Shopping

Fruits stands are everywhere and they tend to be very colorful. Melons are in season and they bring a variety of shapes and colors to the already colorful stands.
It's rare to find nurseries or garden shops in Kabul, but we found several along a main street just outside the old city. The bags are filled with seeds, which are sold by weight, rather than in packages as found in America. If you look carefully at the upper left hand corner of this photo, you will see the scale used to weigh purchases. These particular roadside stands also sold potted plants, and we bought several to liven up our compound.
Here I am admiring the bags of colorful seeds. I am wearing a scarf so as not to attract so much attention, but being fair, blond and dressed very much like a tourist, it's inevitable that I am noticed. However, Afghans are very nice and I never feel uncomfortable as I have in some Arab countries. The scarf also helped to reduce the heat on my head this day. It was very hot in Kabul this week, I'm sure in the low 100s F. Sometimes I opt for my straw hat rather than a scarf in order to better shade my face from the intense sun. Kabul sits at 6,000+ feet, so the sun is very strong.