Shops Along the Road to Phoenix

The section of road between Blackhorse and Phoenix is raised. It’s fairly wide but all dirt and rocks. No pavement or very little to speak of. They’re in the process of paving it but they’re a long way away from achieving success.

As we travel the road, we see lots of shops set up. Some are made of mud/brick and are close together and set right on the edge of the road. At times it feels like a person could step out of their shop right into on-coming traffic.

Speaking of stepping into on-coming traffic, that’s exactly what they do. It’s almost as if they don’t see the vehicles coming towards them. People will just step out into the road. It’s a little unnerving at first. When I was in Kabul last week, we saw very small children sitting on the raised median in the middle of very busy traffic. I couldn’t believe it. The thing that freaked me out was adults would walk by them and not do or say anything. We saw other kids walking in and out of traffic, on the edge of traffic and scaring the jeebies out of me by how close they would get to rushing traffic. It was unreal.

Anyway, back to the shops. Some of them are connex’s – metal shipping containers. They are converted into shops. All kinds of things are sold out of them. What piqued my interest and this post, is that the ones that are at the edge of the raised portions of the highway and held up in back by whatever they can find, rocks, stumps, 50-gallon barrels, anything they have that will support the weight. As you can imagine, they’re not always evenly balanced. I keep thinking sometimes a strong wind is all it would take to knock them over.