Just took a turn around the Shar-e Naw neighborhood - "new city," roughly - and what a difference seven years makes. Blocks of shiny new development towering over the 'hood. Flower Street seems a shadow of its former self, though most of Chicken Street's tacky touristy shops remain, with their owner/touts working the doorways. The sight of westerners seemed like the promise of an oasis in the Sahara, but alas, we left them high and dry for now.
The house Lucia Huntington and I rented in '05-'06 on Butcher Street is gone, blown out by a block-long compound of something-or-other. But Butcher Street's butcher shops remain. Emily came back with perhaps a few hundred images, mostly of bloody carcasses and the men working them -- photos to come -- and she wants to go back.
Kabul City Centre was just waking up when we rolled through, entering through a new, makeshift-looking security setup that included putdowns and the repeated warning against taking photos inside. Bit touchy, I suppose, since the attack some years ago. Some old photos of the mall, neighborhood and city here, from 2005, '06 and '07 --
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13258518@N04/sets/72157603725547754/
Feet up. More later. Salaam.
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