A Kabul Street-Monday

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REPORTING FROM KABUL

It takes longer to get around Kabul today and probably tomorrow and the next day as well.  In the aftermath of Saturday’s car bombing outside ISAF HQ there are more checkpoints around the city.  Many, many more checkpoints.  What was a brief drive in the middle of the day across town has turned into a a maze of left turns and unknown streets and you try to make a straight line out of a zig-zag.  What was once a sparsely manned checkpoint has now blossomed into a mini-police station with police and Afghan Army manning it, stopping cars and looking in trunks.  The likelihood of not making it down the street you want has increased exponentially today and no doubt will continue through election day on Thursday.  But despite all this daily life goes on, while stuck in a line of traffic I noticed a women in a burqa trying to hail a taxi but being unsuccessful.  Several empty taxis passed by but the drivers simply shook their head without slowing down. There were several other women who gathered by the first after a time and in mass they were finally successful in getting a taxi to stop.  The daily challenges continue in this society, more for some than others, despite the heightened security due to one bomb and the possibility of others prior to Thursday when Afghans go to the polls to elect a President as well as Provincial Councils.  The daily trials of a woman in this society won’t change after Thursday and the estimated 60,000 children without parents in Kabul will continue to wonder what tomorrow will bring in society where family connections still mean as much as an education.  Life on a Kabul street, it’s always been there for me to see but I was always traveling to quickly to see it until today.