For many Afghans, prosperity is elusive

Kabul rebuilding doesn't benefit all

By Victoria Burnett, Globe Correspondent, 9/11/2003

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A smoky haze from the grill hung over the crowded tables of New York restaurant in central Kabul. At one table, an elderly man in a round, white cap sipped green tea, and at another a group of businessmen tucked into a lunch of kebabs and flat naan bread. Iranian pop music blared from the television in the corner as a woman on the screen in a short, black dress sashayed and clapped.

Two years ago, on the eve of the devastating terrorist attacks against the United States that would transform this country, this restaurant would have been quiet, said the owner, Habibullah, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. No music, few customers. Then, they were serving only 30 people a day, he says, compared with four times that many now. Many people had left Kabul as the fundamentalist Taliban regime took over in late 1996, and those who stayed didn't have money.

"Now with all the foreigners we have a lot of customers," he said.

Buoyed by the aid money and small-business investment that flooded into Kabul after the US-led military coalition ousted the Taliban in November 2001, this city has a boomtown feel.

By day, the pounding of hammers rises over the din of downtown traffic. In the bombed-out husks of buildings in west Kabul, which was reduced to rubble during the country's civil war from 1992 to 1996, carpenters install doors and window frames.

By night, the commercial street of Shar-e Naw is a blur of neon and strings of tiny flashing lights as Afghans crowd shops selling kebabs and ice cream. White Land Cruisers sit outside the score of upscale eateries around town that cater to middle-class Afghans -- many of them returning from exile in the West -- and to expatriates.

But amid the bustle, the sense of promise that arrived with the coalition and pledges of billions in aid is fading, many ordinary Afghans say. Much of the aid that has come to Kabul has yet to reach the provinces. Outside the capital, impatience has grown both with the foreigners and with the government of Hamid Karzai, seen by many as ineffectual.

In addition, a recent surge in attacks by remnants of the Taliban in the south has the country on edge. And many Kabul residents are jobless, or struggling to get by on less than $2 a day in a city where prices have soared.

"The foreigners haven't done all the things we expected," Rajab Ali said as he fried "bulani," a crispy, stuffed bread, at his stall in the western district of Kart-e Se. "If we work, we eat. Nobody looks after us."

Some Kabul residents -- reflecting a sentiment felt around the country -- say they are disappointed that beyond the commercial renaissance, there hasn't been large-scale investment.

"By now we expected to see big businesses and factories -- places where people could get a job. But there's nothing," said Ataullah, a waiter at the New York restaurant.

They ask why there have not been more infrastructure improvements. In Kabul, running water and electricity are a luxury; the smell of sewage is widespread.

Sitting in her spartan office, Hadisa Myakhail, principal of the Rabeha Balkhi school in Kart-e Char, another western Kabul neighborhood, complained that she needs books, chairs, and blackboards. Most of the school building is a shell, and its 2,300 children study on the stone floor of the part left standing, or in tents in a rubble-filled courtyard.

"A school should have classrooms to teach in, chairs to sit on, books for reading, toilets, water," she said. The Education Ministry can afford to pay only salaries, she says, so she relies on international help: UNICEF supplies books, and the UN-mandated peacekeeping force refurbished the school at a cost of about $90,000.

Still, Myakhail is happy to be back at school. After two decades of teaching, she was confined to her home, where she held classes in secret after the Taliban closed the school to girls.

"Women have more rights now, but they have a way to go," she said.

Amid their disappointment at unfulfilled expectations, many residents also expressed contentment with newfound freedoms. At a grubby hillside swimming pool, men and boys basked in the sunshine or splashed in the murky water. "I wouldn't have been able to do this under the Taliban," which discouraged swimming, said Mohammad Ali, 30, an agriculture student. "Our country was like a jail."