A ROUGH GUIDE FRom the end of the world
by Claire Isham
Keep your eye on the guy in the corduroy jacket. He’s your way home when the power goes out. Sure, there’s a military attachment just outside the compound. But from the way this guy with the straw-colored hair has taken a position by a street-level exit, you can guess he’s carrying a weapon under that jacket. A bunch of Germans brush past him, reeking of sweat, and then he’s gone.
How many bars are there in Kabul? Well, officially none, for sharia law prohibits alcohol, although for years the authorities have turned a blind eye to the habits of non-Muslims, including almost all Western journalists, aid workers, diplomats, and adventurers. Last year the parliament passed tough new rules that may cramp some of the fun. According to the Afghanistan constitution, enforcement should apply to everybody, but this is a country where laws come and go like water or electricity.
Here at Gandamack Lodge, across from the secret police office, a young expat can still find those unfortunately-named vodka shooters. Like a lot of other drinking spots, Gandamack styles itself as a restaurant, which goes down better with the authorities. An English drawing room right down to the leather upholstery, old maps, and muskets, it suggests a colonial era. There’s even clam chowder. Lots of twenty-somethings with salaries to burn show up every night, putting down $45 deposits just to get drink tickets from the bar.
You can find anything in Kabul. Bocaccio’s, a popular Italian restaurant, offers a decent wine selection that seems far more legal when paired with osso bucco. At Red Hot and Sizzlin’, pitchers of margarita come with your nachos. The rest of Afghanistan remains so desperately poor that it’s practically the fourth world, the far side of the moon, while Kabul manages to support Turkish, Mexican, even Croatian cuisine. Not that the restaurants indicate any kind of stability. B’s Place, which served Chinese, Greek, Italian, and Afghan food, all under the same roof, has disappeared. A German biergarten called the Deutscher Hof closed in 2007, citing government harassment and corruption. (A few months later it reopened in – of all places – Erbil, Iraq.)
There are hazards, to be sure. People still talk about how the manager of the Mustafa Hotel, a body-builder from New Jersey, was found dead at thirty-six of a supposed heart attack. Perhaps someone didn’t appreciate a Muslim running a bar.
Expats quickly learn the dress code: the baggier, the better. Men wear shirtsleeves, while women either don headscarves or trousers and pass as honorary men. Burqas, which are usually blue, can be liberating – it’s a fascinating experience not to dress for anyone else’s eyes – but also restrict you from places most Western women want to go. You’re not going to get a table at Gandamack wearing a burqa.
In this city of almost three million, it seems like practically nobody walks. Anyone who can afford it drives or is driven. Despite the hair-raising traffic, people just don’t want to be caught out on foot, even in the daytime. And no one goes out after 11:00 p.m.
So there’s a lot to pack into an early evening. After dinner at Gandamack, you call for one of those death-defying cabs driven by a Pashtun and weave your way to the relatively affluent suburb of Wazir Akbar Khan, home to the U.S. and Canadian embassies. The wildest bacchanals of recent years were among private security guards at the U.S. embassy. Ever stories broke about that “Animal House,” the State Department has tried to tamp down anything remotely similar. At the UNICA guest house, the United Nations staff puts on the best current approximation of a frat party.
In an Islamic country, the weekend means Friday. Thursday therefore is the big party night. Within the highly fortified UNICA compound, beneath high walls topped with razor wire, pretty young things are dancing and milling about with glasses of wine. The Black-Eyed Peas are going boom boom boom from a fairly good sound system heavy on the bass. Maybe a hundred people mill around the palm trees and two swimming pools. Ecstatic blondes sway to the music as a lanky, longhaired fellow with wraparound glasses regales them with stories from an opium-producing town that remains a Taliban stronghold.
“A far as the Taliban are concerned, this is a religious war,” he says. “I just don’t see…how anyone can compete with that.”
“With good government,” an attaché replies sarcastically. Through Operation Moshtarak, the coalition forces are trying out a new war model – providing “government in a box,” that is, installing an Afghan governor and thousands of Afghan police as soon as an area is wrested from the Taliban.
One of the blondes raises a flute of champagne and asks, “Is it true that Karzai is…?” There’s a rumor that Hamid Karzai’s erratic behavior can be traced to heroin.
“This is a misunderstood man,” says the sarcastic fellow. “He says his role model is Gandhi.”
“Bob-O, you just crack me up!” laughs the longhaired man. “You should see how Gandhi’s brother runs Kandahar. Or haven’t you been there?” It’s a rhetorical question. Few U.N. workers leave the city, and nowadays few journalists do either.
Truly hardy partiers will go from UNICA over to L’Atmosphere, which for years now has been the unofficial headquarters of journalists and aid workers. It’s a very literal oasis, off-limits to Afghans. You have to pass heavily armed guards at a steel door in a stone barricade, then get patted down and go though a metal detector. Once inside, you’ll find a swarm of beautiful people doing some serious drinking around the Olympic-sized pool. L’Atmo was founded a few years ago by French journalists with a keen appreciation for thick steaks and Grey Goose vodka. Most of all, Westerners come to be insulated for a few hours from sweat, dust, bad breath, panhandlers, sewers, traffic – to escape from all the realities of the street.
War is good business. Plenty of enterprising types, many of them expats themselves, have seen the opportunity to separate you from your cash. It’s a marvel that islands of privilege like Gandamack and L’Atmo have lasted, but then the whole city has a vested interest.
On the other hand, there is the worrisome historical precedent captured in the name Gandamack. It comes from the first Afghan war, which was ginned up by bad intelligence in 1839. At first the war seemed another success for the British empire. Then a Pashtun revolt spread to Kabul, two senior British diplomats were assassinated, the East India Company retreated, and 18,000 British soldiers were slaughtered. The last stand, in which 50 British soldiers formed a circle behind bayonets, was made at Gandamack. Only one survived. Today the British embassy is located in Wazir Akbar Khan, named for the Afghan leader who defeated them. Long before it became the last word in comfort, Gandamack was a byword for Western defeat, which could be sobering.
