use-by date come to die; it’s where intestinal worms are bred, Russian taxis rust, dust comes to settle, faeces come to rot and bombs come to explode. It is not where broken hearts come for repair.

A complete non event

2005-09-26T08:10:00.000+04:30

For all the bleeting security warnings over the parliamentary election, it turned out to be a complete fizzer. Hardly anyone voted, and hence, there was hardly so much as a double happy to blow the day into a joyful White City. (Quite frankly I was hoping for a bit of gunfire and a few rocket hurls just so we’d get some good stories which is alarming because this means Afghanistan, as it now stands, is relatively boring). This momentous occasion of peaceful parliamentary polling could invoke a serious blog about democratisation but then again, if the world’s media thought it so boring as to pay it no attention, why should I? Instead I will turn my attention to events of a far more entertaining description.

It was bound to happen. A university-fuelled nostalgic whim passed through the cerebral of a Frenchman and before we all knew it, Kabul was donning the white sheets and running around with no underwear. Drunk. Oh so slothfully wastedly wickedly drunk.

First there was the immaculately tied toga on the tight touché of a lovely French fille, then the loose tea towel tied around the head of a bare-chested stoned South African, and a blue bed sheet wrapped like a mummy on a paunchy 40-year-old with no hair and a penchant for staring slovenly at any girl with a face better than a bulldog. My personal attire was a white Patou (yes Pilot – that is the right word) wrapped nothing whatsoever like a toga, but more like a hospital gown that kept gaping open and showing the world my lunch. I, however, was too tired to care. I had just been flying for what felt like 8798 hours and only had two hours sleep and three espressos to go on so one drink and I was soon on the floor, spouting complete drivel to the Yank who has, understandably been avoiding me ever since. However, I did still manage to notice the fancy footwork of a certain antipodean towards a delightfully pretty Chianti. Apparently it went quite well. Good for you!

Yes folks, the ultimate in banality, the epitome of the prosaic and the definitive expression of party pooping--the toga party--has hit Kabul. Is nothing sacred here? Do we have no limits? Are we development workers not superior in entertainment sophistication? It appears not. Instead we’re much like the hackneyed juvenile youths in our lands of birth and find little consolation in higher forms of diversion. But as the cliché says, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So, murder mystery dinner party at marshmellow’s house next Thursday. Look for the update after that one.

No avoiding the rough

2005-09-25T14:04:00.000+04:30

(Note: I did not write this article. I have stolen it. But I like it and for those who have never been to this post-conflict fecal paradise, it draws a lovely picture)

The greens are oily brown, the fairways have been swept for mines and the owner is a retired warlord. A rusting Russian tank looks down on the first tee. Only the rough lives up to its name. Welcome to Kabul Golf Club, wryly described on its scorecard as "the best and only golf course in Afghanistan".

"Take cover!" was once a more appropriate warning than "fore!" on these fairways, which have been dragged haplessly into Afghanistan's various wars. After the Soviet invasion of 1979 soldiers dug a deep trench by the sixth hole and sunk a tank into the seventh. Shells whistled overhead as rival mujahideen factions settled bloody scores years later. In the 1990s the black-turbaned Taliban tortured the club professional.

But like a fighter who refuses to go down, Kabul Golf Club is open for business again. Yesterday it made a quirky addition to the achievements of post-war Afghanistan - it hosted its first charity golf classic. St Andrews it was not. A violent dust storm delayed play. Then 14 teams hacked their way across the yellowed, weed-strewn fairways, dodging herds of sheep.

The players - mostly diplomats, aid workers and businessmen - were handed an advisory sheet of "special techniques" for completing the nine holes. "Attack the course!" counselled the first tip. "Play aggressively. Don't even ask for a stroke index because this is Afghanistan and they're all tough."

The defiant attitude permeated the play in aid of Ashiana, a local orphanage. "I have no security clearance so I'm not supposed to be here," declared one United Nations worker with a chipper smile. "Screw that!" The club pro, Muhammad Afzal Abdul, watched with satisfaction. A serious-faced man with sun-leathered features and chipped teeth, Abdul is one of the top Afghan players. Golf is his life and during the war years when other Afghans stuck to their guns he held on to his clubs.

Abdul learned the game in the early 1970s from an American diplomat who took an interest in him - then a 10-year-old boy, hanging around the course which, in those days, had fine green lawns and a bar that served expensive whisky. But when the Russians invaded in 1979 he was detained for six months. Interrogators accused him of spying for the western diplomats who had by then deserted the club. "They used an electric prod," he said with a grimace.

The club gates closed. Almost 20 years later the Taliban fanatics came for him again, raiding his house and digging his garden. "They said there was no place for golf in Afghanistan; that it was illegal under Islam. They took my balls, my clubs, my trophies, my photos. Then they flogged my feet with a cable."

He went into exile in Pakistan, but came home two years ago. He found the course in a sorry state: the trees felled, the grass withered and the greens littered with shrapnel. A de-mining group swept the area. Nothing was found, but he took no chances. First, he let pastoralists drive their sheep over the lawns, then he played the first games himself. His life's joy was restored. "In Pakistan, I felt like an old man. But when I got back, I was 14 years old again," he said.

The Kabul club's rebirth has been modest. Second-hand clubs and balls were donated by a UN officer, who also helped devise the local rules. Players may strike off a square of artificial turf for a clean shot when the ground gets too rough. Two caddies are recommended - one to carry your bag and a second to find the ball after it disappears into the scrub. And the sole water hazard is as dry as a bag of sand. "Look at it like this, you can retrieve your ball without getting wet," jests the scorecard.

A round costs $15 (£8.50), so most customers are expatriates. Diplomats are shadowed by armed caddies. A dozen Afghan businessmen have paid the $300 annual fee. But most of the bills are paid by Ezatullah Atef, a former warlord. As the local mujahideen commander, Atef controlled 1,500 holy warriors who held the hills around the course. When the fighting was over he paid to have it refurbished.

Atef, a rotund man who wears a blazer over his shalwar kameez, paid for the temporary greens and built a new restaurant on the site of the bombed-out clubhouse. When a small tournament was held recently he took the first shot as his bodyguards cheered. "I'm not so good; just a beginner," he said modestly.

Now, the gentrified warlord has plans to fix the club's irrigation and replant the grass. After that he plans to build an entire new town near the club, with a marina, luxury hotel, Mediterranean-style villas and ski complex.

But, for Abdul, the golf club is a vehicle to a humbler goal. Early yesterday he gave a dozen young people free lessons - something he does several times a week. "Why do I do it?" he said with a shrug. "This is my life."

Forgiving Rashid Kruschev

2005-08-21T12:42:00.000+04:30

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

2005-08-10T14:32:00.000+04:30

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

2005-08-10T13:52:00.000+04:30

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

2005-08-03T10:22:00.000+04:30

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

2005-08-01T18:44:00.000+04:30

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.

Afghan Smorgasbord

2005-07-06T14:15:00.000+04:30

As expats, women in Kabul have the delightful advantage of being outnumbered 10 to one. Getting a date / snog / shag is as easy as falling off a log and that’s even when you look like a potato – which is what happens here in Kabul. You’re covered in mud, your hair goes to straw, you shave your legs twice a year (if that), you put on 5kg from all the greasy mutton and Kabuli Pilau and you dress like a bag lady… In short, you look like shit. But, for better or worse, the men here have permanent beer goggles and you end up appearing like Jemima Khan in the days when she was a good Muslim and married to Imran, before converting back to atheism and shacking up with Hugh Grant.

The beauty of Kabul is that even if you have face like the rear end of a rhino, you can still get some action… a few drinks, a free dinner, party invites and innocuous flirtation from a host of willing men. There is a veritable banquet of men to choose from; sweet, sour, hot, cold, over garlicked, undersalted – Kabul has it all. (Just be assured that whatever you choose, it will be fattening and extremely bad for you.)

And so we enter the subject of relationships in Kabul, or as I call them, locationships because nothing here is really about relating; it’s location-specific and the moment you hit the transit lounge in Dubai, you realize you have nothing whatsoever in common and in fact, actually don’t even like the person.

It’s a sad state of affairs (in more ways than one). Men who come to Kabul were bored, seeking adventure and wanting to plant their seed in more exotic soil, so to speak; exactly the type your mother told you to stay away from. And here they are, chasing the few expat women around Kabul, convinced they are in lust/love, only to realize in an epiphany approximately 5 minutes after catching their desired that, in fact, they are not in love. Never were. They were just on an adventure and like any adventure, the risk got too high, they got scared and called for a chopper to get them out. WHITE CITY EVACUATE!

I have one friend, who has been lusting after a certain blonde Cabernet Sauvignon. He hasn’t yet figured that the moment he gets her, he will dump her. It’s the chase, the danger, the intrigue of love and lust in Kabul. It’s Love in the Time of Cholera…
As for me, I thought for a while that I liked Lasagna, but he preferred Pad Thai. I, being Minted Lamb Chops, was no longer on the menu, so we split. Then I met Hot Dog, who turned out to be a real dog; Couscous, who openly stated he wanted nothing more than sex, Mushy Peas who was 26 going on 16; and Starbucks Caramel Mocha who was sweeter than sweet, but loster than lost. (“Loster?” I despair for the English language)

Then, there was mince pie – my future husband. My brazen attitude towards men coming around to bite me on the arse because I didn’t see that one coming. I guess you could say I got my just desserts because I was blindsided by alcohol, and overtaken by Baklava.

You know that moment when it feels like two large hairy hands are reaching into your chest and ripping out your heart while it’s still beating? Yeah. That one.

Guess I’ll head back to the buffet table, although must admit, I have lost my appetite.

Oh, I have another one....

2005-07-06T13:54:00.000+04:30

You know you've been in Kabul too long when, quelle horreur, Afghan Scene starts ripping off your blog and publishing it as their original work. [humph!]

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

2005-05-26T18:22:00.000+04:30

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

2005-05-25T11:06:00.000+04:30

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...

2005-05-25T10:03:00.000+04:30

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

2005-05-24T17:47:00.000+04:30

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

2005-05-12T16:33:00.000+04:30

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

2005-05-10T17:54:00.000+04:30

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.