Time
Kabul Nightlife, Thriving in Between Bombs: But on most nights, Kabul’s expatriates go out and partake in the manic craziness of the city’s bar and restaurant scene in houses reminiscent of America’s Prohibition-era speakeasies, behind 20-ft.-tall blast walls and an outer perimeter of armed Afghan security guards. “It’s like dancing at the edge of a volcano,” explains Anne Seidel, a German architect working for the U.N. in Kabul. The expatriates are a boisterous crowd of young and usually single diplomats, aid workers, journalists, spies and mercenaries — or, as they like to call themselves, “contractors.” Most of them earn $100,000 salaries and have money to burn. They tend to be adventurous, but the security constraints of their jobs often leave them cloistered in claustrophobic boredom — following suicide attacks, most foreigners are confined to their fort-like compounds.
