Kabul Cocktailing

Last night, I ventured out with some of my co-workers and actually had a night on the town. A night like this was long overdue.

Some of the other folks staying at the hotel invited me to a happy hour in one of their rooms. Life at the Park Palace Hotel is a bit like returning to the UCLA dorms. Due to limited access to places around Kabul, everyone who wants to hold an impromptu party hosts one in their room. I first should point out that most of the tenants at this hotel have been here for several months. They all know the ins and outs of living in Kabul and have carved out quite a tight knit community with others in similar situations. By getting invited to the happy hour, I felt like I was joining a secret club or entering a speakeasy. I should also add that these were 50-year-olds, which made me appreciate their invite even more.

I walk into the door and there is a full-blown bar setup in this guy’s room, complete with beer, wine, scotch, vodka, the works. This is all very significant as this was my first encounter with such a scene since my arrival over 10 days ago. Even more significant was that to a rookie like myself (or “new guy” or “short timer” as I became known), I learned that access to alcohol is in high demand and difficult to attain. For a rookie, that is. About five months ago, the government pulled alcohol off the shelves forcing foreigners to get creative with their booze purchasing. Apparently, these folks spend most of their working day trying to figure out ways to get hooch.

The most direct way is through the various embassies throughout Kabul. The embassies live by their own rules and hence booze is plentiful. In order to get access to such places a connection is needed to get on the premises. Some of the folks I spoke with mentioned how if they have a meeting with certain embassies, they will request to meet at their office, so they can get onto their compound, and have access their commissaries. Or they just ask their colleagues for the hook-up. Pretty simple. I also quickly found out that this crew rolled as if they were Kabul’s Costco for booze. During my 1 hour of hanging out, two people came in to buy a case of beer to take away. With a stocked inventory, this was not a problem and the $50 transaction was made (pretty steep, eh?).

From there, I was invited to a house party near my office. This was definitely a side of Kabul that I had been missing. Since the national work week here is Sunday- Thursday, Thursday night is the big party night. Apparently there are always parties going on somewhere. This party was great. About 30 international workers from all over were there along with catered Chinese food, full bar (of course), and good music (not just Shakira and Sean Paul either). I got the chance to talk to a number of people and hear stories about what they were doing here, how they like it, what was their major, the usual.

Despite having conversations with a handful of interesting people, I quickly learned that each story was generally the same. Whether it was a Kenyan woman working with the UN, a Canadian working with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, an American working for an international NGO, or a German working with the Ministry of Urban Development, each job was essentially identical.

Me: Who are you working with?

Them: XYZ on a project with the Ministry of something or other.

Me: What exactly are you doing with them?

Them: We are working to build their capacity and conducting needs assessments.

Me: Interesting. How long have you been here?

Them: (Answers varied from 3 months to 2 years)

Me: How is the project going?

Them: Slow. Any impact that we are achieving is happening at a very slow pace. It has been difficult to get complete buy-in from the local Afghan staff.

Me: Understandable I suppose. The presence of the international community here is all brand new, so the notion of capacity building workshops, needs assessments, process implementations, etc. are all very new to them. How much longer is your stay?

Them: Well, the project is scheduled to end soon, but they’ll probably extend my contract for another year.

Me: Great. I could use another drink. You?

It may sound pretty boring but after not going out all for the past two weeks, it felt like New Year’s Eve to me. An interesting side note is that at about 10pm, most of the party gathered up their things and headed out. Pretty much every international worker has a curfew and drivers only offer rides back to their homes/hotels/guest houses until that time. I too had a curfew (11pm) but fortunately, I was with friends with connections.

A co-worker was awaiting some friends of hers from the Swedish embassy to arrive and we intended to continue the party at a local bar. We got picked up by the Swedish embassy car, which was a bullet-proof SUV. Pretty crazy. Along the way, I was told to knock on the window, and quickly learned what a bulletproof window was like. It was like tapping the shark tank at the Monterey aquarium, nothing was getting through that bad boy.

We arrived at a bar called L’Atmosphere, a French joint. As usual, the door was guarded by security with heavy artillery. I see this every day and it still freaks me out. Once we got in, I felt like I was back in Germany for the World Cup. The bar was packed (probably close to 125 people) with folks ages 25-40 from everywhere in the world drinking, dancing, laughing, and smoking (CA and NY got it right. My clothes reek of smoke this morning.) This was clearly the place to be on a Thursday night and people were letting loose. I suppose its justified when considering you can’t walk the streets on your own.

I actually started to fade out at about 12:30 (cut me some slack, this was my first time up past 10:30pm since getting here) and we all headed home. How you ask? There are no drivers available this late, you say. Since the Swedes were rocking on, we had to figure out a way back. Luckily, the Kabul veterans I was with knew of a secure taxi company that takes intl. folks back to their cribs after hours. So not a problem.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good despite the late night and although I had found a way to pass the time better, I highly doubt that I’ll be missing my flight on the 30th.