Afghan city dwellers spend most of their time on the streets, working, eating, and resting.

Afghanistan's towns look like huge markets that are open all day, from early morning to late at night, sometimes through the night.

In summer and in winter time, crowds of men and women roam around the streets, looking for merchandise to buy or asking for spare change; boys hunt visitors with offers to polish their shoes; barbers meticulously trim beards of their customers. Men look serious and important, women look mysterious in their flowing blue or white burqas. All of a sudden, there is commotion on a street and you don't believe your eyes: women without veils. "Gypsies," a translator tells me as I freeze in my steps. I see half a dozen brightly dressed females of all ages, who quickly settle down on the edge of the street and start their brisk business selling colorful plastic bracelets and other trinkets. Local women squat down near them to choose what definitely looks like a good bargain. Afghanistan is full of surprises.

In Mazar-e-Sharif, after more than four years of Taliban rule, which banned any images of people, photographs of Indian movie actors and actresses sell like hot cakes. Their small photos and large posters adorn walls, store windows, and private homes. Indian music blares from speakers at every street corner, and tapes with Afghanistan's own pop singers, recorded before the Taliban banned all music with the exception of Koranic recitals, are in great demand. I don't know what life looked like under the Taliban, but it is definitely changing - for better or for worse. A street for an Afghan man or woman is also a place to gossip and discuss politics. Men and women stand or sit in separate groups for hours, talking, talking, talking. I didn't have a chance to ask translators what those discussions were about, but I assume people in Afghanistan talk about the same things as people all over the world: work, children, money, and sports. I'm not sure Afghan men talk about women.

Afghanistan's money, afghanis, were very cheap and quite often the value changed in direct proportion to the number of foreigners in any particular town. When we first arrived in Jabal os-Saraj, one American dollar was worth 80,000 afghanis, but one month later when the place was swarming with journos the exchange rate was 20,000 afghanis for a dollar. In 2001 and early 2002, money-changers attracted foreign reporters' attention by bricks of banknotes displayed on ordinary tables, which were often placed right on mud sidewalks. The money system was very complicated too. Afghans had "new" and "old" banknotes, which also were different in value depending on their serial number, year of issue, and even what warlord supervised their printing. In mid-2002 the government increased the afghani's nominal value by a thousand times in a reform likely to streamline the financial system. I noticed one characteristic trait of all Afghans, irrespective of their social standing or profession: whenever you show them something that you recently bought in Afghanistan or brought from your home country, they invariably ask "How much does it cost?" The question seems very funny, especially when it concerns your notebook computer, PDA, or digital camera, items so expensive - actually more expensive than a good bride - you hate telling the real price to your Afghan friends. To be true, Afghanistan is not the only country where such questions are asked. In Russia, police and army men, known for their low government salaries, always ask journalists about the price of Betacam cameras and digital still cameras, and they think you pull their leg when you tell them the real price, which seems to them to be excessively high. Incidentally, both Russians and Afghans consider it OK to ask people, even those whom they hardly know, about their salaries, something believed to be improper in other countries.

The Mazar-e-Sharif carpet-vendors are talking how they fooled foreign dudes who each paid for a rug at least a hundred dollars more than it's worth.

Hajj pilgrims wait outside Kabul airport for a charter flight to Saudi Arabia. February 2002.