Markets in Motion
Every morning, we pass through Kabul without touching it — behind glass, through turns that shift like memory. But the market breathes, and the city speaks in figs, doves, and the scent of bread.
There is a road we take almost every day, cut broad and straight through Kabul’s uncertain geometry — not quite smooth, not quite broken. It carries us from one gate to another, from the base to the partner’s office, and back again. We move through it early, when the city still blinks open, or later, when it roars with movement. And every time, it offers something different — or perhaps just reminds us of what we’ve chosen not to see.
Every morning we leave early, before Kabul fully awakes and before the morning rush hour can unravel its rhythm. They say the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell — one of those Rumi lines people love to quote, even if the exact Persian escapes us. But something about it feels right here, in this hour when the light is still soft and the city hasn’t quite decided who it wants to be.
Every morning, the route changes. For safety, they say. For surprise. For staying ahead of whatever might be watching. So I sit behind glass and let the city come to me in pieces — a shifting jigsaw of streets I’ll never walk, faces I’ll never meet, stories I can only guess. Kabul flickers by like a dream that resists being remembered in full. But some images stick, like dust to the soul.
We roll forward behind glass, steady and slow, past streets that pulse awake with each morning. On both sides, market life spills into the road like a tide refusing its banks. Wooden stalls lean under the weight of seasonal harvests: trays of soft apricots and sun-warm peaches, striped watermelons split open to reveal their red hearts. Mounds of tomatoes, onions, and dust-blushed potatoes pile beside gleaming carrots — oversized, fresh-scrubbed, and bright as torchlight. There are clusters of grapes like green lanterns, dusty pomegranates still closed like secrets, and baskets of tiny wild cucumbers, pale and prickled. A feast of colour. A parade of ripeness. A silent wager.
Because each stall is a bet. A declaration of hope — that someone will come, that trade will happen, that the day will mean something more than survival. The harvest is here, full and sweet, but nothing is certain.
Sometimes, I try to imagine this same street in other seasons — how the stalls would shift their colours and smells. I know they will darken with figs, sharpen with apples, warm with the amber of quinces and the rust of persimmons. One day, the peaches will vanish. Another day, the stalls might bloom with pomegranates — I haven’t seen them yet this season — perhaps it’s still too early.
And the mulberries, too — white and purple, delicate as silk threads — I saw them in Kandahar, on a similar street, under the same early light, in the same dust. They felt special to me, almost personal — rare in most countries, and wrapped in my own childhood memories. In France, I’ve only seen them dried and sold for a small fortune. But here, they grew freely, as if they belonged — and I suppose they do.
In Kandahar, I mentioned my longing out loud, and my colleagues brought me a small batch. Under their watchful and amused smiles in the office, I indulged myself thoroughly — evoking half-forgotten summers, sticky fingers, and the divine taste of the fruit itself. Soft, honeyed, almost floral — like something too tender to last. A fruit that dissolves before you can even name it.
Kabul’s harvest doesn’t just feed — it transforms the city, season by season. And I, passing each morning, become a witness to this quiet choreography of ripening.
A pair of laughing doves rises from a rusted beam, wings brushing the air like silk. Their call isn’t quite laughter — it’s older than that. A low, cooing murmur that feels like it remembers something you don’t. They appear again and again — always in pairs, always mid-flight, like punctuation marks only the city can read.
Further along, the fabric ripple of used clothes flutters in the wind — bright polyester scarves and embroidered tunics, half-suspended like flags of lives reshuffled. Beneath them, tangled heaps of second-hand shoes lie mismatched and waiting, like they too have somewhere to go.
On some stalls, I see fruits I don’t even recognise. Red, white, green — they are arranged in wild heaps or tucked into old containers, glinting in the sun or tucked under thin cloth — wild cousins of the familiar, fragrant and strange. I’m curious, I would love to stop and inquire and discuss with sellers — but that is not possible. No stops allowed, security is in the movement. But someone will know what to do with them.
The mynas are already awake, loud on the wires above. Gossiping in borrowed tones, they screech out half-sentences like old men on a rooftop. City birds. Bold, relentless. Fluent in noise and skilled in survival and nothing else. Sometimes, they say things that almost sound like words. As if they’ve overheard too much and can’t keep it in.
This is how Kabul greets us each day: not with ceremony, but with movement. Not with grandeur, but with detail. A laughing dove. A row of figs. The smell of bread and something burning. We move through it, and it moves through us. And then the road turns again.
Early afternoon, we turn back — the rush hour has not yet begun, but the streets are alive with movement — a dense, musical chaos of everyday life. The sun sharpens, and the city hums with that familiar, layered noise — cars edging forward, children weaving through narrow gaps, and the street vendors in full rhythm.
As we take different road again, we pass other kinds of markets now. Nut-sellers shops succeeding each other on one side, their baskets overflowing with pine-nuts, pistachios, almonds, walnuts, and other delicacies I can’t quite name. Some balance trays of sugared almonds, others scoop dried mulberries into rustling paper cones. The smell is sweet and earthy, the kind that clings to your fingers even through the glass.
On the other side, the road is flanked by high-end tailoring shops and fabric stores — silks in royal blue and pomegranate red, waistcoats embroidered with gold thread, bolts of deep green velvet stacked beside sober pinstripes. The choice of materials is astonishing — heavy brocades, shimmering satins, fine wool blends. Fabrics for weddings, for ceremonies, for pride. Mostly for men. Always proud.
From there, the road bends again — and suddenly we are in the street where the Afghan ovens - tandoors - are born. Workshops on both sides of the road, and in front of them clay domes of all sizes turned upside down, drying in rows along the wall like sun-baked helmets. Men work them slowly with practiced hands — smoothing, fitting, shaping with quiet precision — soot still darkening their shoulders. They are shaping fire, one curve at a time.
Finally, back at the base, before I attach myself to the second half of the day’s work, I find myself digesting the morning’s mementoes — a fig here, a dove there, the roundabout like a spinning thought. And somewhere in that quiet digestion, Rumi returns, uninvited but never out of place.
“Don’t grieve,” he wrote, “anything you lose comes round in another form.”
And maybe that’s true. Even the streets feel like memories being rearranged. Even the birds are trying to speak.
Comments
Post a Comment