Charikar Street Views

 Charikar is the capital of Parwan province, to the north of Kabul.  It's the same province where Bagram air base is located.  The PRT there is led by the Koreans, though the US has a small contingent as well.  The physical base of the PRT is enormous; it's new and not quite finished.  It's maybe a mile and a half from the city itself.  So we went into the city and met with the governor and some Afghan NGO representatives.  At the meetings, the table snacks included oranges, which I've rarely seen people eat during a meeting, raisins, almonds and walnuts, and small candies.  And of course endless cups of tea.  After lunch (lamb, chicken soup, rice, yogurt, spices, fruit, etc) we went for a walk down one of the main streets.  In theory we were going to walk through the bazaar, and I even brought some local money to buy things, but it turned out that there were only a couple of shops selling candy and nuts, a school, and a handful of other businesses, like this wedding shop or Hakimi's real estate office.  By the way, if you're interested in buying property in Charikar, the second photo has Hakimi's phone number in the window, in Dari.  The last photo might look like I aimed poorly, but I was trying to get the bird cages on top of the shop building.  There were lots of boys in the street (no girls at all, and I only saw two women, both burka-ed).  But the key takeaway for readers - has Hakimi's House Dealing got a deal for you.