Microcosms

A couple of days ago I went to one of the government ministries (at least I think it was a ministry) to get my khariji (Dari for "foreigner") registration card. Two anecdotes from this trip that strike me as excellent microcosms of Kabul as I know it so far:

1. The simple fact that I had to make this trip at all is a wonderful illustration of how dysfunctionally bureaucratic the Afghan government is. Kharijis have to present this card at the airport when leaving the country, although I have yet to get a clear explanation of why, since the card contains no information that is not contained in my visa and passport. We are supposed to receive the card on first arriving in Afghanistan. Nobody gave this to me. In fact, if the other interns at my office hadn't told me about it, I would never have had any clue that I needed the card...until I showed up at the airport to leave the country and had to present it. What's more, it took about five or six tries to find someone in my office who had heard of this card and knew where to go to get it. Of course, the word on the street is that if you show up at the airport without the card, $50 or $100 will get the officials there to look the other way. Afghanistan: where the restrictions are inane, labyrinthine, and entirely avoidable for the right price.

2. The ministry was actually a small compound of buildings, the largest of which reminded me eerily of a run-down middle school, complete with disgruntled-looking people sitting on wooden chairs in the hall (although in this case the people were at least 40 years old). Outside of this building, an old, sick-looking man was kneeling on a set of three or four stairs, bent over a stone ramp that had been built over them, presumably for handicapped access. The man, astoundingly, seemed to be spending his time brushing dust off of the ramp. Brushing dust. In a city where it essentially doesn't rain from late April until January, where the average humidity in the dry months is probably lower than my age, and where there's probably more dust in the air than any non-oxygen substance. Brushing dust. Inside a government ministry.

If Kabul were safer and had better a better electrical grid, I'd suggest that the Onion open a bureau here.