In the Danger Zone

by Stefan Gates

  Marc and I sit down to a bottle of Woolf Blass cabernet sauvignon (didn't expect to see one of those in Kabul) and my first taste of Afghan food: mantu (ravioli-type pasta filled with meat and served in a tomato sauce) and pakaura (deep-fried battered potatoes). It's all bland, but fine – presumably watered down for Western hacks. Marc plumps for chicken breast in a creamy sauce with chips. We chat for the first time, and I begin to warm to him, mainly because he's been to a zillion war zones and I get the feeling he's keen to get me home in one piece.

  I'm still nervous, though, so we sink a second bottle of Woolfey and a couple of whiskies before finally going to bed, I'm ashamed to say, thoroughly pissed. It's one way to deal with The Fear. It feels like I've been through a lot already, and we haven't even started.

  Good Morning Kabul

  A shaft of light pierces my hangover and I drag myself to the window. Ah, yes. Afghanistan. One of the unhappiest, poorest, most heavily-armed and dangerous places on the planet, and a Category A security risk to boot. Added to that, there's no pork, no chicken (bird flu), no fish (no sea), no ovens and no visible women. Why on earth would a food writer want to come here? And what am I doing in a Muslim country with a hangover?

  • • • • •

  Let's get to grips with Aghanistan. It's a confusing country, so a quick, pub-friendly, 60-second rundown of the major rucks might be useful before we begin.

  The Persians started it all back in 500 BC with the Achaemenid Empire, followed by Alexander the Great, and all manner of other imperialists and rogues, including ourselves as far back as 1838, with the First Anglo-Afghan War. We mucked about here with varying degrees of success until finally leaving in 1921. There was a relatively peaceful period from 1933 until it all went to pot again in 1973, when the Russians invaded with terrible consequences.

  In 1979 they sent 150,000 soldiers to fight a disastrous ten-year war against the US-funded Mujahideen and gave up only after 15,000 of their soldiers had been killed, and 5 million Afghans had become refugees. As soon as the Russians left, the USA lost interest too, but instead of peace, the country descended into chaos and corruption under the faction-decimated Mujahideen. The Taliban were a politico-religious reaction to the misery, and seized most of the country by 2000, curbing freedoms and violating human rights, especially those of women, but they also imposed order and initially eradicated the opium trade.

  Soon after 9/11, however, the USA took umbrage at the Taliban's fondness for terrorists and, alongside the Afghan Northern Alliance, swept through the country with astonishing speed. Since then, cash has poured into Afghanistan from the West, but daily life for most people is still miserable, impoverished and insecure.

  I always wondered why people wanted to muck about with Afghanistan. This is one of the poorest countries in the world – it produces little except opium and carpets, it has no substantial resources other than gas, it's a sod of a climate to live in, lurching from arid to freezing with not a lot in between, and it has a feudal system that is almost impossible to crack. So why does everyone want to conquer it? The answer is that it's a buffer. Britain invaded because it was on the border with its precious India; Russia because it's a troublesome neighbour; the USA because Russia wanted it, plus it was near the oil-rich Persian Gulf; and Alexander the Great because . . . well, he just liked collecting stuff. Trouble is, no one – that's no one – has ever managed to control this place without a flagrant disregard for human rights.

  There you go – you don't get stuff like this in many food books, do you? Now let's crack on.

  • • • • •

  I drive for hours through a thick stew of traffic to find Kabul's central food market. At first glance it appears pretty civilized, with decent stalls and people pottering around, but on closer inspection I can see that it floats on a sea of mud and excrement that smells so bad I want to vomit. I visit a friendly butcher whose lamb carcass displays a vast fatty growth and I get very excited. This is Afghanistan's legendary fat-tailed sheep (it doesn't have a fat tail; the fat actually sits above its bottom), and although I've read about them, I doubted that they really existed. The fat is delicate, light and fluffy, an extraordinary cross between sheepskin and washed tripe. The butcher says it's an aphrodisiac 'worth a thousand Viagra'. It also sports a single, enormous veiny testicle (the other one's already been sold). I wonder if I'll get to eat one of those.

  I buy boulani (a kind of vegetable-filled pancake) at a market stall next to an open sewer (all the stalls are next to open sewers), and I shouldn't really eat them on health and sanitation grounds (both the driver and the translator refuse to touch them), but there's no point coming to Afghanistan to find out about food if I'm not prepared to eat it, so I dive in and hope for the best. The boulanis taste great – good thick crêpes covered in searing hot chilli sauce. It's always possible that The Fear has got a grip on my tastebuds and clouded my judgement, but I think I'm going to like Afghan food.

  Masr-i-Sharif

  Now the adventure really begins. I want to discover how ordinary people suvive day-to-day in extraordinary situations like those here in Afghanistan. Tomorrow is the Afghan New Year, the biggest event in the Afghan calendar, and the biggest celebrations are held in the northern city of Masr-i-Sharif, which is overlooked by the Hindu Kush.

  The city was the site of a series of gruesome massacres by both the Taliban and their enemies in 1997-8, and was also the first city to fall to the Afghan Northern Alliance during the most recent of the many Afghan wars. The rout began on 7 October 2001 and ended with John Simpson taking Kabul single-handedly just 37 days later. It is the stronghold of a powerful warlord called Dostum, and it's now relatively safe compared to the insurgency-minded south.

  All seats on all flights have been booked out for months, so I've chartered a small plane to fly me to the north. When I call to confirm it the company says that they've decided not to fly – dodgy weather over the Hindu Kush. But if I don't get there today, I'll miss the country's biggest party, so I drive back to the airport to try to blag my way onto another plane. After haggling, wheedling, pestering and whining, I find that there are actually two seats left on a commercial flight to Masr, but I have to wait to see if the last two customers turn up. I pray that they've had an accident. (Not a bad one, you understand, just a stubbed foot or a lost set of house keys, something like that.)

  Finally, the booking clerk accepts my bribe. I make a dash for the plane and claim one of the last two seats at the back. Yeehee. The one advantage of a country being this chaotic is that it works both ways – you can get picked up just as easily as you're let down.

  On the plane, Marc and I have our first row. I wanted to learn how to slaughter a sheep to discover about halal tradition but according to our research, local custom requires me to have been baptized to be able to do it. I haven't been. The upside is that I've looked into baptism and, apparently, in emergencies, anyone can baptize me, even Marc. I'm not entirely sure that I want my baps tized by Marc, but beggars can't be choosers. Marc, however, finds the whole baptism thing distastefully touchy-feely and not a little weird. He's right, of course.

  When we arrive, it's a warm, sunny afternoon. The air is clean and the mountains are beautiful. At last I'm beginning to feel calmer. I'm met by Aleem Agha, my guide for the trip. If you ever go to Afghanistan (and I hope you do), you'll need Aleem. He's like Sallah in Piaiders of the Lost Ark – a big man with a huge personality, fingers in lots of pies, busting with honour and trustworthiness, and with access to pretty much anyone in the country at the stab of a mobile phone.

  We set off, and the driver Basir swiftly finds the biggest traffic jam in the world, en route to the fortified safe house of the World Food Programme (WFP), where I have kindly been offered a bed for the night. Looking out of the car, I get my first real daytime glimpse of the country and it's quite a shock. There's pretty much no infrastructure – there are no proper roads and most buildings are either half-built or on the verge of collapse. The fact th
at the country functions at all is little short of a miracle, as the government has little or no control outside Kabul, mainly because it has little or no cash. (This is one of the poorest places on the planet, so it's not surprising that no one pays taxes.)

  The car inches its way through the New Year's Eve traffic of cannibalized, filth-farting buses and knackered, dusty jalopies, and people stare at my white Western face peering out of the big 4×4. I can't tell if they look hostile or just interested – either way it adds to the sense of being way out of my depth.

  I eventually make it to the WFP safe house on a backstreet. It's not luxurious, but it has decent machine gun-wielding security so it feels safe. The UN runs lots of these places for their staff, and journalists can stay in them for a small fee. There's a cook who makes basic Western foods (shame), there's satellite telly and even a small swimming pool (currently closed for the winter), but if I had to stay for more than a few nights in these siege conditions, I'd be pretty miserable.

  Dining with the Taliban

  I'm woken by a series of loud explosions from across the city, and The Fear floods back. I creep down to the dining room where the cook tells me it is just some celebratory explosions for the Afghan New Year. It's fair to say that Afghans like their explosions. It's tempting to make a link between that and the fact that they've experienced centuries of war, but that might be cheeky.

  Back out on the road, Basir finds a brand new bad-tempered traffic jam and when we do finally arrive at our destination – a huge patch of muddy land grandly called 'the stadium' – we find that around 20,000 people and 300 horses have beaten us to it, and are busy having a massive fight. An enormous, sweaty melee of horses is gathered in the middle, pushing and shoving, and being whacked with sticks by their riders. Just to add to the confusion, a sandstorm whips up from nowhere, followed by a rainstorm, and the resulting mud is thick and strong.

  This is buzkashi, the Afghan national game. The rules are brutally simple – anyone who's got a horse can play – you have to pick up the headless corpse of a goat, and drop it in a chalk circle to score a goal. The problem is that all the other 299 horsemen want to stop you, assault you, then rip the corpse out of your hands and score a goal themselves. That's about it. It's utter mayhem, and no one appears to be having a good time, not even the huge audience, who stand with frowns of confusion on their faces. Nobody seems to know who's winning as factions develop in a bid to ambush whoever's carrying the corpse, and then collapse as soon as someone snatches it. It's violent, incomprehensible, ancient and, to Afghan culture, very important.

  The favoured garb is trad-bohemian filth, with Russian tank-commander helmets clearly very popular. An ancient chap sporting a blue nylon wig and riding a frail old Rosinante shouts jokes to the audience. He's obviously the court jester. I get caught in a few stampedes so I take refuge on a tiny seating area with some of the sponsors of the game, where I befriend a man who speaks a little English and says that he owns one of the horses that's competing. I ask him who's winning, and he shrugs 'nobody knows'. Is it always like this? 'Yeah.'

  I ask him if the corpse gets eaten at the end of the game.

  'What a bizarre idea,' he says, before turning back to watch 300 grown men on horseback beat each other up over a headless goat.

  Finally there's a goal: a fearsome-looking fellow, resplendent in a purple velour judo outfit, sporting a vast moustache and quarter of a tonne of mud, manages to drop the goat into the circle. I'm told that this is Shamsull Haq, an important local figure. Eventually the final prize is announced: if anyone can get another goal, they will win themselves a new fridge. The entire horde of frenzied competitors turn . . . well . . . more frenzied. That poor bloody goat.

  After much fighting, it's announced that everyone's knackered, cold, wet and confused, and no one looks likely to win, so the fridge will be up for grabs tomorrow instead. Shamsull Haq pulls his horse up to where I'm sitting and announces that a) he's in charge of the whole shebang, and b) I will be dining as his guest of honour that night. My sponsor friend suggests that it would be wise for me to accept Mr Haq's offer of dinner instead of his. Marc shakes his head. Bad idea, he mouths.

  Nonetheless, and probably against our better judgement, later that night Marc and I draw up at Shamsull Haq's place. Aleem has said that I'll be fine, that he knows this man well, he's a powerful local leader, and in any case when you're a guest in an Afghan's house your safety is their responsibility and they must protect you as though you were family. It goes against everything in the hostile regions training manual, but on balance it seems more dangerous not to go – you don't want to go around offending an Afghan's hospitality.

  Shamsull Haq lays on a vast spread for us and 25 of his friends. We sit on the floor around a huge red plastic cloth. Lamb is the only food on offer, and on the way Marc drops a bombshell: he can't eat lamb. Well that's just great! Lamb is pretty much the only meat they eat here, and turning down food is tantamount to betrayal around these parts. Hell, I'd probably shoot you in my own house if you turned down my food.

  Shamsull chats for half an hour or so before revealing that he is actually Commander Haq, and was a Taliban commander himself a few years ago. I nearly choke on my lamb. I'm dining with the Taliban.

  The Fear washes over me again, and I wonder if we ought to quietly leave before anything bad happens. But everyone's very friendly, including Commander Haq, and it would be more foolish to insult them by leaving. So instead we talk about the pros and cons of crushing repression, beards and burkas. I try to do the journalist thing by pushing him to answer some difficult questions, even though I'm woefully underqualified for this kind of thing. He flatly ignores my questions about women's rights under the Taliban and reminds me that the British were just one of many people who tried to conquer Afghanistan. He says it without malice, and when I apologize on behalf of my countrymen (you're not really supposed to do this, are your) he takes it with good grace.

  I ask if he sees me as the enemy. He says no. These days his responsibility is to the people he commands, and he has to try to get along with everyone. 'We can't fight the whole world,' he says ruefully, as though he wouldn't actually mind giving it a bash.

  The eating cloth is cleared away and we settle down to play cards. 'Put the camera away,' Haq says, 'betting is haraam', (forbidden by God). After playing a few hands we thank everyone for their wonderful hospitality and extremely lamby lamb, and leave. Marc is starving and ready to fall over. I am feeling giddy from this bizarre emotional rollercoaster of a trip, which lurches from terror to comedy without warning. But finally I feel as though I've made a connection with Afghanistan.

  On the way back through Masr-i-Sharif we pass the vast, stunning Blue Mosque. Surely a country that can build anything this beautiful can't be beyond hope. On the streets, men are going crazy, dancing and partying – all without the aid of alcohol. I stop occasionally to talk to the dancers, but there's a strong sense of hostility, so I don't hang around. It generally takes about an hour to arrange everything required for a decent abduction, so it's best to move on every 40 minutes.

  World Food Programme

  In contrast to the feast of the previous night, we visit a World Food Programme plant nursery, where women are offered food in return for work. The UN tries to avoid giving food away as this creates a dependency on aid that can be hard to break, so instead they create jobs within their own projects.

  I chat to a woman in a beautiful, finely-pleated, Yves Klein blue burka, who says she finds it very difficult to do weeding in her voluminous tent, but she wants to wear it. 'I'm very shy,' she says. 'I have no education, so I don't like talking to people. But I don't mind talking when I wear the burka.'

  Her husband was killed by the Taliban, but she's not entirely sure why. I ask her how she feels about his death. 'I'm sad because I have to bring up the children on my own and there's no one to pay for food.' I ask about her emotions several times, but she always answers with facts, as though revealing an emo
tional response would be as bad as revealing her face. I ask if it's unfair that women suffer so badly, and men seem to have all the power. She doesn't understand the question – even when I rephrase it several different ways. It doesn't occur to her that things can be any different. She says that if she were literate things would be so much better. Her daughter is married but she is young, so doesn't wear the burka, but when she gets older she will.

  She says that under the Taliban women weren't allowed to go out and work or tend crops, even if they were widows like her who had no one else to provide for their family.

  'But you'd starve without food.'

  'Yes. That didn't matter to the Taliban.'

  We wander around a few crumbling rural villages, followed everywhere by hordes of excited, beautiful olive-skinned kids. This is how most Afghans live, with no infrastructure, no jobs, living in houses made of mud, and completely reliant on outside help just to get enough food to eat. The trouble is that from the outside, this poverty is mesmerizing. Cherubic kids in rags, simple lives with basic needs, few material possessions and living close to the land.

  From the inside, it's very different, and I'm not sure if anyone in the world really has a simple life and basic needs.

  I meet Sabra, a widow with six beautiful, mischievous daughters to look after. They are easily some of the poorest people I've ever met, and they live in a single mud room with two small kitchen rooms beside it. Sabra is lively and talkative and doesn't wear a burka. Unusually for an Afghan woman, she's happy to talk openly to me – she's fully aware of how gruesome her life is, she wants her story told and, crucially, she has no male relatives to beat her for talking to an unknown, unrelated man.

  For the first time I ask one of the questions I'm here to ask: What does it feel like to be constantly hungry? To be starving? It's a horrible question, and smacks of poverty tourism, but surely it's more dangerous not to know.

  Sabra is pleased that I've asked her – no one else ever has. It changes, she says, depending on how scarce food is. Today she's got food from the WFP, but when she can't work, the family goes without and she becomes lethargic, irritable, shaky and miserable. She says that she often lashes out at her kids when she's that desperate. When she says this, the kids all laugh and agree. Sabra is very aware of her poverty, and she laughs when I mention that people in the West sometimes romanticize the simple life of rural peasants.