Club Kabul is the brainchild of an American aid worker and an Afghan entrepreneur–both of whom want to remain anonymous–who believe foreign visitors should also share the country’s post-Taliban freedoms. Judging from the buzz at last week’s opening, they seem to have had the right idea.
It’s not that any of us are unhappy to be here. But there’s no doubt that this is a hostile environment where we’re forced to see the horrors of Afghanistan’s brutal past–and present–on a daily basis. At night, a 10 p.m. curfew confines foreigners to their houses or hotels. By day, our entertainment is usually limited to trips to the local markets, where we attract more attention than the goods for sale.
So we turned out in force, with me volunteering to be the guest bartender for the grand opening. Was I trying to relive my youth as a struggling young journalist who slung drinks on the weekends to pay the rent? Not really. I just wanted to have the best seat in the house. And was the place jumping. Patrons danced to a group of traditional Afghan musicians, who alternated with Western music blaring on a CD player. The crowd spilled out the door, where members could wave across the street to U.S. Marines manning a machine gun nest on the back side of the American Embassy compound. The house drink was the Kabul Sling, a variation of the one that made Singapore famous. The opening night theme could have easily been dedicated to Russia–the bar only had vodka and canned Russian beer, selling for $3 and $10 respectively. “This bar is the best idea ever,” enthused one Western journalist, clutching a double vodka-soda in a plastic cup.
I was kept busy. The patrons were standing three deep around the bar, clutching money in one hand and shouting drink orders through the other. I was draining bottles almost as fast as I could open them. At one point, I found myself simultaneously breaking the news to a U.N. official that we had just run out of beer while explaining to a French combat cameraman why we couldn’t accept euros. We did take dollars, and on some occasions Pakistani rupees or the local Afghani, but euros have no street value here.
As the roof began to rise, I got a little cocky, spinning bottles and pouring multiple drinks with both hands. The patrons countered my show of bravado by asking if I was in that awful Tom Cruise movie, “Cocktail.” (At that point I substituted the orange juice with powdered Tang.)
The sense of camaraderie was a far cry from the U.N. Club, which allows aid workers and diplomats in twice a week, but bans journalists outright. There was no such discrimination at Club Kabul, where a female Chinese journalist stood at the bar next to the ambassador of Italy, who was nursing a 16-ounce beer.
The club is limited to foreigners out of deference to Afghanistan’s religious beliefs. But the country’s interim government is clearly looking the other way concerning the sale of alcohol, which enters the country from places like Uzbekistan and Pakistan, and is widely available to both foreigners and Afghans who have the right contacts.
Nor does anyone seem to know the exact legal position about nightclubs in bars, so Club Kabul decided to test the waters. And it worked–sort of. The day after the opening, an unknown man wearing a military uniform came by and told the managers to shut down after the weekend. It turned out he was just looking for a bribe. Indeed, some U.N. workers refused to come to Friday night’s opening out of fear it was some trick to get them arrested.
Fame does have its price, though. When the owners of the building saw the crowds at the club, they raised their rent and demanded half the bar’s profits. Now the club is looking for a new home, and I have retired from my temporary bartender’s gig. But at least I’ve learned one possible explanation for the U.N.’s refusal to allow journalists into its own club. “There’s basically a fear that what they say will be quoted,” one aid worker told me. (And we thought it was because they were afraid we’d finish up all their booze.) Fortunately, the patrons at Club Kabul weren’t looking over their shoulders–and they certainly didn’t seem to be on guard for hidden journalists’ microphones.
