One Brick at a Time

This was a beautiful house," says Khalil Rahman Nasimi, standing in the ruins that were once his home. "It was the house of a colonel"his former rank in the Northern Alliance"the house of an important man." Around him are mere remains: the suggestion of walls, the barest hint of an orderly life. Khoshal Khan A, a street in western Kabul, was once prestigious real estate. Now it is rubble. The street was destroyed during the Afghan civil wars that raged from 1992 to 1996. Khalil and his family fled after the first rocket hit and a succession of marauders looted everything...