A Carnival of Life Flourishes in Kabul’s Field of the Dead

When countries like China exploit them for precious metals and whatever you can't blame them for treating outsiders as anything other than invaders or occupiers. They promise so much and deliver so little. In a backward mountainous land such as this everyday is a struggle for survival. Even your own countrymen will rob you blind. It's everyone for themselves.

At one time a few centuries back, Afghans ruled the entire Indian subcontinent. They ruled with brutality by instilling fear in the majority peaceful Hindu and Buddhist population. Now their past bad karmas seemed to have caught up with them. There is simply no escape from this karmic cycle.

See what U.S has done to innocents. OBL was saudi citizen, not Afghani.

Adam Ferguson - Beautiful photos!

Cock fighting? Don't these people see enough violence and death already? Do they have to get their entertainment from inflicting it on animals?

I worked nearby the Kart-e-Sakhi cemetery at the Ministry of Agriculture for 4 years and would often pass by. The blue Shia mosque next to it is beautiful and the hills surrounding it are taking on more and more color as people improve and paint their homes. Mujib Mashal is an excellent writer and is trying to give us an insight into the Afghan and islamic culture. The simplicity of the headstones says a lot about the common fate that awaits all of us despite our position in life. I think the practice of removing the dead from their resting places and throwing them away in Latin America if relatives have not paid the rent is much more barbaric. Rather than criticize differences in culture, we should try and understand and appreciate them.

Looking at the picture of the Kart-e-Sakhi cemetery reminds me of the great many cemeteries that dotted the landscape of Vietnam where the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers on both sides were laid to rest and where families' members come to visit on weekend and holidays. I'm sure there are thousands of cemeteries like Kart-e-Sakhi in Afghanistan, in Iraq and soon in Syria and Libya and Yemen, which have and will become places of families' gathering. How tragic and how wasted of these lost young lives? Lessons are never learned. History and cultures never respected. Consequences never contemplated.

Afghans have loved ones who've died in fighting financed by our country ... the memories of generations of Afghans with loved ones buried in these cemeteries will forever re-kindle animosity towards America ...

The United States spends billions of dollars fighting terrorism by blowing things up; I wish we understood that sometimes the most effective weapon against terrorists isn’t a drone but a girl with a book.

I wonder how many of the girls pictured here have access to an education...???

It is starting to get a little bit ridiculous that the major powers are really in the business of killing people and taxpayers are footing the bill.

The situation of Afghanistan hasn't changed much since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Death and blood is the story of this land. Perhaps, its strategic location is the biggest problem for its people.

Thank you for this lovely portrait of a place I will likely never visit and of which I know next to nothing.

This piece illuminated more about Afghanistan than anything I have previously read.
It is haunting and beautifully written.

It's really hard for me to have any empathy for the people of Afghanistan or Pakistan. They have brought nothing but misery to the region and the world with their traditions. I wish the world was not so interconnected so we could just leave them isolated.

I have been to a lot of places in my life, but Afghanistan takes the cake. Kabul is the most insane city I have ever visited. Absolutely surreal.

A mesmerizing tale thank you and thanks to Samsara, we(and Russia) need to be reminded of the devastation we have brought, along with our blood and treasure, to a country, where we attempted to fix a problem where none existed before we meddled in their affairs. Much like Lebanon, long considered the Paris of the East before the wars with Israel. One must note however the beauty of the women and their elegant, costly attire apparently our helicopter money is reaching a few hands, either that or they have their own one percenters, not what you would expect in a country with war still raging, or is it?

Some are born in rich families enjoying all comforts all thro' life. some are born in countries like Afghanistan and suffer all thro' life. Why one should be born here and the other there. No answers. These young boys and girls are actually endowed with intelligence and wit and so can actually do well in studies if educated. But their religion forbids them from secular education. The USA and other NATO countries could not reform them a bit. Mujib Mashal has reported quite plainly and forthrightly.

Yes Mujib Mashal has been successful in depicting this. I would quote Sarojini Naidu when she says that flowers are used for marriage and in funerals. These children live when someone dies. They get food when someone is in the grave and that is how times are...Things are interrelated...yes I agree

When I set out to backpack from Turkey to India in 1977, Afghanistan was a fabled land along the route. Friends who had gone before me exclaimed rapturously about the wonder of its antiquities like the great Bamiyan Buddhas, the warmth and friendliness of its people and the exotic beauty of Kabul, considered one of the jewels of the Middle East.

I had the addresses of places I "had to" visit in the capital. The perfume seller. The shop featuring exquisite weavings. The purveyors of distinctive Afghan jewelry. The woman in the bazaar who sold dresses lovely and original in their decoration.

Kabul was also a city where the modern world was meeting an older culture, and both seemed to be co-existing in peace. One could see that in the many young women in Western dress studying at the university, their eyes shining with possibilities their mothers could not dream.

Oh beautiful Kabul with its grand old buildings, its smiling faces and lush secret gardens glimpsed through gates!

If you could have seen it, friends, and walked its streets and met, talked and laughed with its people, you would understand how great a tragedy has befallen Afghanistan. You would want to weep for what was and now is gone forever.

I cannot begin to understand the complexity and tragedy or grasp the beauty of our world without reporters like Mujib Mashal.