Monday 15 January 2007

Since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, the Afghan capital Kabul has seen many changes. The scars left by the radical Islamic regime are still visible and will linger for a long time to come but in the space of just three years Afghans have started rebuilding their shattered lives.
War widows and orphaned children still beg in the streets, dangerously close to the teeming traffic, and no amount of reconstruction can bring back an old man’s dead sons or a nomad child’s sightless eyes.
But life is returning to this city of 3-5 million people. Lively markets and traffic jams fill the avenues under the parched mountains. Brick factories fires are burning around the clock to meet demands for new houses. Children are returning to school and in 2004 women were allowed to vote for the very first time, in the country’s first democratic election. Instead of the severed limbs of thieves, there are now photographers in front of the mosques. Afghans are again savouring the joys of all that was banned by the black-turbaned religious police: taking pictures, eating out and weddings with dancing and singing.


From the 15th of June until the 6th of July 2005, the company of “Le Theatre du Soleil” directed by Ariane Mnouchkine was in Kabul, invited by The Foundation for Culture and Civil Society to organize training for Afghan actors and actresses and also to organize others workshops (sewing, lights, music, and building). A lot of theatre equipment (sewing machines, spotlights, tools, sound system and paint equipment, costumes, etc.) collected in France were offered to the people in Kabul.

Since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, the Afghan capital Kabul has seen many changes. The scars left by the radical Islamic regime are still visible and will linger for a long time to come but in the space of just three years Afghans have started rebuilding their shattered lives.
War widows and orphaned children still beg in the streets, dangerously close to the teeming traffic, and no amount of reconstruction can bring back an old man’s dead sons or a nomad child’s sightless eyes.
But life is returning to this city of 3-5 million people. Lively markets and traffic jams fill the avenues under the parched mountains. Brick factories fires are burning around the clock to meet demands for new houses. Children are returning to school and in 2004 women were allowed to vote for the very first time, in the country’s first democratic election. Instead of the severed limbs of thieves, there are now photographers in front of the mosques. Afghans are again savouring the joys of all that was banned by the black-turbaned religious police: taking pictures, eating out and weddings with dancing and singing.


Football Match ISAF-Afghan National Team
the Afghan national team and the ISAF are playing a tough football match in Kabul's Ghazi stadium. The Afghan team won by one goal to zero. The ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) has been operating in Afghanistan since 2002 and currently has 11000 troops in Kabul, Northern and Western Afghanistan.



A man rewinds the movie after the show. In Kabul, there are no machines to rewind the films; it has to be done manually. Kabul, Afghanistan 2005

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