Dry Mouth

Sep 06

Afreet - My Land is Breaking -

This is the sound of Afghanistan’s heart breaking. Afreet are Yousef Shah and Sulleiman Omar. Formerly of District Unknown and buddies of mine when we all shared stages during years in Kabul, they are now making music as a two piece. This latest lament for their breaking homeland has an extremely graphic video, but I urge you not to look away. What’s happening now in #Afghanistan is gut-wrenching, but the international community has a duty to help refugees escape and settled in safety.

Aug 27

Sound Central's: HELP SAVE AFGHAN MUSICIANS -

Through this campaign, Sound Central, White City and all associated will work over the next months and years to get Afghan musicians and all who helped them to safety. Donate, share, send to your MP.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-27/afghanistan-musicians-fear-taliban-return-seek-help/100408746
I and my band, performing in Kabul in 2013, shouldn’t be the face of this article. But every Afghan face that’s shown could be targeted by the...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-27/afghanistan-musicians-fear-taliban-return-seek-help/100408746

I and my band, performing in Kabul in 2013, shouldn’t be the face of this article. But every Afghan face that’s shown could be targeted by the Taliban. And, you know, that’s how the western media works.

Today I had to blur the faces of the girls who watched my band White City play at the Sound Central festival in 2013. I was angry before at the dishonourable withdrawal of western forces from Afghanistan and the chaos and bloodshed it’s caused. This...

Today I had to blur the faces of the girls who watched my band White City play at the Sound Central festival in 2013. I was angry before at the dishonourable withdrawal of western forces from Afghanistan and the chaos and bloodshed it’s caused. This took me to a longer, slower-burning anger. Every Afghan who played with me on that stage, every Afghan journalist who took photos, every Afghan in the audience is now under threat. I’m helping on a campaign to get out those musicians and artists who worked on the Sound Central Festival and will share in a further post. It may take months or years to get them out. That’s what I’ll use this anger for.

Feb 29

drymouth:
“ V22 Ospreys are very cool-looking aircraft that can takeoff and land vertically. Used mainly by US Marines, they were my way in and out of Lashkar Gah PRT. We didn’t get on. But I hold my hands up and admit this was completely down to me...

drymouth:

V22 Ospreys are very cool-looking aircraft that can takeoff and land vertically. Used mainly by US Marines, they were my way in and out of Lashkar Gah PRT. We didn’t get on. But I hold my hands up and admit this was completely down to me and a series of rookie errors I hope readers will learn from.

Firstly, on my way to board the Osprey going to Patrol Base Jaker in Nawa district, I made the mistake of not writing the abbreviation of my destination on my hand, which would have been JKR. In my defence, I only knew I was going to Nawa, not which base. As it was, when I bellowed for the third time to the flight engineer that I was going to ‘Nawa’, he told me they weren’t going there and sent me away.

Thankfully, a more clued-up passenger corrected the error before they took off and I was called back. Wanting to avoid being the cause of staying on the ground too long, I quickly skidded around and headed back. Well, my head did. The rucksack on my back swivelled round my body putting my feet at right-angles with each other and with the grace of a newly born gazelle (that is, none) I collapsed to the ground. Picking myself up before the laughing Brit soldiers could reach me, I shamefully clambered on board with the engineer’s eyes boring into me with that unmistakable insult: ‘civvie’.

Then, I had to have instruction on how to put my seat belt on, and it was only the quick thinking of the same flight engineer that stopped my bag joyfully leaping to its death out of the open back door.

But my trial-by-Osprey was not over. I was congratulating myself for managing to blag aboard a late night flight back to Lash, which saw me, two Brit soldiers, a handful of Marines, a dozen ANP recruits and the same passenger on the way out, waiting in a deeply furrowed and weedy field in the pitch black.

The distinctive sound of the Ospreys was apparent long before they were. As they came into visual, so did the huge dust cloud they kick up. Resolving not to act like a complete noob, I bent over and away and covered my eyes. Shame, as if I’d snuck a look at the others, I’d have seen they were crouched as close to the ground as possible. I was picked up like a ragdoll, complete with my 15kg rucksack and deposited on the ground, some metres away.

Initially confused, I spent a few seconds wriggling around like a tortoise on the ground before contorting out of my rucksack and standing up. With a mouth full of dust and teeth filled with grit, I picked up my bags and mumbled affirmations of my not being hurt to the laughing audience. Muttering to myself we headed over the field to the first Osprey.

Picking through the dense foliage and dramatic ridges and ruts, I went slowly, lagging behind but not falling over. I then, very unelegantly, clambered onto the Osprey. 'Ha’, I thought, 'didn’t fall down that time’. We were on the wrong plane. Jumping/stumbling off, we had to make our way 25m to the sister aircraft.

Just as I thought I’d got a handle on all this walking over rough terrain, top-heavy with two bags in the pitch black, I stepped over a ridge into nothingness. The bloke behind me said it was like I’d completely disappeared. I then had to climb out of the hole, locate bags and scrambled to the plane before they all got sick of me and decided to leave me behind.

Once again, I was hauled onto the Osprey, the polar opposite of elegance or professionalism.

The flight was only ten minutes, but on landing I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I couldn’t fall over again. Ha. I managed to two more times: once on the metal runners used to load cargo, skidding to my knees. And once down the slippery ramp to the ground.

As we signed into the PRT, my fellow passenger looked me up and down, my face a canvas of brown dust and grass stains, with white circles around my eyes and mouth. 'You spend more time on your back, than your feet’.

Just goes to show that even after a year in Afghanistan you can a) still learn a lot and b) still make an utter prat of yourself.  

Feb 13

Did I ever tell you about…doing the Kabul booze run?

One of the legacies of ISAF Commander General McChrystal (who will forever be remembered for ending his tenure disgraced by a Rolling Stone article and sent back home) was that he banned all alcohol on ISAF HQ. While the US troops were indeed prohibited from alcohol (and sex) by the famous “General Order Number One”, most of their NATO and coalition allies were not. Instead they kept to the “2 can rule”, by which any soldier was limited by the number of drinks he or she could have during the night (a rule that was admittedly abused most of the time). But General McChrystal’s authority only reach as far as US troops and bases in this case. He could not touch the French or German bases up north in Mazar-e-Sharif, east of Kabul in Surobi or the whacking great big massive German/French Camp “Warehouse”.

So, when me and my bandmates decide to throw a big party before we set off on our Big In The Stans tour, the onus is on me - the only one with an ISAF ID - to acquire the large amount of booze needed.

The trick was this: while you could freely buy crates of booze on Warehouse, you were not permitted to take it outside. However, they only randomly checked one in three cars. It was going to be a gamble.

Having road raged my way through the always jammed (and often bombed) Jalalabad road, I have no problem entering the base with my ID. With wads of greasy cash I’ve collected from the boys, I load up the boot with three crates of beer and ten bottles of wine, wrapping them in Afghan scarves to prevent them clinking. Then I put some flattened cardboard boxes on top of them. Now to run the gauntlet. The first checkpoint I’m waved through, but at the final gate before the exit, a French soldier flags me down. I pull over and wind down the window.

“Bonjour! What can I do for you today?”

“You drive this car?” he asks, despite having seen me drive right up to him.

“Yes, it’s a bit of a beast, but it serves.”

“As a woman, do you get any problems?” Ah, it was going to be that conversation.

“Only if they see me. Then it’s a bit like if you see a dog driving.”

A laugh. A good sign.

“Really? Like how?”

“Oh, people stop their cars dead in the road to stare. Or they drive level with me towards incoming traffic and film me on their phones.”

“No way! Hey, can you get out of the car for a minute?”

Fuck. Fuckity fuck. A vision of the Military Police turning up flashes across my mind. My ISAF badge revoked, security clearance gone, deported out of the country without even saying goodbye to our kitten, Murphy. I do what I’m told and get out of the car, heart racing.

“Can we take a photo of you, crazy girl?”

Huge, wonderful, bowel-loosening relief. I grimace a smile and take the much lesser punishment of being on some random Frenchman’s social media feed and drive off into the capital with a car clacking with bottles.

Feb 02

Me on Kandahar flight line with some badass Ukrainians and possibly a Czech (centre - correct me if I’m wrong) in front of a MI-17 transport helicopter (aka Tractor) circa 2012.
Did I ever tell you about…UK Independence Day? While grimacing through...

Me on Kandahar flight line with some badass Ukrainians and possibly a Czech (centre - correct me if I’m wrong) in front of a MI-17 transport helicopter (aka Tractor) circa 2012.

Did I ever tell you about…UK Independence Day?

While grimacing through all the declarations of “UK Independence” on Brexit Day, I am reminded of a conversation I had on Kandahar flight line during one of the numerous hours I spent waiting for a plane. By 2009, NATO had 67000 forces in the country, including US forces. These were known as the International Security Assistance force or ISAF. They worked together with a separate number of US troops, who were part of the parallel US mission “Operation Enduring Freedom”. Some soldiers I met didn’t know which operation they belonged to.

On this particular day of eating dust and re-reading the shitty Dan Brown novel that always turns up on military base welfare centres, a young airwomen pointed at a patch on my rucksack and said, “I know what USAF (United States Air Force) is, but what’s ISAF ?”. I explained, but she looked dubious. Clearly hoping to end the conversation, and as it was the the 4th July, she wished me a happy independence day and turned away.

Instead of taking the cue, I blustered, “Oh, I’m British, we don’t celebrate July 4th. Sorry about that.” After a short pause, she politely asked me when the UK’s independence day was. It was a time the Americans were really desperate for troops

Jan 28

Did I ever tell you about…GETTING LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS?

Bamyan is arguably the most beautiful province of Afghanistan. Host to the country’s national park and once the site of three towering Buddha statues, which the Taliban spitefully blew into tiny pieces early in 2001.

Its beautifully rolling hills and mountains could easily be a hiker’s paradise and the local Hazara people are generally friendly and easygoing. They famously had Afghanistan’s only female provincial governor for the longest time.

So, when I heard that a charity called “Alpistan” run by a chap called Ferdinando Rollando* (his real name) was teaching kids to ski out there and trying to attract tourists to the region for wintertime holidays, I had to check it out for a feature video.

I’ve never skiied before, I’ve hardly ever seen snow, having grown up in London, so it was with a naive air of mock professionalism that I assured Ferdinando and his companion - a Canadian lady, no doubt born on skis - that I would be absolutely fine walking alongside them with all my camera equipment and tripod, while they skied cross-country a few kilometres to reach the nearest skiable slope. I mean, I know that cross-country skiing is slow, right? And snow is a nice solid surface…

…thank goodness for village boys that follow you everywhere you go. In moving from a wide shot on a rock to a close up, I stepped on a nice, white flat surface and plunged up to my shoulders in snow down a hole, managing to hold my camera above my head. The cackling boys pulled me out and we continued to trudge after the annoyingly fast skiers up ahead.

When they finally got to the slope, it was another long wait before they zigzagged up to the top. By the time they started to ski down, a little crowd of local people had come to laugh and point - both at the skiers and the tall, damp girl wiht the camera. For a moment, the spotlight was off me and I managed to film a nice shot of the Canadian lady falling over, getting back up and the two skiing elegantly off into the distance in search of another slope. The local people followed after the spectacle. “Nice ending shot,” I pondered for a while before realising I was suddenly completely alone. The skiers had forgotten about me and I was left on a mountain, in the snow, kilometres away from Bamyan City without a clue how to get back.

One thing I’ve learned in Afghanistan - a) your novelty factor can be a big plus and b) you are NEVER alone. I packed up my gear and hiked in the direction I’d seen the local people coming from. Within 30 minutes I’d found a little village. With my shitty Dari and some sign language and after giving me some hot milk, they appointed me a guide, who walked me all the way back to the city. He even good-naturedly let me appoint him my cameraman, after some quick training and filmed me doing a quick piece to camera in a ravine. God knows what I would have done without him. Bamyan is notoriously difficult to get to because it’s surrounded by Taliban, who mainly pick on Hazara travelling in and out of the province. But once you’re in, it’s the friendliest place imaginable.

*Ferdinando went missing on Mont Blanc in 2014 with a young friend. His crazy energy and passion for everything mountainous continues with Alpistan, which is now run by his son.

Jan 23

Did I ever tell you about…DILDO DISPOSAL?

Adapted from my Afghanistan diaries, here’s a little anecdote told to me by a colleague, while I was living in Kabul and debating how to ship my stuff back to the UK.

It’s not uncommon for people to leave Afghanistan suddenly and without knowing if they’re coming back. Contracts may end and then not be renewed, people may suddenly get ill or a company may decide to remove their workers after a security incident without a fixed date of return. This leads quite often to friends clearing out their stuff for them when they finally hear the news they won’t return. In one case, a male colleague and another male friend had been called by a female friend to her former house. Everything from the house was being cleared out and rehomed by the Afghan staff, but before they got started she begged the two men to dispose of one particular bag that it wouldn’t be appropriate for her staff to handle. The two guys obediently rocked up to the house and followed her instructions to her bedroom to find a plastic bag containing a decent collection of silicone vibrators of all shapes, sizes and colours. However, they’d been left in the hot sun and had melted together to form a kind of obscene Frankenstein’s monster of a sex toy. Not the sort of thing you want your cleaning lady to find! They bundled up the bag and threw it into the back of the car, deciding to drive to the pub and dispose of it on the way. As a thank you, they were also allowed to take a bottle of whisky (street value at least $80), which they also threw into the bag on top of the melted dick sculpture. All was as normal on your typical Thursday night in Kabul when they were stopped at an Afghan police checkpoint. Luckily one of the guys knew the police chief quite well, as he lived locally to the station. Unluckily the police chief knew the guy and knew he liked a drink.

“Hello Mister! Thursday night with a new friend?” asked the policeman. There’s an urban myth in Kabul that Thursday nights before the only day off of the week are called “man-love Thursdays” and he raised his eyebrows towards my slight and boyish-looking friend.  His attention was then caught by the bag on the back seat. He opened the door and laughed.

“What’s in the bag?” He waved a finger back and forth in a mock-scolding motion.  To the horror of the two guys, the policeman thrust his hand into the bag. For one moment, the vision of the police chief drawing out a welded-together bouquet of dicks flashed across their minds. “Luckily”, he whipped out the bottle of whisky. Now, he was well within his rights to arrest them both on the spot. Apart from in a very highly regulated[1] hotels and bars catering for foreigners, alcohol is strictly illegal in Afghanistan. However, maybe because he had a wedding or a celebration coming up or maybe he just fancied a nice drink before bed, or maybe because he was a nice guy, the police chief merely chuckled, kept the bottle and waved them on. Thanking the stars for their lucky escape, the guys made sure to chuck the offending vag-ticklers on the next rubbish tip and let the local rubbish collectors sort it out.

[1] By which I mean “free with bribes”

Jan 21

Did I ever tell you about….THE GETAWAY

drymouth:

Now I’ve left Afghanistan, I’m going through my journals and remembering certain events I didn’t discuss at the time, because I thought they were too close to the bone, damaging to those around me or, maybe, I was just too busy getting on with day to day stuff to write them up. Anyway, now I have a moment to pause, I’d like to share some of them. The following is all true. 

THE GETAWAY

The area of Taimani, a district of Kabul popular with ex-pats, who couldn’t afford/didn’t want to live in heavy fortified and guarded compounds. Here, we lived mostly without problems side-by-side with our Afghan neighbours, who didn’t complain too much when we had loud parties and cheerfully shouted good morning, as we stumbled with hangovers to our local greasy spoon (which catered almost exclusively to hungover ex-pats). 

But during 2013, Taimani was shaken by a number of kidnappings and burglaries, where ex-pat households were specifically targeted. Although Kabul may strike most of the world as a dangerous place, the ultra-conservative version of Islam practiced here meant, at least, that muggings, robberies and burglaries were virtually unheard of. The Afghan home is sacred and to violate its walls without invitation is probably the greatest affront to their values. Just think of the stink regularly kicked up about night raids. 

Therefore, the news that foreigners were being attacked in their homes, often with horrible stories of torture or rape thrown in had got people very afraid. A friend of mine, learning that I was living alone with no guard, my flat-mates being on an extended holiday, came round one day and offered me a temporary loan of a gun. 

Now, although one is surrounded by guns in Afghanistan, it doesn’t mean that they’re perfectly legal. Actually, it is legal for each household to have a shotgun, which is available on the black market for around $100. Shotguns are classed as “non-lethal weapons”. Make of that what you will. However, this weapon was not a shotgun. It was a 9mm Taurus handgun - a PT609 Pro, to be precise. Small, girl-sized, but with enough punch and accuracy to discourage any intruder. I accepted the loan, but there was one problem - I’d never shot a gun in my life. 

My benefactor came up with an idea. Instead of finding a range that would take me, a civilian and not in possession of any Afghan, American or international paperwork that would permit me to have such a weapon, we would drive out to a deserted piece of land and practice firing the gun. 

So, one Friday afternoon, he drove round with his motorbike and I packed my Taurus, his Norinco, some bottles of water and a roll of cash in a backpack and hopped on the back. 

We drove outside of Kabul city and on the new road to Bagram air field. The road is surprisingly well-kempt and, on a Friday, which is traditionally a day for prayers and family, pretty empty. We drive until we find a piece of wasteland, all rocks and dust with absolutely no-one around. The occasional truck sweeps by. 

We turn off the main road and drive around 100 yards into the wasteland. Parking the bike, we start piling up rocks as a target and loading our weapons. Standing at a distance of around 50 yards, we spend an enjoyable 20 to 30 minutes blowing the said rocks to pieces, pausing only to crouch down and reload. Being that this is my first time firing a gun, there are a lot of tips and notes to take on board, so it’s not surprising that we’re both so engrossed (and half-deafened by repeated gunshot) that we don’t notice the three Afghan policemen hiking over towards us. 

We’re reloading for the fourth or fifth time, when my companion looks up and recognises the distinct grey uniforms of the Afghan National Police. “Oops, the police. We’d better stop.” Eager to be good citizens, we head back to the bike, climb aboard and slowly trundle to the main road to explain ourselves. 

On reflection this was a bad idea. To their eyes, here were two foreigners - one bearded and unkempt and one, seemingly a woman, but dressed in combats, shirt and a beanie - shooting high-powered handguns without any regard for or prior notification of local police. In Afghanistan, foreigners are generally bad news. Foreigners out of uniform with weapons are probably terrorists. 

As we draw level with the road, we hear a shot. For a moment, we pause, one tyre on the road, one still on the dirt. Then it sinks in. The police have levelled their AK-47s at us and are about to open fire. “Shit!” says my companion, “Fucking go!”, say I. He kicks the bike into gear and hauls it away from the direction of the police. They, in turn, let loose. I hear crack after crack, some with the unmistakeable mosquito-whine of incoming fire that’s really too close for comfort. 

All I can think is, “I’m on the back. It’s me, who’s going to get shot”. I try and make myself as small as possible, hugging into my companion. I really hope the ANP are as bad a shot as I’ve heard. We roar up the Bagram road, easily reaching 100km/h. The shots die off. I muster enough courage to look back and see they’re not following in a vehicle.

A short pause of relief before I think the next terrifying thought. The road to Bagram - the most populous and notorious centre of American activity in Afghanistan - is highly protected. This means that there’s more than likely to be a police checkpoint up ahead and all it will take is for the guys behind us to phone up their mates and tell them to be on the lookout for a couple of foreigners on a unhelpfully distinct white Honda. 

I shout this in the ear of my companion. He goes silent a while before taking a wrenching turn left, off the road and careering across bumpy wasteland yet again, only at a much higher speed this time. I hold on for dear life. After ten or so minutes, he explains, shouting through a mouth full of dust, that there’s an old road parallel to this one that will eventually take us in a circle back to Kabul. 

The next half an hour is the most anxious of all my time in Afghanistan. I am convinced we’re about to be picked up and locked in Pul-e-Charki prison for all eternity. In an unbelievable example of pathetic fallacy, as I’m having this thought, the heavens open with huge, golfball-sized chunks of hail. Now we’re bruised and wet as well. 

Miraculously, the road is completely empty and, as the gates of Kabul approach, I give myself a little sliver of hope. Mistake number two. 

Going through the gates of Kabul, there is a police checkpoint. I’m not too worried about these guys, as they probably aren’t aligned with the out-of-Kabul cops from before. However, after an hour of dust, hail and fast getaways, we look highly unusual and are pulled on sight for a shake-down. 

I am suddenly keenly aware of my backpack - full of two unlicensed weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. My companion is doing his best to chat to the police chief and two of his minions, but one young fellow comes around to me and asks, in Dari, for my ID. Due to the dust, my face is covered with a scarf and, with my beanie pulled down, only my eyes are visible. He asks for my ID again and pats my backpack roughly, asking what’s inside. This time he attracts the attention of the police chief, who joins him. Bugger. 

There’s only one way out of this - I’m going to have to dazzle them. I pull down the scarf and whip off the beanie in one swift move, my hair breaking loose onto my shoulders. Smiling my best smile, I turn to the police chief and, in terribly broken and ungrammatical Dari, I say hello sir, how are you sir? I’m from England, this is my husband. We were having a picnic today and now we’re going home. Isn’t the traffic bad today, sir? 

Having gushed all of that out in one big, messy sentence, there is a palpable pause. The police chief looks at me in bafflement… then claps his hands and laughs a big belly laugh. “She speaks Dari! Isn’t she cute!” He thwacks my companion on the back. “You have a very nice wife! But she should wear a headscarf.” With this, he waves us on. It’s a bloody miracle. “Don’t question it,” I tell my companion, “just go.“ 

We go. About 10 feet. Then the engine conks out. To my everlasting astonishment, the very police, who were unknowing inches away from throwing us in jail for the rest of our lives, help us push the bike to the nearest garage and give us a friendly wave goodbye. 

The journey back home is pretty hazy. We were both too tired for words or to really discuss what had happened that day and how close we’d come to death or incarceration. I do remember I went home and made myself a really strong cup of tea that day. 

One more from the archives about when I ran for my life from Kabul’s finest.