Air compressors with petrol motors standing on the verge on the sides of the main roads, for pumping up car tyres. Can people make a living from operating these?
Lot of bicycles – hardly any motorbikes.
Toyota Corollas everywhere.
Taxis – yellow with white bonnets, boots and roofs – mostly Corollas.
Men pushing two-wheeled wooden carts – usually empty – with flat trays and two long poles with another pole across the end as a handle. The axle is off an old car, with car wheels on it.
Small fruit stalls on the side of the road. Some small barrows, some big camp-like constructions. Bananas are priced by the banana (about 5 Afs), not by weight.
A boy riding a bicycle with a disembodied cow’s head on the rack at the back. A motorbike with a disembodied cow’s head on the back.
Butcher’s shops or stalls, with whole skinned and gutted sheep and other bits of animal hanging in front. Sometimes there might be a live sheep tied to a pole in front, apparently oblivious to its imminent fate.
Shops mostly clustered in big rows of sometimes dozens – all selling the same things.
Little corner shops and stalls all over the place, selling basic food stuff, sweets, dried fruit, cigarettes etc.
Bread shops – all pretty much the same, sticking out into the street a bit, with a raised floor with the oven (“tandoor”) below it and windows on three sides of the front part. The floor is about waist height to someone standing on the street and there’s always someone sitting inside the window, piling up the bread as it comes out of the oven and selling it. Some of them have bread hanging up outside, or a shelf along the front with bread on it. They sell two or three different shapes of the same flat bread – which is great when it’s hot!
Men in shalwar kameez, with a brown blanket around the upper half of their body, and a pakool or turban on their head. Some men wear small white caps.
Women in light blue, head to ankle burkas. They have a sort of lacy mesh at the eyes. Over the 6 months or so i’ve been here, it’s been really noticeable that more and more women are wearing half-fronted burkas – the backs are long, but the fronts stop at just below waist height. I also see lots more women walking around with their burka thrown back over their heads, wearing it like a sort of cape. I saw an old woman walking along near our office with her burka like that. As she came towards another woman fully covered with a burka, she covered the lower part of her face – as some women do with their headscarves when men are around. I don’t know if she did this out of embarrassment or in case it was someone she knew.
Most women, though, just cover their heads with a large scarf.
Beggars taking advantage of places where traffic has to go slowly – at busy junctions or at one of the many improvised speed bumps that are everywhere in Kabul. Women, always in burkas, sometimes carrying young children. Old men. Men on crutches, sometimes with only one leg. Crippled men sitting in the road.
Young men selling mobile phone credit topup cards – waving clear plastic strips of the cards at passing cars – at all hours of the day and night.
Young boys selling chewing gum or sweets of some sort. They’re very persistent!
“Espandies” – mostly boys – carrying an old tin can with a wire handle, containing some smouldering plant matter (“espan”) billowing clouds of smoke. Inhaling this smoke always makes me feel a bit lightheaded and slightly sick and i always quickly close the window when one of them comes in sight. If they were just asking for money, i’d probably give them some, but there’s no way i’m going to open the window and let their disgusting smoke into the car!
Espan is supposed to have some kind of spiritual significance or health benefit or something – it’s a form of incense. I’ve never managed to find out what the botanical name of the plant is so i can check it out. There was one espandi i used to see quite a lot – a slightly crazy looking man who decorated his tin with plastic flowers, carried a long stick, and wore brightly coloured clothes. I haven’t seen him for ages though.
I always try and carry a wad of 10Af and 20Af notes to give away. But sometimes it’s really difficult to hang onto small money – and then it’s frustrating not having anything to give people. I’m generally careful there aren’t too many beggars around when i give people money, or i get swamped – which is annoying, and i run out of notes to give them.
Driving to work some mornings, the air is really clear and the mountains around the city look beautiful with the bright morning sun shining on them. Other mornings, the air’s already hazy with dust – and sometimes you can hardly see the mountains at all.
Tags: Afghanistan, Travel and Places by will
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