Most of the destruction in Kabul predates the American bombing. 80% of Afghanistan’s landmines – they have more than anyone in the world – were left by the Russians. Once they fled, the Mujahedeen turned on each other, placing themselves on opposing hills and letting their weapons fall on the houses, schools, and hospitals that separated them. Out of the chaos of civil war, the Taliban emerged, reducing all choices to one, offering order at the price of freedom and human dignity. Everyone we met was grateful for their departure. Whatever desperate hope the Taliban may have offered in their first year had long been betrayed by the repression of women, the looting of national treasures, and the destruction of the most basic institutions of public service.

Yet with freedom have come rampant chaos and overcrowding. Some people already look wistfully to the simplicity of life under the Taliban. They stare resentfully at the clean, white Land Cruisers emblazoned with the blue UN logo, cruising visibly above the rubble of daily life. They wince with the pang of betrayal as they wait for the $4.8 billion of aid that the world promised in January. Drought and the refugees are but the tip of the iceberg -- Afghanistan needs an infrastructure of roads, communication, and electricity, a national army, a banking system, and a federal government.

These aren’t just luxuries – starvation, disease, crime, drugs, and civil war threaten the nation’s feeble hopes. But for the moment hope is alive, kindled by Karzai’s coalition government, international aid, and faith in the children. Everyone looks to education as the magic formula. After five years, girls are back in the classroom, even attending school with boys. When the school year began in March, 3 million students showed up – twice as many as were expected. Half of those students, ranging from 6 to 16 years of age, were in first grade. More arrive every day, jammed into already crowded rooms in buildings that host two sessions a day to cope with the overflow. UNICEF and the Ministry of Education try to keep up with the need for books and teachers, but there are no supplies, no furniture, no libraries – no windows. Vacation comes in the winter because there is no heating and little plumbing. Students sit on dirt and concrete, they all drink water from one tap, there are no breaks for snacks or nutrition. They need lights, labs, and computers.

At other places, the system is working. The HALO trust and OMAR are among the programs in which Afghans are employed demining their country meter-by-meter. They recently celebrated the explosion of their millionth mine, but it will take eight years to get the country completely cleared. We saw women engineers at the university refreshing their computer skills after five years of Taliban-enforced unemployment. An OXFAM program provided the hardware as well as a list of job interviews upon graduation. The International Red Cross runs an orthopedic hospital that not only provides new legs for the victims of landmines, but hires doctors and staff who have endured similar injuries.

The clientele at restaurants and the audience at concerts and galleries are so diverse that one can easily imagine that this is a bazaar on the Silk Road. One possible scenario for Afghanistan is rebirth as a global crossroads, hosting tourists, traders, and citizens from each nation that has ever tried to conquer them. Or the country could plunge into factionalism and civil war, once again bearing the world’s bad karma on its broken back.