When traveling outside of Kabul, one must make a stop at the governor’s office. First, one needs a work permit from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Under the Taliban’s new rules, journalists wishing to work in Afghanistan must receive a series of permits. “This is the first cricket game we’ve been able to host in 20 years,” the organizer tells me. It is a scene remarkable for its normality. A group of boys goes swimming in the lazily flowing river. We eat watermelon and nuts and drink cup after cup of tea. The field is ringed with men and the players take their positions. We arrive at a clearing in the middle of Wardak province for a cricket game. The wire and fabric, valuable materials in a devastated economy, have been stripped off the abandoned outposts, leaving slowly disintegrating silos of dirt, which serve as ghostly reminders: the decaying remnants of the U.S. They are built out of Hescos, a shell of thick fabric liner and wire mesh, filled with dirt, meant to stop bullets and shrapnel. Small outposts dot the road and the landscape. Every so often our car has to slow down because of damage to the highway, the result of the roadside bombings that, during the war, had targeted Afghan and coalition convoys. The provinces are accessible via National Highway 1, a ring road that circles the major cities of the country.
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