NO REGRETS ~ An American Adventure in Afghanistan (14 page)

“The Taliban … no soul. Evil. This is not Islam,” Hamdi replied.

I agreed. The Taliban were a scourge. A punishment for the sins of the Mujahideen.

Hamdi walked back out to check on our van. Zach, Alan, and I walked around the stadium. It probably had a capacity to hold fifteen thousand spectators. In happier times, the Afghan soccer team had played other nations here. Now, it was an empty husk filled with terrifying memories. As I walked around the grandstand, I stopped to take photos. Large billboards had pictures of former rulers of Afghanistan. Massoud was up there, as were Karzai, Abdul Rahim, and Zahir Shah. After a few minutes more, we piled back into the van. “Hamdi take us to the mosque across the street. What is that place? It’s huge.”

“It’s a madrassah.”

“Why is it yellow?”

“In Islam, yellow is color of wisdom.”

I got out to take photos of the madrassah. A couple of men walked over to me and started talking to me in Dari. I looked at them and shrugged. They were smiling and I didn’t feel threatened. Hamdi jumped out.

“Hamdi, what do they want?

“They want photo.”

“What? Why?”

“No one take photo of them before.” As we spoke, a crowd started gathering around us.

“Okay, tell them to stand still and smile. I’ll snap a shot.” As soon as I took their picture, the crowd surged. We were surrounded by a couple hundred Afghans by this time. All of them were jockeying to get their picture taken. I started to get a little nervous. I don’t think they meant to harm us but they were pushing me up against the van. I jumped back into the vehicle and yelled, “Hamdi, get us the fuck out of here.” Luckily, I had been standing at the rear of the van. No one was in front of us. Hamdi stepped on the gas and we roared down the road.

Similar scenes repeated time after time while I was in Afghanistan. Afghans were always asking me to take their photo. I was an amateur photographer but I had a DSLR that had an extra battery pack with a huge flash on top. I still only half know what I’m doing with my camera. I think some of these folks thought that I worked for
National Geographic
. Afghan soldiers and policemen were always asking me for photos. If you took their photo, they’d pester you to hell and back to get you to bring them a copy. I didn’t mind. After a while, I started sending my terp to get prints in town. I’d hand them out on visits or get other Afghan police or soldiers to hand them out. Most of these guys would never have the opportunity to go for a photo shoot. I became their Glamour Shot studio.

Wazir Akbar Khan and the Chinese

Late June–July 2007

Boredom had sat in good and well with us by late June. To counter it, Alan and I talked to our terp, Mahmud, about checking out the night life in Kabul. Mahmud had assured us that he knew the location of a few bars in Wazir Akbar Khan. After a little prodding, he agreed to show us around WAK. We met up at our hotel.

“Okay, Mahmud. How are we getting there? Where’s the vehicle?”

“We’ll catch a cab.”

“What? Are you crazy? We’re gonna wind up with our heads cut off.”

“It’s safe, David. Don’t worry. Just wear your scarf on your head. As long as we don’t draw attention, no one will know who we are.”

“Alan, are you cool with this?” I asked.

“What the hell. Let’s go with it,” shrugged Alan.

“Mahmud, you better not be bullshittin’ us.”

“Dave, I know where one bar, called 999, is located. I don’t know how to get in, though.”

“Don’t worry. You get us there, I’ll get us in.”

We hailed a cab and five minutes later we came to the checkpoint at Wazir Akbar Khan. The police waved us to pull over. I kept telling our cab driver to roll on through. “Dude, ignore the fuck.
Yalla! Imshi!
Go! Don’t stop!” The driver, though, was scared and pulled over. Alan and I immediately jumped out. “What do you want?” I said to the police officer.

“Show me papers. Passport,” the cop demanded.

“I don’t have a passport.” I lied. I wasn’t about to surrender my passport even if I’d been dumb enough to carry it with me. I showed him my military ID. “That’s all I got, dude. We’re U.S. Army. Let us through.”

The police officer stood there staring at me.

“Fuck, Alan! This dude doesn’t speak English.”

Mahmud was quivering in the back seat of the taxi and wouldn’t get out. I started getting loud. I realized that what the cop really wanted was a bribe. I was just about to pull out a twenty dollar bill when Alan, in a stroke of genius, called Hamdi and explained the situation. Hamdi spoke to the police. I don’t know what he told him but the guy waved us on.

“Alan, what did Hamdi say?” I asked as we walked back to the cab.

“He told them that his brother was a general and that we were his friends and to stop harassing us.”

“Really? Hamdi’s brother is a general?”

“Yeah, you didn’t know that?”

“Hell, no.”

“After Hamdi spoke to the police officer, I got back on the phone. He told us to go home. That it’s too dangerous to be out at night. The police will try to arrest us.”

“Fuck that Alan. I’m not going home now. I’m here. I want a drink and I want to see what this place is all about.”

“I’m with you. Let’s go.”

Alan and I got into the cab, and I told Mahmud, “Tell the driver to take us to 999, Street 1, ya fuckin’ coward. Why didn’t you get out of the car and translate for me?”

“They would arrest me if I got out. I’m not protected like you, David. Your status protects you. I have no status.”

“I didn’t think of that. You’re still a chump though.” Mahmud frowned at me.

We pulled up outside a safe house with high walls and a security door. Alan paid the taxi driver who immediately sped off into the darkness. As we approached the door of the place to what amounted to a Kabul speakeasy, a security camera swiveled towards us. I banged on the door and rang the doorbell. We stood there for five minutes or so. Finally, I said, “Alan, I don’t think they want to let us in.”

“What now?” We both looked at Mahmud who shrugged.

“Okay, let’s walk down a couple of blocks. Maybe we’ll find something.” We crossed the street just as a black SUV with dark tinted windows pulled up beside us. The passenger side window rolled down and an Afghan-looking dude asked us, “Where are you guys going?”

I looked at Alan. “Who are they?” Alan shrugged. “I turned back to the guy in the SUV and said, “We’re trying to find someplace to party. Who are you?”

“We work with the UN. We’re trying to find a place to get a drink.”

“Do you know a place nearby?” I countered.

“Yeah, the Paradise Club is right around the corner.”

“You heading there?”

“Yeah, get in we’ll give you a lift.” I looked at Alan and whispered, “There’s only two of them. We can take ‘em if anything happens.” I started towards the car. Alan and Mahmud hesitated.

“Bubbas, I’m getting in. Come on.”

Alan and Mahmud followed me. We jumped into the backseats of the SUV and Alan asked, “What are your names? I’m Alan.” Pointing to me and Mahmud, he said, “This is Dave and Stefan.” We’d already given Mahmud an assumed name in case we ran into difficulties.

“I’m Akhbar and this is Ahmed. We’re Afghan but we grew up in France.”

I relaxed. Most Afghans who lived outside of the country were laid back. These guys weren’t going to chop off our heads. I’d never met a fundamentalist Afghan who’d grown up outside of Afghanistan. Although, I had my knife in my hand just in case anything went down. I think they just wanted to be with Americans, so they could get inside the joint.

We drove to the intersection and turned right. About a hundred yards up the street, Akhbar parked the SUV. He turned around. “That house right there is the Paradise Club. They don’t usually let Afghans in. Stefan, do you have any ID that proves that you aren’t Afghan?” I laughed. If they saw through it that easy, what were our chances of getting him inside with us?

“Don’t worry about Stefan. He’s Italian,” I winked. “We’ll get him inside.” I told Mahmud to stand off to the side and out of view of the door and camera. “We’ll talk our way in once they open the door.” We walked across to the Paradise Club and knocked on the gate. A camera swerved around to survey our group. Then a window in the door swung open. I slipped my ID card up to the window and said, “We’re American.” The door opened.

“Let me see some kind of ID from all of you. No Afghans are allowed inside.” Akhbar and Ahmed showed their Euro passports. Alan showed them his Army ID. Mahmud just stood there.

“Dude, he’s from Milan. He forgot to bring his ID.”

“We can’t let him in without ID. If Afghans come in, we will be shut down.”

“He’s not Afghan. Stefan, speak Italian to him or something.”

We stood there for a second and finally, I said, “Listen, we’re gonna spend money in here. Do you want our money or not? Stefan has plenty of cash, too.”

The doorman thought about it for minute more and waved us in. “Come in. Quickly.”

Just past the door we got to a courtyard and were hurriedly waved through another door. We walked down a corridor into a room lit by dark hurricane lamps. It felt like I was in the movie
Raise the Red Lantern
. As we entered, straight ahead and to my right there was a bar. An older Chinese lady sat there. She glanced our way and smiled at us. We were waved over to a set of couches near the exit. Almost immediately, eight Chinese girls descended upon us.

“What do you want to drink?” one of them asked.

“Jack and Coke,” I said. Mahmud asked for the same and Alan ordered “just a Coke.” The other two guys had been culled off and led to a different table.

Behind my head, there was a sign. PARADISE. It blinked in red neon letters. Across from the entrance was a bar with several obvious Americans and a couple of indeterminate nationality. I’m pretty sure that they were Eastern European. They had that lean, hard, hungry look that I’d come to associate with Slavics in Afghanistan. Usually the Romanians, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, and others from that area were security types. I suppose some would call them mercenaries. You could never tell though. They could just as well have been volunteers with Doctors Without Borders.

We had no idea what kind of crowd we’d wandered into, so we kept to ourselves. The two Afghan-Euros who had picked us up walked over to a pool table and ordered drinks. Alan, Mahmud, and I looked around for our server. As we sat there, I realized that we were in a bar SLASH brothel. Duh! I couldn’t help but laugh. I never thought that I’d be in a room full of Chinese hookers in Kabul, Afghanistan. How surreal. A couple of the gals were actually pretty hot.

We had a few drinks, played some pool, and generally had a good time. I was feeling pretty good. We ordered some wings and french fries, gorging ourselves on fattening fried food and good old American whiskey for a couple of hours. Finally, we decided to get back to the hotel. We’d take it slow this time. Later, we could come back and get a feel for the place. The three of us walked outside to look for a cab. We let Mahmud take the first cab and waited for another to arrive. Alan and I had to get back to the Safi Landmark Hotel before dawn.

Apparently, we’d given Mahmud the last cab of the night. We waited another thirty minutes and still no cab. We tried to go back into Paradise but they were closed for the night.

“Screw it. Let’s walk. We can catch a cab down the road,” I said.

“Dave, are you fuckin’ nuts! It’s three in the morning. We’ve got no weapon. You’re stoned out of your mind. What if we get picked up by the police or kidnapped by some Taliban motherfucker. I’m sure someone out here would love to sell two Americans.”

“Screw it, man. I’ve got a knife. You’ve got a knife. We’re dressed in civies. We’ve got our Afghan head scarves. Cover up and keep to the shadows. We’ll be okay.”

“This is insane.”

“Dude, we’re both crazy for being out here period. What do you want to do? Sit here and wait for a fuckin’ cab or for the Po Po to come here and get us? We gotta get back before people start waking up and walking about. They can’t see us coming back. We’re drunk. … Well, okay, at least I am. I smell like booze. If the wrong person sees us, we’re as good as fired.”

I led the way. I had no clue how to get back to our hotel, other than a vague idea of the direction we took to get to Paradise. There were no street lights. The houses here were all hidden behind high walls. A few rickety lamp posts stood behind walls that gave some light to the streets. Guard shacks stood in front of some houses. Most had an Afghan security contractor sleeping soundly inside. Security cameras peered out onto cracked sidewalks and the mostly dirt roads. These roads were paved at one time. Most of the pavement was gone now. We crossed a few stretches of good road here and there, but huge-vehicle-jarring pot holes scarred most of them.

A car zoomed past splashing mud on us. We turned down a side street and walked towards what looked to be a main thoroughfare. It was well lit for Kabul. At the end of the street stood an Afghan policeman. He gave us a quick look, dismissed us as a threat, and turned the other way. We reached the intersection. Another cop looked at us, shrugged, and looked away. I saw a cab and started waving at the driver. I didn’t think we were far from the hotel. Better to have been in a cab and relatively safe than to have been walking out in the open. I was more afraid of being spotted by someone from MPRI than I was of being kidnapped or arrested. I felt that I could bluster my way out of that, but I would definitely have been fired if I’d been caught by one of the MPRI big bosses walking about drunk in Kabul.

After waving a few more times, the cab finally stopped and looked at us. I yelled, “Safi Landmark.” The cop looked up. The taxi driver motioned for us to get in. Five minutes later, we were home safe at our hotel. It had cost us all of fifty Afs for the ride.

On the following Thursday, Alan and I headed back down to Wazir Akbar Khan by ourselves. We simply walked out to the street in front of the Safi Landmark Hotel and waved down a yellow cab. “Wazir Akbar Khan,” I said. The taxi driver motioned for us to get in. We jumped in and I said, “Dude, don’t stop for shit. If the police wave at you to stop, just ignore them.”