Making Soapies in Kabul

by Trudi-Ann Tierney

  I had been on enough sets to know my way around the job. You basically had to keep things running smoothly and to time, and needed to be able to scare the willies out of your cast and crew when necessary. Having perfected the ‘big eyes and red face’ routine on Salam, I was sure I was up to it. Muffy had already taken on the task of breaking the scripts down and making schedules because, due to budget constraints, our assistant director was always going to be a last-minute starter. And, with that settled, we were kind of, sort of, ready to go.

  And then we made the show, and everything ran smoothly, and we had the best time of our lives! Well, unfortunately, that’s a sentence from another story—it’s about another show, one that was made far, far away from Afghanistan.

  By the time we were nearing the end of the shoot, I could boldly claim that, although not necessarily the ‘best time of my life’, it had been a rollicking, hilarious, incessantly frustrating adventure that I wouldn’t have missed for the world. And I felt so blessed to have my wonderful Aussie friends along for the ride.

  Being a police action drama, we were shooting most of it on the streets of Kabul. The good thing about shooting in Afghanistan was that, most of the time, there were no permits and permissions required: we simply rocked up to the location and, with the help of our two-man security detail and a couple of local police, we shut down the road for an hour or two.

  The bad thing about shooting there was that you were guaranteed an audience wherever you went. As soon as we got the cameras out, children appeared from everywhere, shouting excitedly about the television show being made in their hood. The sight of a bunch of westerners running around like headless chooks only fuelled their delirium. There was simply no containing them and, on more than one occasion, I was forced to stomp into the fray and clamp my hand over a chatty child’s mouth.

  Now and then, there would be some unsuspecting tiny tot who didn’t know that it was all pretend. One day we were shooting a scene where our two male heroes shot and killed a suicide bomber who was threatening to detonate outside a mosque. Two dear little innocents wandered in holding hands, to see what all the excitement was about, and shrieked with horror before racing back down the road. I quickly dispatched Aleem to calm them, but unfortunately his pursuit only added to their terror and it took him a two-block chase, complete with screaming and hysterical crying, before he finally caught up with them to explain it was a game.

  As we were making a series that showcased the police, the Ministry of Interior guaranteed us its full backing. They promised us officers to beef up our security, and people and jeeps to appear in scenes where a police presence was needed. But the officers invariably turned up late, typically thoroughly disinterested, and attempted to scarper as soon as they’d been fed. They were constantly demanding ‘compensation’ for petrol or time spent on set beyond their shift; they snoozed on traffic duty, talked loudly on their phones during takes, and left their guns lying around the set. At that time the average wage for an officer was around one hundred dollars a month so I’m fairly sure that babysitting a team of pedantic television types didn’t rate highly on their list of priorities.

  Still, it was almost laughable that we were attempting to glorify these men on-screen. Even the child onlookers thought they were a joke—whenever an officer waved his baton around, threatening to silence the crowd with a savage beating (something I had to firmly shut down every time a new officer came on board), the kids simply laughed and ran away, throwing taunts behind them as they made good their escape.

  Our relations with the police hit an all-time low on the day we needed them the most. The scene involved our on-screen heroes trying, yet again, to foil a bomb-toting terrorist; we required the officers to race into shot in their jeep and provide back-up for our crack commando team. Muffy had spent weeks sourcing a location where we could accommodate all the action—thirty extras would stroll along a street, with our insurgent wandering amongst them and our two lead actors in close, but covert, pursuit. Then there would be an initial showdown, at which people would scatter, before the arrival of the police, hurtling along the road and stopping just short of the stand-off, before jumping down and making an arrest. The Ministry of Agriculture had reluctantly agreed to let us shoot outside its building, but it needed to happen on a Friday when they were closed for business.

  It was the middle of summer; we were already sizzling when we turned up to the location at 7am. By 9am you could see waves of heat rising from the road. Our team wasn’t happy with having to work on what should have been their one day off, but they toiled like troupers to cover the ridiculous number of shots we had scheduled for that day.

  The police, predictably, turned up late with a communal attitude worthy of a diva. They sniffed and scowled and sneered in Dari about the plausibility of the scenario; we had to undertake some serious bum-licking to get into their good books. By the time we got around to shooting their cameo—the last scene of the day—I was ready to shank the lot of them. Still, we all smiled and bowed as we gave them a detailed briefing on what we wanted, making sure to thank the commander for the zillionth time for being so very obliging.

  The sun was getting low and we had no time to rehearse, and I admit to being a tad nervous as the police jeep made its way to its first position. Our initial set-up was a wide shot, taking in the entire showdown; on the call of ‘Action!’, the villain raised his hands in surrender as the car rounded the corner and roared down the street. It screeched to a halt within metres of our cast and you could actually hear Lynchy scream ‘Fuck!’ on the footage. Our prima donna police then dismounted like professionals and lined up before the bad guy, their guns raised. It was fortunate for us that they did so because it was the only shot we got of them.

  Feeling cocky after his thrilling performance, the driver of the jeep took it upon himself to speed down to the end of the street; as he went to make a U-turn there, he sent the cast and crew scattering in all directions. Our armourer on the set, a British police trainer, immediately approached the car, banged on its bonnet and gave the driver an expletive-riddled serve about his reckless actions. The commander was utterly outraged by our armourer’s impertinence, and all the bum-licking in the world couldn’t save us. Within minutes, they were all back in the jeep and disappearing into the distance.

  We had some officers providing security that day and we quickly shuffled them into the scene to get what close shots we could. As we were shooting the last of it, Ahmad hurried towards us, a jibbering jabbering mess. He had just taken a call from the Minister of Agriculture. It seems that we had shamed the police, and a representative from the ministry would be arriving on set within the next ten minutes to delete everything we had shot that day. I immediately called ‘Wrap!’ and Muffy and I screamed at everyone to grab the gear and get into the vans.

  The bump-out was a shambles, with cameras and sound gear all slung willy-nilly into our idling vans, people piled in on top of one another and those who couldn’t fit simply clinging onto the sides of the vehicles as we sped away. We ended the day with a smashed monitor and a missing mike, but it was worth it to keep our hard-earned footage.

  The drama wasn’t only confined to the set; back at the office, Muffy was also engaged in daily battles. Despite the fact that she had budgeted the entire show with complete accuracy, the finance department (a mix of expats and Afghans) was all over us—they studiously pored over every receipt, hoping to unveil some outrageous discrepancy to proudly report back to the mother ship.

  One day Muffy was hauled in by our Afghan manager and accused of including her personal receipts in the mix. The anomaly in question concerned money spent on a can of shaving cream and a packet of cigarettes. Through gritted teeth, she calmly explained that they were props used in episode three and that, on her handsome wage, she had no need to buy her toiletries and fags on the company dime. Besides, she waxed.

  Another time, when she sent our kids to collect water for the day, they arrived back with twelve bottle
s, informing her that the head cleaner (who was apparently also responsible for beverage distribution) refused to hand over the fifty bottles she had quite rightly requested for a full-day shooting in the fierce summer sun. She stormed off to the supply room, brushing past the king of the cleaners on her way in and, without even consulting the man, lugged out the extra stock herself. Over beers that night she marvelled at how she was able to take a half-dozen unloaded AK-47s to the set as props, no sweat, but that adequate water supplies were a genuine concern.

  Afternoon snacks and cans of Red Bull, despite being budgeted for, became another whopping bone of contention. The studio crews didn’t require them, so why did we? Muffy’s argument—that the studio crews spent their days in air-conditioned comfort, typically propped up against the walls, while our crew lugged their gear around the streets of Kabul from morning to night—made little headway. No, it was clear that we were having a ‘party’ and the company would no longer be paying for our festivities. I received news of this as we were shooting in the rain on Russian Swimming Pool Hill (home to a disused, thirty-year-old Olympic-sized pool built by the Soviets) and immediately shot a text to our manager:

  I am currently standing ankle deep in stinking mud on the side of a mountain and am soaking wet from being rained on for the past three hours. Come up here and see what kind of ‘party’ we’re having!!!!!!!! You’re always welcome. Trudi.

  We ended up paying for the ‘party favours’ ourselves; it wasn’t worth the hassle and the scandal became insignificant once Ramadan hit us, because from sunrise to sunset our Muslim crew couldn’t eat, drink or smoke. Out of respect for our team and because we were constantly out in public, we all refrained from indulging or found a hiding place where we could sneak a cigarette or sip on some water. Most Afghans work shorter hours during the month-long fast, but our rigid production schedule didn’t allow us that luxury. Instead, we simply adjusted our times—beginning our day at 6am and winding up at 2pm. Our darling crew never complained, but there were tension-filled days when I prayed we’d wrap before they finally unravelled.

  One of our final episodes featured a street kid who was unwittingly used to deposit a bomb outside the gates of the Ministry of Defence. He ended up on the run from both the police and the insurgents, and returned to his hidey-hole to wait it out. We found the perfect hidey-hole early into pre-production—it was an old, Russian army tank, parked in a deserted lot at the end of our street. There was a bit of rubbish strewn around it, but nothing that we couldn’t easily clear. So, with that location sorted, we shunted it from our minds and didn’t bother to inspect it again before the shoot.

  We turned up on the day to discover that the entire area had been converted into a communal garbage dump; even at 7am the fetid stench was already overwhelming. The tank had not been spared and, together with a mound of refuse, it was also home to a nest of angry wasps. We couldn’t relocate, we just didn’t have the time, so I dashed off to the supermarket to buy insect spray, garbage bags, rubber gloves and face masks.

  Damien took on the wasps, bravely drenching the tank’s bowels with insecticide before he fled the scene. We all screamed and ran for cover as the peeved insects vacated their premises. After a suitable wait, we began clearing the tank. I swear there were things moving in there; I had visions of huge rats leaping out and latching onto my filthy face. There was obstinate, gooey stuff growing on the floor that we just couldn’t remove, so I raced off again, this time to retrieve a blanket from our guest house to cover the putrid muck.

  The location backed onto a busy road, close to an even busier intersection. Our traffic cop that day was of the dozy variety and, despite working out hand signals with him and practising them until I was sleeping with my eyes open, he continually let cars through in the middle of takes. I spent my day dashing up and down the road, trying to hold back the traffic myself.

  At 3pm we were still shooting; we were already an hour over and still had one more to go. All of us were dirty, hot and dispirited, compulsively smacking our dry chops like frenzied Labradors. As I squatted on the ground, waiting for the cameras to reset, raised voices roused me from my languid funk. There was some kerfuffle between our cameraman and sound guy—Mustafa and Massood were always at each other—and for a red-hot second I considered just letting it go. But when I saw fists flying around, I thought better of it.

  It took four of us to break up the fight, and a lot of agitated to-ing and fro-ing to discover the cause of the fuss. It seemed that Massood had hit the wall, and had slipped behind a van to rinse his raging Ramadan mouth with water. Mustafa had caught him. Despite his protestations that he hadn’t actually swallowed, Massood then copped a couple of punches to the head for being the worst kind of Muslim.

  On that September day, the two IT experts from Dubai had been fiddling with the editing machine for the entire afternoon and were grateful for our invitation to join us for a bevvy at our local after work. They finally arrived at the bar at 7pm and reluctantly informed Muffy, Lynchy, Damien and me that they still hadn’t figured out the problem but were certain that they’d get to the bottom of it the following day. Our various responses included shoulder shrugs, assurances that they shouldn’t worry, and a call from Lynchy for another round of drinks. They were truly confounded by our obvious composure. Hey, we all knew it was a huge issue—just one more hump on an endless, bumpy road—but if we’d allowed ourselves to be shaken by every production pothole on Eagle Four, we’d have all been committed long ago.

  In the time I lived in Afghanistan, I became accustomed to saying goodbye. People constantly floated in and out of the Ka-bubble and friendships, often transient and brief, were endowed with an intensity that belied the brevity of the relationship. Some farewells were splendid, protracted affairs spanning a month full of dinners and drinks—an excess of constant, if perhaps slightly desperate, catch-ups. Other people disappeared in the time it took to catch your breath . . . But my dear friend Dick Willy’s leaving was the most inglorious departure I was a party to.

  Dick made his debut on the Kabul scene when he opened a bar called Rahimi’s in my neighbourhood. Bars in Kabul are in short supply and are under constant threat of closure. It could be a vengeful government crackdown, in retaliation for some perceived western slight, or a bid to placate the religious Right. Or a surprise raid by the local police because the owner refused to up the baksheesh. So if a new establishment opened, it was always worth a look-in.

  My first excursion to Rahimi’s was a memorable event. I had wandered down there in March with Muffy and Lynchy, and two more mates fresh off the boat—Rick, an Australian producer and friend of mine, and Giusi, an Italian producer. They had both recently joined Moby to revamp The Morning Show. We headed to the bar to sample the deep-fried chicken we had heard so much about.

  Dick greeted us at the door, and was expansive and loud and welcoming; the stub of a cigar was clenched firmly between his teeth. We placed our orders and were ushered to the bar, where Dick fetched us drinks. Then, in his earthy Texan drawl, he ran through the outstanding features of his fine establishment, proclaiming with open arms: ‘We have the best drinks and the best food in town.’ He handed us all business cards, before excusing himself and heading towards the kitchen.

  We settled for a minute, taking in the place . . . when a thunderous explosion rocked the room. I instantly raced to the other side of the bar, certain I’d be seeing bearded men brandishing AK-47s storming the joint at any moment. Muffy, Rick and Giusi remained frozen on the spot, while Lynchy, inexplicably, raced towards the direction of the noise. You could tell by our various responses which of us had been in the country the longest.

  Dick hurried in a heartbeat later, assuring us that it was all okay. The pressure cooker had exploded in the kitchen. Everyone was fine, but there would be no dinner service that night. Sorry. He held up a twisted metal bracket to reinforce his claim. We sucked back our drinks and said our goodbyes, promising to return the following evening.


  We didn’t go back for a good two months. Kitchen mishap or not, the explosion had cast an ominous pall over dining at Dick’s place.

  We finally ventured back midway through summer. Some of our good mates had started frequenting Rahimi’s and had christened it their new local, abandoning the bar I once managed just up the road.

  The Den had been taken over by Gary, a private security contractor who had some very punchy, surly friends regularly propping up the bar; it no longer had that friendly, easy-going ambience we had initially fallen for. So Rahimi’s soon became our haunt and most evenings, after shooting on the hot, dusty streets of Kabul all day, we’d stagger in there to hang with our buddies and unwind.

  Business seemed to be going very well and Dicky was the queen of the castle. He had endeared himself to his patrons by being open pretty much all the time. Living out the back, and with most of his local staff living upstairs, Dick would answer his phone at any time of the night or day and let you in. He never seemed to sleep, with the exception of passing out behind the bar for a quick kip during full service, and you sensed that your 6am intrusion was almost a relief.

  It quickly became apparent that Dick was quite a complex character. For starters, he was a gay Republican. Go figure. And his time in Afghanistan had left him undeniably damaged. He had been run out of Kandahar with a price on his head during his stint in defence communications, and had survived the suicide attack on the Safi Landmark Hotel just a month before opening the bar. His retelling of this event was disturbingly surreal . . . Asleep in his room when the five bombers detonated, he made his way to the roof, smoked a cigar, and marvelled at the rainbow array of birds escaping from the damaged aviary next door, as the bloody drama unfolded below. I got the feeling that reigning over a bar full of booze wasn’t exactly aiding his recovery.