This is so interesting to say that I have decided to dedicate a post only for my eyebrow adventure.
Last Saturday, my sister and a friend decided to go and get our eyebrows done. My friend was going to London for Xmas so she wanted a change, I guess. Anyhoos, we jumped in the car and off we went. We were passing through ISAF headquarters (the American military base) when we noticed the snow capped mountains. My friend gushed at how pretty it looks and wished she had a camera. So I offered her mine to take photos with. At first, she hesitated because photos were prohibited in the area. But we took a few anyways. A few metres down, the guards stopped our car. Uh-oh…
One of the guards stuck his head in to our window, he asked for our camera and told us that we’ve been ‘filming’, I explained to him we were taking photos. Not sure whether being Afghan or being Australian will help us in this situation. I decided to speak Dari with the guards. I told him we were taking photos of the mountains. That wasn’t good enough. The other guards stood around the camera trying to get it to turn on. They told us to wait and that the khareijee (internationals) were going to come to see us. They were referring to the American soldiers. Boy was I relieved! I’d rather deal with soldiers than the Afghan guards. And so we waited… my friend was scared. My sis and I were alright, we all had a nervous laugh about it, not sure what exactly to expect. My friend told me that one person had been caught and was interrogated for four hours.
I heard the Afghan guards saying to let us go because we were Afghan. But nope, they didn’t! They told the driver to pull in to the compound and wait there. We were asked to get out of the car while they did a quick search. I guess they were looking for bombs! God, what would we (three girls) be capable of doing?!? So we continued to wait.
And it was then, for the first time in Kabul that year, it snowed! Lightly, but it did. What timing! Stopped almost immediately.
And finally, one of the Americans arrived.Fully uniformed and armed, he stood a few metres away, took the camera and went through the photos. He took a quick glance at us and continued to go through the photos. The Afghan guard began asking us where we worked etc, I ignored him. They are such suck ups, besides, it’s none of their business. It’s not in THEIR jurisdiction to question us! I told them in Dari that I’d rather speak with their ‘boss’. I wasn’t in the mood for their showing off. I asked the soldier if I could speak to him directly. And he was nice! I explained to him what was being done and what the photos were of. He knew better, that we weren’t upto any trouble.But he still had to do what he had to do, he told us that the search team will come shortly to search the car.
And so, three girls with bushy eyebrows… in trouble.
A few minutes later, a female soldier and another male soldier carrying boxes, rocked up. They did a search, took our names down (there goes trouble!). The female soldier had a bit of a flu, I could tell she wasn’t into this. So, we finished up and they let us go. God, do we look ANYTHING like terrorists? (APART from our bushy eyebrows, maybe!)
They told us not to do it again, ‘NEVER again’, I told them. Godddddddddddd….. We got in the car and drove away, I waved good bye. And off we went to get our eyebrows done.
My friend told me she wanted to tell them to make it more obvious that they don’t allow pics. But thankfully, she didn’t because there are signs like every 2 metres away in the area and we would have just been yelled at.
Toldja it was interesting, didn’t i? Well for me it was!
