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Journey to Afghanistan

DOWNTOWN MAZAR-I-SHARIF- Chapter 8, Page 20

It is a place of contrasts. The Blue Mosque is a brilliant jewel on a large area of land in the middle of Mazar-i-Sharif. Its two blue domes glisten in the sunlight and minarets reach towards heaven. Crowds of the Muslim faithful come and go; groups of women, faces covered, in flowing burqas, and robed men, turbaned or with small close fitting prayer hats. Flocks of hundreds of white doves alternately rise and settle among the trees and bushes that dot the lawns between paths surrounding the mosque. Five times a day loud speakers broadcast calls to prayer. It is obviously a place of much importance and is very well kept.

The streets reaching out from this center are lined with two and three story buildings containing small shops and businesses. Interestingly there are no large stores but shops dealing with similar wares tend to be grouped together. Pharmacies were mostly down a street adjacent to the Public Health Hospital. Clothing stores seemed to be in another area and rug shops in yet another. Many vendors had carts along the street selling vegetables or fruit. Some sold used car parts or other wares from tarps or bare ground near the street. One area was set aside for trading currency. Our Afghan friends did help greatly in exchanging dollars for Afghanis, the nations currency and tried to get us the best bargains.

Crowds were often dense, leaving little room to move. In maneuvering our way through these areas it wasn't difficult to recall that we'd been told of the twenty-five thousand dollar rewards posted around the city by Al Qaeda for each westerner who was killed. Among ourselves we jokingly were happy that eighty percent of Afghans are illiterate.

Vendors of all sorts as well as beggars with extensive deformities and amputations were constantly asking for attention. Many men carried guns and grenade launchers. On the streets the flow of traffic seemed totally disorganized with burrows, camels, sheep and goats mixed in with the carts, trucks, ancient buses and disintegrating little yellow taxis. Loads of brush for fuel and bags of grain for the hungry populace were common. At a few major intersections policemen who stood on small platforms waved and whistled without apparent effect. It was amazing how few accidents seemed to happen.

Crossing streets was at some personal peril, not only because of the chaotic traffic but because the median dividing the lanes also served as the public restroom. We had to watch where we stepped. It was common to see someone squatting there concealed only by long clothing.

Most shops were manned by one to three people and were small in space. "Manned" is certainly the correct word. Not a single lady shopkeeper was evident to my eye in all of Mazar-i-Sharif. On my first trip I did buy items to take back to family and friends such as hats and burqas. The rugs especially were outstanding, not only in quality but in price. I was told that a medium size rug with gorgeous patterns and colors might have taken a single person working regularly as long as a year to weave. Such a rug, measuring eight or ten feet to a side, sold for abut three hundred dollars during that winter and was a bit more expensive on my return six weeks later. Reimbursement to the weavers must have been even less than the dollar a day commonly paid by various Non Government Organizations for menial work.

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