Child of the Street

I have seen this boy many times at this location, on our way back to the Villa from Camp Eggers. He has a dirty rag in hand and is offering to wash our windows. Aparently he thinks the security guy sitting in the front seat promised to pay him "next time," because he usually comes right up to the car like this and says, "You promised!" What he really wants is some money, of course. But we cannot roll the window down... if we were to do that, we would endanger him and ourselves as well. It is a dangerous place to stop your car for any reason but traffic in the busy streets of Kabul. Stopping long enough to be recognized as Westerners would make us a target. Furthermore, the driver cannot pay attention to every vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian encroaching on the car. What if other kids thronged the car looking for handouts too? What if we rolled over the poor kid's toes? I riot would ensue. Very quickly we could be caught in a very bad and even deadly situation. Thus we have a no-windows-down policy. No handouts. The best we can do is smile or nod or wave. In this case I took his picture and imortalized him on my blog.

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You wouldn't believe traffic here... even at intersections, nobody obeys lights or stop signs and the only yielding being done is to avoid being hit. The clearance between our car and those crossing our path may be only a foot at a time. Thus we have an Afghan driver. Having a little collision between Afghans is no big deal. Every car has body damage. Traffic moves slowly, but it keeps moving and that's what we count on for our safe return from a trip out side the gate.