Take a walk around town

Let’s go for a walk around the neighborhood.
We are in Mazar-e Sharif, the principal city in the north of Afghanistan. It has an estimated population of 400,000, though no one has taken an official count lately.
At its core is the Blue Mosque, an architecturally stunning bit of Muslim history. Surrounding the Blue Mosque is a park.
It looks pretty barren at the moment, but it is winter after all.
There is always dust in Mazar-e Sharif, each day a new coating. You can feel it and taste it, and it might awaken your lungs in the middle of the night.
This morning, there was a cold fog, so that the dust and fog mixed together, like vaporized mud suspended in the air.
But by mid-day the sun is burning through the haze. The mountains to south make an appearance in the distance.
The city is a constant hum of activity, though it’s not always clear what that activity — traffic, honking horns, hundreds of pedestrians — is all about.
It’s at its most intense at street level.
So let’s go for a walk.
Be careful as you step over the open sewer. It’s lined with concrete and is about a foot wide, but it is a sewer, so watch your step.
And watch your step in traffic as well.
Every third car, it seems, is a taxi, with at least a portion of its body painted yellow. And it’s not just taxis you need to dodge. There are motorcycles, motorized rickshaws, and bicycles, along with the usual mix of city traffic.
None of the traffic lights work. None of the stop signs are obeyed.
Crossing the street is a matter of patience, timing, and occasionally raw nerve.
At one corner of the Blue Mosque square, four NATO troops — Germans — are positioned in strategic pairs, keeping a watchful eye on something. Their appearance here is unusual, but the new parliament was seated today, so perhaps that explains it.
And now, you are walking around the square.
There’s not another Westerner in sight. No Americans. No Europeans. And you stick out like a sore thumb.
Suddenly it’s as if you’ve landed in the middle of a bazaar, though your friend tells you that this is a quiet day, not so much activity.
Just the same, it’s a sensory overload. This guy is selling nuts of some sort. The next guy tangerines.
At the curb, a man has set up a shoe repair shop on a blanket, his equipment and materials arrayed around him. Two more steps and you encounter someone selling electrical extension cords and converters of various types.
A vendor with a cart rolls by, selling — of all things — cassette tapes. A boombox on his cart broadcasts music that was popular when the boombox was new.
A constant stream of humanity comes toward you, walking in the opposite direction or following some path or current only they know about. Women in blue burqas. Young wives in white burqas. Women wearing the hijab to keep their hair covered; they’re the most Western you will encounter.
There’s a thump and an Afghan police officer bangs his truncheon on the hood of a taxi. Apparently there’s been a traffic accident, and he’s trying to get the driver’s attention.
To your right, along a wall, a row of old men sit in the sunlight and talk to one another endlessly. You wonder how old they are. In a country where the average male lifespan is something like 47, to live to be an old man is an accomplishment.
You turn a corner and the flood of merchandise continues. This time it’s fabrics, not fine silks and not made in Afghanistan. The cloth is from China, and it is cheap. That’s what sells.
Beyond the fabric shops are dealers in gold and jewelry with semi-precious stones.
Curbside merchants display a mix of junk and treasure, with ancient terra cotta artifacts sharing space with rings that sparkle, their glass pretending to be something more valuable.
At a few doorways, private security guards — local ones — stand watchfully with AK-47s.
A boy tries to sell you a cell phone card, and another begins trailing you, muttering a string of entreaties in hopes that you’ll answer the call of a beggar.
And then a man in a wheelchair is suddenly in your path. He is a veteran of the chaos of civil war that followed the withdrawal of the Soviets. One leg is missing. The other is horribly damaged.
This time, you reach in your pocket and do what you can.
That’s all anyone can ask: Do what you can.[[In-content Ad]]