Re-emerging Kabul.

• Author: Warah, Rasna
• Position: Field Watch - Supporting community-based organizations - Related article: Women Involved in Reconstruction

Picture this. You are on a passenger-carrying cargo plane that has just landed on an airstrip on which a government minister was stabbed to death two days before, and the fields surrounding the runway are littered with the shells of fighter planes. Security is tight. Gun-wielding soldiers usher you into a dark hallway with shattered windows and huge holes in the ceiling. There is no immigration officer in sight. A non-official-looking officer walks up to you and asks for your passport, and after handing it over, he tells you that you will get it back when you leave the country. As you approach the luggage area, you realize there is no electricity and therefore no functioning conveyer belt. The luggage is thrown at the passengers through a hole in the wall; you have to identify yours in the dark. You move on to the arrival section, which is a dark, crowded, ominous-looking corridor. Beyond it lies your destination.

Welcome to Kabul, Afghanistan.

I arrived in Kabul on a wintry February afternoon, three months after the United States-led coalition had liberated the city from the Taliban that had had control over 90 per cent of the country since 1996. 1 was not alone. Almost the entire international community had descended on Kabul. Since last January, approximately 20 UN agencies, over 60 international non-governmental organizations and a sizeable number of bilateral aid agencies have sent their representatives to the city to map out short- and long-term strategies for the war-torn country. During the reign of the Taliban, aid agencies did not recognize the authorities as legitimate and therefore did not invest in Afghanistan. There was also widespread fear that funds channelled through the Taliban would go towards feeding the war. But now the drought had turned into a deluge.

The only recommended accommodation for UN staff was the UN guest house--a dormitory-style building in the centre of the city. As this was fully booked, most occupants had to double up and share rooms and bathrooms with other UN staff visiting Kabul. My roommate was an Afghan-American woman who had returned home after 28 years in exile. The guest house had several advantages; for one, it was one of the few places in the city that had both electricity and running water, and it had a bar, which only served whisky at $2 a shot.

Kabul was under strict curfew, from nine in the evening to six in the morning. This meant that I had to delay my tour of the city till the next morning. Winter mornings are chilly but crisp. On a clear day, the malestic snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains rise above Kabul, a painfully glorious backdrop to what I imagined was once a magnificent city. (Many armies...