Kabul Diary - Of Food and New Construction

Lunch
Mohammad wants to eat at a restaurant that is on the river bank. We stop. It is nice. The owner has built a concrete platform at the edge of the river and laid out carpets to sit and eat. The long platform is divided with plastic curtains to offer privacy to groups. Families here like privacy. We order Kabli palao. It comes with a rice dish with a liberal sprinkling of raisins and a large chunk of meat. And a bowl of meatball in gravy. With cabbage salad and green tea on the side. There is also naan-e-khashq. Its not the kind of naan that you get in Delhi restaurants that claim their culinary legacy to Afghanistan. This is soft and fluffy. Melts in the mouth. I struggle to finish the rice. By the time I eat the naan, Muhammad is through with both naan and rice. He tells me it is not really a large portion for Afghans.

As we pay the bill I see a large banner of Liverpool FC behind the counter. In my excitement to click a picture I forget to ask him why it is there.
 
Sport
Football is a recurring theme. At many places, I see young people kicking around. I could not spot any other game. Some cars sport stickers of European clubs. One telecom company shows football on its billboards. Not stars. Just football.

 
When in doubt, build
Conflict or not, the one industry that is doing well seems to be construction. It is everywhere. On the outskirts, mud houses are being replaced by concrete ones. Apartment complexes are coming up. There are rows and rows of establishments selling construction materials. Heavy iron gates seem to be particularly in demand. Not surprising since a large number of doors opening to the street in the city have enough steel to withstand a bomb attack. Shar-e-now, or New Town, streets are lined with shops selling bathroom fittings to furnishings.

One ranking official tells me that there is lot of money in Kabul. No one really is sure of the sources, though.

Mohammad is constantly on the phone with his girlfriend. He doesn’t refer to her as his girlfriend anymore. He calls her his future wife!

Watching
There are two blimps above Kabul; at least one is visible from anywhere. Between them, they also can see any part of Kabul. They are watchtowers in the sky. Pentagon’s. Fitted with surveillance equipment, the Persistent Threat Detection Systems are awake and watching Kabul 24X7. Still, the US embassy was attacked a few weeks ago. With rockets and bullets. Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated by a turban bomber. Mohammad says that one such blimp in a southern province was shot down by a rocket.