by Sally Cooper
‘Ismail, do you think this will happen on time?’
He looked at me as if I had asked to buy his firstborn.
‘Yes, we are ready.’
‘We’ didn’t look ready. As far as I could tell, ‘we’, six men in dusty shalwar kameez, were standing around watching the seventh man take another thirty minutes to tie a small bookshelf to the side of the truck.
Ismail and time were not good friends. Some weeks earlier, I had gone out to UNOCA with him. After finishing my business, I called and asked him how long he expected to be.
‘A few more minutes. I am waiting for a signature.’
Better him than me I thought, sat back in the car and waited some more … and then some more. Half an hour later I called him again.
‘Will you be ready soon?’
‘Yes, a few more minutes, I am waiting for another signature.’
The exchange was almost an exact repeat of the earlier conversation. Twenty minutes later and thirty minutes shy of a meeting in town, I told Mahmood it was time to go.
‘But Ismail?’ he asked.
‘We’ll buy him a new watch.’
Five hours after my discussion with Ismail in the garden of our now former office, the sun was beginning to set over Kabul. I sat at my desk in our new trailer, the pale light reflecting off the windows of the cars outside. It had been a long day and one in which Ismail has excelled himself. I, of such little faith, had watched as he did indeed place a seemingly rigid square peg into a round hole.
Our trailers were warm and cosy, and provided me with hours of entertainment. Though no-one had come up to the window and asked for hotdogs, souvenirs or fairy floss, one driver had already managed to park his back fender into the side, denting the wall and pushing my desk a little closer to me than I found comfortable.
UNOCA is right under the Kabul airport flight path and there were times when I thought the Apaches, Antonovs and C130s were going to land right on our roof. As an inveterate plane spotter, I was scaling heights I had never thought imaginable. Whenever I heard the distant sound of engines, I thumped down the length of the trailer, practically knocking Ismail out of the way, trying to steal a glimpse of the giant military aircraft from the tiny window beside his desk. ‘Antonov,’ I said to him and stomped back to my seat. Ismail nodded politely, not looking up from his spreadsheets and probably wondering why I suggested he sit next to the front window if I was going to be knocking him off his chair every five minutes and bombarding him with yet more useless information.
For all of us, life at UNOCA represented a brave new world. The lads had somewhere to go for lunch and could get to know other UN staff. I could get a decent coffee at the UNOCA cafe, home to one of the few cappuccino machines to be found in the Ghan. But by far my favourite place in the vast compound was the UN ladies’ bathroom, a microcosm of Afghan society buried deep within the sanitised walls of the UN. Afghan women made up a significant chunk of the UN’s clerical staff, working in human resources, procurement and finance. These were the lucky ones whose fathers had recognised the benefit of education and whose husbands allowed them to work. All spoke excellent English, a prerequisite for the job which they learned while living in exile in Pakistan during the war. They were dressed from head to toe in long dark skirts and heavy chadors. The women wore more make-up than any skin specialist would ever advise and the younger ones’ feet were encased in the height of Afghan foot fashion – the platform shoe, some as much as three inches high.
Every morning at 8 am, a coven gathered in the bathroom and assiduously washed and wiped the dust from their shoes. The room was a babble of high-pitched chatter. I was greeted by each and every woman as I inched my way towards the cubicles. Appearance is everything in the Ghan and, for these women, it would be shameful to walk into the office with shoes covered in dust. It may also have been that, in a city of minimal sewage facilities, Afghans, more than anyone else, knew exactly what the dust was made of. Meanwhile, the office corridors were a trail of mud from the boots of filthy foreigners, most of whom hadn’t shined their shoes since leaving school.
In addition to the morning decontamination were the ablutions in preparation for afternoon prayers. UNOCA had both a men’s and a women’s mosque. Mid afternoon, the coven once again assembled in the bathroom where the women assumed yoga-like positions while washing their feet in the hand basins.
There were no squat toilets in the building, only the Western-style bowls most Afghans only ever saw on Toilet Street, a busy road in the centre of town where every manner of lavatory paraphernalia was sold. Because the pristine white seats of the ladies’ bathroom had become embossed with muddy footprints, one on either side of the seat, a polite notice bearing the UN stamp appeared on the door of each cubicle, possibly one of the few edicts to UN staff ever written solely in Dari. Although I couldn’t read it, I could guess what it said. The footprints gracing the toilet seats of the UN ladies’ bathroom never appeared again.
Afghan women were not ‘allowed’ to smoke in public but the car park was always full of their male colleagues enjoying all that Big Tobacco had to offer. Like bathrooms the world over, the smell of cigarette smoke occasionally wafted over the cubicles of the UN ladies’.
Yet despite the second-hand smoke in the bathroom, the dubious parking skills of the UN drivers and the occasional Antonov attempting to land on our roof, we quickly settled into life in our trailers. Winter would soon set in, and the UNOCA car park seemed just as good a place as any to batten down the hatches.
25
Going to the Dogs
By December, the Karwan Sara guesthouse was but a shadow of its former self. With the advent of the winter cold, foreigners left the country, keen for respite from the long Afghan winter. Dr Martin returned to Germany to spend Christmas with his family. Like Oliver before them, Cole and Peter each moved to their own houses, Peter taking Mohammed with him as the new manager of his rapidly expanding architecture business. There were now more staff than guests – though ‘staff’ seemed a very loose term indeed. There were plenty of people around – all male – and some might even have been on the payroll. With entertainment at home at an all-time low, one Friday morning I went out in search of fun. I went to the dogs.
Afghanistan has no truly national sport. Cricket is popular among the many who once lived in Pakistan, where the willow and the leather are revered. Despite Bamyan’s best efforts, the world’s love of soccer had so far failed to penetrate the rest of the Ghan, a country so poor that there was almost no market for the paraphernalia of modern sport. Neighbourhood boys occasionally enjoyed the kick of a soccer ball in almost complete ignorance of Man U, Real Madrid and Posh Spice’s latest eyewear.
For local sport, there were four choices: kite flying, buzkashi (the precursor to modern polo), cockfighting (a standard favourite) or going to the dogs. In some parts of the world ‘going to the dogs’ might suggest watching a fleet of greyhounds chasing a stuffed animal around a track, but in Kabul, where life was always a little different, going to the dogs meant watching two dogs attacking each other until, blood or no blood, one was declared the winner.
Despite being forewarned, I had no idea what was in store when Oliver and I piled into a friend’s car. I’d been told it was best not to go alone so I took seven men, which seemed like enough. The streets were quiet as we drove along the endless dusty roads of outer Kabul. This was where most Afghans lived, few being able to afford the astronomical rents now being paid in the centre of town.
Unlike a soccer game or a cricket match, the dogfights don’t take place at an advertised venue so we drove around the city’s backblocks searching for a crowd. It was difficult to miss. In a vast, sandy clearing between half-built wedding halls and dilapidated apartment buildings, thousands of men had gathered, a sea of turbans and patus, the woollen shawls that served as winter coats for most Afghan men. The action took place in the centre. Those in the outer stood on crates or on tiptoes in an effort to catch a glimpse of p
roceedings.
Although taking seven men with me seemed like a good idea at the time, once we parked the car, my minders, five foreigners and two Afghans, jumped out and melted into the crowd. I had, by now, been in the Ghan a long time but it still took a while for me to adjust to the sight around me. I looked around and all I saw was men. Women had become so invisible, I no longer noticed when they weren’t there. But the dogfights must have been compelling; a few beards cast their dark eyes at me and quickly turned back to the action in the centre. Dogfighting Afghan-style wasn’t necessarily a blood sport and the dogs didn’t always fight to the death. Like cockfighting, dogfighting was just another excuse for gambling and large sums of money could be won and lost on a single bout. In a country of a thousand faces and even more excuses, the fact that gambling was haram appeared to have been overlooked at this pre-Friday-prayers gathering.
Oliver sheepishly re-emerged from the crowd, as if returning for a dropped shoe. I could see little from where I stood, so he and I decided to get closer, weaving our way past the concession stands: a small boy with a tray of hardboiled eggs and a man selling peanuts from a small handcart. We pushed silently through the crowd until we were on the edge of the sandy expanse. Behind me were hundreds of Afghan men, in front of me around fifty of the most handsome dogs I had ever seen. Fighting dogs are a special breed and their grooming a mark of prestige. They were far removed from the mangy critters I’d seen wandering the streets of Kabul. Some had henna painted on their paws, many wore thick leather collars. Some dogs seemed oblivious to the activity around them and lay basking in the winter sun, others lunged towards the action, only a leash away from going for the jugular. They were enormous, St Bernard–like beasts whose lives were often more luxurious than their carers’, an army of teenage boys who kept a tight grip on their dogs as they stared unflinchingly into the centre of the ring.
In the centre was the fight. Two dogs growled, diving for each other’s throats under the watchful eye of the referee, who was dressed in a shalwar kameez and armed with a small whip and a long stick bearing a tattered white piece of cloth. Next to him was the commentator, an older, bearded man with a turban and a megaphone, shouting details of the action for those too far away to see. Oliver and I inched our way forward but the closer we got, the closer the crowd moved towards us. I was no longer invisible. Their dilemma was obvious: watch the game or watch the foreigners? There were no boundary markings and, as the onlookers shuffled towards us, the edge of the ‘ring’ disappeared. Like the Bamyan football match, it became a case of watching the action through a sea of faces that were watching us.
Although we were a few hundred metres away, we were close enough to be spotted by the commentator. Egged on by a crowd for whom the action in the centre was dull by comparison, he stood shouting into his megaphone and pointing in our direction – not at Oliver, but at me. I had become the equivalent of a pitch invader, an infidel infiltrator, a highly illegal presence. The match was suspended, handlers moved in to tether their dogs. As if the megaphone wasn’t enough, the crowd did as Afghan crowds are often wont to do – they started throwing stones. A soft thud landed decisively to my right. It was followed by a second, which hit the dust and bounced over to my boot. These weren’t the carefully judged strikes of war but gentle tosses telling me that I did not belong.
‘I think we might need to disappear,’ said Oliver, standing up and turning back into the crowd. He cleared a path for me, a respectable one that would ensure no-one touched the infidel woman, whether they wanted to or not. I was more amused than scared as the crowd parted and Oliver shepherded me silently through a sea of turbans, still attracting attention far beyond my station in life.
26
Eid-e-Qurban
The Muslim festival of Eid-e-Qurban, the feast of the sacrifice, was not a good time to be a sheep or a goat or a vegetarian. Afghans across the country slaughtered beasts and distributed the meat among the poor. Though we couldn’t exactly be classified as ‘poor’, Mohammed, who was now working for Peter on the proviso he finally finish his education, invited a group of us to his home for a special Eid lunch. For me it was a rare visit to an Afghan house.
The Dari word for snow is barf, which may explain why one of Afghanistan’s most popular laundry powders, at least among English-speaking foreigners, was called Barf. I had discovered this earlier in the week when barf was all it did. It was still barfing when Peter, Cole and I gathered at Mohammed’s front gate. Like all Afghan homes, Mohammed’s house was set behind a high wall. His father, a grey-haired, bearded man with a large, hooked nose and a small turban on his head, greeted us, holding his right hand across his heart as a sign of respect.
‘My father is very honoured to meet you,’ translated Mohammed, smiling as we stomped through the snow to the front door.
A thick woollen blanket covered the doorway, keeping the warmth in and providing insulation against the bleak winter weather outside.
Like good guests, we removed our shoes before entering. The house was small, a standard 1960s Kabul design. A single glowing light bulb illuminated the empty hallway. The government had decreed three days of electricity as a special Eid gift to the long-suffering people of Kabul. To the right of the front entrance was the ‘guest room’, a special room whose sole purpose was for entertaining visitors. At the end of the hallway was a large, grey curtain, beyond it was the family’s living quarters, off-limits to guests because they were the domain of the family’s women. By Afghan standards, Mohammed’s family wasn’t poor. The house was warm, the floor was carpeted, though with rough Chinese carpet manufactured by the roll. Few Afghans managed to keep the traditional carpets that had long been the sign of a family’s wealth. Faheem had once told me that in order to finance his family’s passage to Pakistan during the war, his father had rolled up the last of the carpets, taken them to a dealer and sold them along with the remainder of his mother’s jewellery.
We were ushered into the guest room. Toshaks, the long thin cushions Afghans used for seating, lined the walls and surrounded a large sheet of plastic laid out on the floor that would serve as a tablecloth. A man, who I guessed to be in his early thirties, entered the room.
‘I am the husband of the sister of Mohammed,’ he said, circling the room and shaking each of our hands. ‘I am Hossein. I am very pleased to meet you. You are welcome.’
Hossein was tall, dark and sported the short beard favoured by Kabul’s fashionable young men. To mark the importance of the occasion, he was dressed in a suit.
The door opened again and another man entered, this one younger. His features clearly marked him as Mohammed’s brother. He was beardless and wore a black jumper over dark jeans.
‘I am Irshad. I am the brother of Mohammed. You are welcome to our house.’
He too circled the room shaking each of our hands. In between the formalities, Mohammed’s three-year-old nephew slipped through the door, wielding his Eid gift, a large plastic gun, at the honoured guests who made polite conversation and dutifully drank their tea.
The men chatted among themselves while I stared at the alpine scene hanging on the wall. Mohammed sat down beside me and whispered in my ear, ‘Excuse me, Miss Sally. Would you like to meet my mother?’
The downside of being a woman was that in the guest room I was virtually invisible. The upside was that my gender allowed me access beyond the grey curtain, to the rooms off-limits to male visitors.
‘Mohammed, I would be honoured.’ I jumped up and followed him out into the hallway.
He lifted the curtain, revealing a series of rooms. To the left was the kitchen, smoky and dark. I could make out a cluster of female figures squatting on the floor preparing the Eid feast. Mohammed led me in to a room reserved for the family’s women and their visitors, always female. It was a smaller version of the one I had just left. White curtains covered the windows, toshaks lined the walls. ‘Sit here,’ ordered Mohammed, ‘and put your feet under there.’ He pointed to a square table wr
apped in an orange quilt in the centre of the toshaks. I sat down and immediately felt warmth emanating from beneath the quilt. I lifted it up and saw an iron pot full of hot coals. Afghan central heating.
Just as I replaced the quilt, Mohammed entered the room with a short, dark-haired woman by his side. My guess placed her somewhere between forty and fifty-five. She adjusted a grey scarf, sat beside me and extended a chubby hand.
‘This is my mother,’ said Mohammed, as she grabbed my hand and shook it. She smiled up at me and launched into a torrent of Dari that was lost when a string of young women entered the room and gathered along the far wall.
‘And these are my sisters …’ said Mohammed, offering no introductions.
Mohammed’s mother maintained her grip on my hand while the young ladies stared. I looked like a woman but I was wearing my winter uniform of jeans, thick shirt and a warm fleece. They stared at my short hair and whispered.
Mohammed starting laughing. ‘They think you look like a man,’ he said, clearly entertained by the proceedings.
Mohammed’s presence restricted the women from inquiring any further than my health. He led me back to the guest room.
We were treated to a feast of fried chicken, pilau and mantou, traditional Afghan dumplings made of mince, a salad of spring onions, eggs, tomatoes and cabbage, and, that standard of modern Afghan cuisine, chips, all washed down with a celebratory Pepsi. Just as I wiped my plate clean, Mohammed piled on more mantou and more chips. The secret of Afghan repletion, I eventually discovered, was a half-empty plate. At the end of the meal, Mohammed cleared the dishes and passed them through the door, presumably to one of his sisters. It was the women of the family who prepared the meal and cleaned up afterwards, but they remained in the shadows and dined on leftovers. Perhaps that was why it was polite not to eat all the food on your plate.