Brian Conley's News & Notes

Kabul’s been quiet for me thus far (knock on wood) so today I’ll leave you with a funny story I heard the other night from a friend.

In Kabul the ice cream man has a push cart and a mini-megaphone, rather than a truck as happens in so many western countries. It just so happens that one particular ice cream man in Kabul, has slightly more sinister plans than many others. If you hear the ice cream man at a certain hour of the evening, it never bodes well. In some parts of the world that’s because the ice cream man is secretly dealing/transporting heroin. In others it has to do with children and such.

Now kidnappings of foreigners have allegedly gone out of fancy in Kabul,  however Afghan kidnapping is still in vogue. So when some certain foreigners noticed their dog was missing after hearing the ice cream man at an odd hour, they didn’t initially think anything of it.

A few days later the Ice Cream Man showed up at their door in the evening and suggested that for $300 dollars it might be possible for him to locate the dog.

You might be thinking what you would do in this instance, $300 is a lot of money for a dog that might have just as well run away or been killed.

But what else is an expat stuck in Kabul to do? They paid the man.

The next day he returned with the dog and said “Let’s never speak of this again,” and with a jolly tune on his wagon he rode away…

Day two in Kabul was, fortunately, a day off. I have been running on steam since living India on a 4am flight to Doha last Monday. So the day began slowly, rising late, dealing with various outlying work, writing yesterday’s blog, etc. etc.

In the afternoon John Smock and I lunched in the courtyard of the Kabul Inn, the quiet beneath hovering storm clouds was quite relaxing. During our lunch of chicken burgers, and shockingly enough, a vegetarian burger for this writer, we were reminded we were in fact in Kabul and not some cheap hotel in a middle-of-nowhere hostel just once, as two large helicopters passed overhead.

The daylight hours were relatively uninteresting as I’ve said, interesting conversations with John Smock about his work and Small World News’ background, but nothing of note for the readers really. The day didn’t actually kick off until about 6:45pm when we left the Kabul Inn to walk to our friend Una’s guesthouse, to meet her and some friends for, that’s right, an Afghan rockshow.

As two bumbling foreigners on our second and third days in Kabul, we walked right past the alley to Una’s house and 2 more blocks before we realized our mistake. You see, Una’s place is “right behind the bread stand” but in Kabul there can be a bread stand on many a block, thus the error. Heading back to the Kabul Inn to regroup, we found the correct bread stand, and Una’s house just behind.

After brief intros to Hadi, Zaman, and Lea, we packed up and headed off to the Kabul Health Club. The Club is exactly that, a health club, which includes a bar and restaurant, and a few guest rooms for rent. However I have to admit that I didn’t see anything resembling workout equipment or anything to suggest it was more than a nice restaurant/bar for well-to-do Afghans and expats.

We were running late and after navigating a bit of confusion with security we found Kabul Dreams already well into the first few songs of their set. Like some combination of Jacob Dylan, Bob Dylan, and Nirvana, they were quite the sight. There were mixed messages about whether cameras were permissible, so John left his big fancy camera at home, and we each brought a mobile phone for assessment testing just in case.

It was clear soon after we arrived that cameras of any kind would be fine. During several songs the cameras  just in front of the stage nearly outnumbered the crowd. There were probably 50 attendees milling on the grass in front of the state, or a few more than that. Like many an indie show, they left a wide semi-circle of empty space in front of the band, which was soon filled by over-zealous journalists with all manner of visual recording devices.

I have mixed feelings about the impact of the show, it was loud and in an open-air courtyard in a populated residential area, meaning all the neighbors were subjected to loud indie rock well after dark. There were shishas to be smoked in the garden space after the show, and a highly overpriced (though well worth it) barbecue dinner. Oh and did I mention that it was held at Kabul Health Club, a pricey gym for Kabul’s other half? None of these things can be particularly good for encouraging local goodwill.

That said, a fun time was had by all, the band was an interesting mix of Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction meets something far less edgy, however they take themselves too seriously to be anything like pop-punk. Kind of like  if Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo met Kurt Cobain in Kabul and were listening to too much Death Cab for Cutie. Or something. I’m no music critic.

[h/t Tom Willard for the Death Cab for Cutie insight. Video coming once my slow Kabul connection gets it online. Check out http://brianconley.blip.tv]

I touched down in Kabul approximately 7:30am. Immigration and Customs was notably easy, my first mistake came when I realized I didn’t have the instructions for my arrival.

I left baggage claim for the area that, in a “normal” airport in a “normal” part of the world would be the area where your ride might pick you up, or you would catch a taxi.

Unfortunately in Kabul there is not only a parking lot A, for VIPs, but they go all the way up to C, which is where Afghans are able to reach. Eventually a helpful airport porter offered to let me use his phone and help me find my ride-for a fee of course.

Ahmed Shakib, a training assistant at Pajhwok Afghan News, and all-around-good-guy from what I can tell so far, finally found the porter and me standing around. It was an uneventful ride to the Kabul Inn, a hotel that is not much to look at from the outside, but has an appropriately gaudy garden and sitting room, complete with apparently “vintage” British rifles hanging on the wall.

After a quick shower-read cold water over my head-it was off to Pajhwok to begin meeting my new colleagues. Pajhwok Afghan News is an all Afghan news agency based in Kabul, but with reporters in 23 of Afghanistan’s 34 states.

After my first day I can say with assurance that Kabul may not be much to look at, but its charm is certainly present in its people. Everyone I met at Pajhwok was friendly, earnest, and welcoming. Consciously straying into the cliche I can say that these are, by and large, salt of the earth people. Similar to many(any?) Central Asian/Southwest Asian/Middle Eastern countries there is an air of fatalism and a feeling that things will get done, after some time.

I’m here working to expand Pajhwok’s adoption of multimedia and online/mobile media technology in their reporting. I will also be doing training in video production as they take steps to build out a video service prior to the upcoming parliamentary elections. Its going to be an interesting ride if the first day is any evidence. There is much to be done and I’m only here for about three weeks this trip.

After work we took a short trip to a supermarket in the neighborhood, that was as well stocked as any bodega in Manhattan or Brooklyn, barely providing any acknowledgment of its true geographic locale. I’ll try to take some pictures on the next visit, it should make its own interesting post. Also of note, supermarkets are apparently good places to exchange dollars if you’re in a hurry and need to combine grocery shopping with money changing. Just one of many interesting tips to a successful life in Kabul that I’m sure to learn in the next few weeks.

Last night John Smock and I caught up with Una Moore who has been living here about as long as I have been based in India. She took us to dinner at a restaurant called simply, “Sufi.” There were many foreigners there, and English appeared to be the primary language of culinary extracurricular activities that night. I’ll have to admit that we didn’t stay long at the restaurant. Your intrepid Kabul tour guide came down with a bit of what I like to refer to as the “travel bends.” That’s a combination of lack of sleep, stress, extreme amounts of travel and drastic dietary change that mimics much worse actual travel illnesses, and is a common experience for yours truly.

Una knew just what to do, she called the trusted “kidnapper-free” taxi service “Zuhaak” and we were whisked away back to the lovely Kabul Inn. The cooks at Sufi were so efficient they’d even finished cooking our meal and wrapped it for takeaway! Dinner ended up on the floor of my hotel room, John, Una, and I chatting the night away, Una regaling us with various stories of the bizarre life of a Kabuli expat in 2010.

The night might have gone shorter had the internet not gone out and I been able to call my wife and daughter who are currently roadtripping in the United States. It appears that Kabul Inn turns off the net access after a certain hour, something I’ll have to look into, as it is totally not cool when you’re working 6 days a week, 24 hours/day! The night finally ended with some World Cup action, turning out the lights just after seeing Mexico’s first goal against France, truly it is a global world.

It’s now day two in Kabul, having started uneventfully in the hotel, but tonight I am looking forward to my first Afghan cd release party with local indie heartthrobs Kabul Dreams.