1. Almost every car I have seen here is an automatic (oddly), but no Afghan seems to know that. They shift gears in the automatic as if they were driving a stick shift, and no one seems to have gotten the message that this is irritating, unnecessary, and probably bad for the car.
2. 95-98% of cars (this is not an exaggeration) in Kabul are Toyotas, and most of these are Camrys. Why? I have no idea and have not found a good reason for this on the Googles. The majority if not all are imported used cars, with many it seems from Canada (given the maple leaf stickers). The owners often don't remove the bumper stickers, so it is not uncommon to see pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and Christian fundamentalist stickers (someone here told me of a "In the event of rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned" sticker).
3. An expat woman failing to fully cover her head, or even more crazy and wild, forgetting to cover her head, will guarantee that the police will stop us at a checkpoint. The 17 year old policeman in a uniform at least 1 size too big will then "check" your passport (generally upside down, since most are illiterate) and try to argue that June comes after August (and thus your visa has expired), all the while looking at neither you nor the passport, but rather staring ravenously at the expat woman in the car. When you never see women, apparently the chance to gawk at someone with their head only partially covered is like a private stripshow for these police teenagers. Pretty irritating, for the women particularly.
4. Car crashes are not infrequent, given the crazy crazy traffic and the cars often driving the wrong way up the road. When a crash occurs, generally the people come out and shout at each other, hit the car, and freak out. Then they calm down and drive away, since it's not like they'll be exchanging insurance information. This weekend, however, the results were far more serious. An international convoy struck a civilian car and killed several of its occupants. Afghans rioted, setting the offending car (an armored Suburban) on fire and stoning Westerners. The Afghan police moved in, but not before one of our security guys who was driving by got his windows bashed in and was cut up by the glass (terrifying his family, whom he decided to have visit for the week). We are locked down in the office today, as additional demonstrations have been reported (you can see why Afghans are upset, if they believe the convoy drivers will not be prosecuted for the deaths of the passengers, but the demonstrations have a bad history of turning violent).
5. The convoys. ISAF and Afghan Army convoys are quite a sight. Not only are they massive trucks and armored vehicles with guys in machine gun turrets, but they also halt all traffic. All the civilian cars pull off to the side of the road and look non-threatening as there have been a lot of incidents of nervous soldiers firing on what they thought were suicide bomber vehicles. If you are on a cell phone conversation, your call will be cut off as the convoys all have IED jammers installed that block cell phone signals (as these are often used to trigger IEDs). I would share pictures, but we were warned that trying to take a picture of a convoy is on the list of things that get you shot. So I'll wisely leave this up to your imagination.
6. This is more just disturbing than anything else, but I haven't known where to include it in my posts until know. While Afghans generally disdain and mistreat homosexuals (and often mock each other with the label "gay"), the practice of "bacha bazi", or "boy play" is widespread. The northerners mock Kandahar and the Taliban for this, the Taliban blame the Northern Alliance and recall that they had banned it under their rule, but it seems all sides engage in it behind closed doors (and often not behind closed doors). In short, little boys are forced or hired to dress up in women's clothes, wear make-up, and dance around (since women aren't allowed to dance), then become either willing or unwilling sexual partners for older men. I've heard all sorts of explanations for this, even including that this is a tradition from the time of Alexander the Great and that people are just emulating their great Greek conquerors, but in the end it is just plain awful for these little boys (usually orphans or abandoned by their families). The act is considered acceptable for the older men, who almost always are married to women and have families, but is thought shameful for the little boys. More information.
Nicer stories to come shortly, but just wanted to record some of the things I haven't logged up to now.
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