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November 17 Kabul DiariesA short walk in Kabul
 It was a lovely day - we still have 17C in mid-November and not a cloud in the sky.
After breakfast at one friend's place I met another near ISAF headquarters and we made our way to the Serena Hotel from where we took a two-hour walk through town.
I always find it exhilerating to dive into the bazaar crowds near the Kabul river - or whatever is left of it - of the river that is.. After walking along the right bank for some 500 metres we crossed over to the other side via a small bridge. This once beautiful river through the centre of Kabul has truned into a rubbishdump. Still one can observe people take water from it and washing their clothes while only few meters up river on can observe a man reliefing his bladder. This river tells the same storry of destruction and neglect like most of Kabul.
Still - like everywhere in Kabul - when one looks close history and beauty glimpses through. LIke for example the Mosque Shah-e-Dushamshera. Over one hundred years old the foundations go back to early Islam, dating back some 1350 years. Someone is feeding pigeans outside the mosques and they settle on the street and on the roof by the hundreds. Next to the Mosques is a shrine dedicated to Shah-e-Dushamshara. Here they worship saints. A tell-tale sign that radical Islam is an import-item of recent history only. Sufism and such more spiritul practises are the traditions in Afghanistan - everything else is super-imposed.
On our way back on the other bank of the river we passed by a stand that sold sugar cane juice. I hadn't had sugar cane for a long while so I convinced my friend to have a glass - and we even got away without stomach upset.
As we turned the corner towards the Kabul Municipality we just kept on walking - turned right at the Shar-e-Now bus terminal to Chickenstreet. Then my friend noticed that she had left her phone in the car making it impossible for us to call a car so we decided to walk on - by Gandamak Lodge to Wazir Akbar Khan to my firend's house. Amazing! All in two hours !
Only when I took off my dust-covered shoes in my friend's house did I notive that I was tired.
But it had been worth it - Kabul close-up. Something most foreigners here - especially those charged with deciding over the country's future - are not allowed to do. In my view a terrible misfit. |
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