to take you beyond the headlines admire their courage people bringing their families here driving for hours to reach ms ali said he they know about the threats they see the security but they lived in a country which has been at war for some thirty years so they get used to it and they get on with life they want to change but they're not going to let it get in the way of a good celebration to honor called friends that means a warm welcome from the seer but by afghan national t v so much for keeping them from the last time i was here it was a snowstorm in my study city across the country are watching this here no wonder they put it in the hands of the strongest man happy new year an extraordinary day soviet occupation of their country millions of afghans were forced out of the country and suddenly instead of flowers and birds and faces and lovely intricate designs been woven into the carpets you had the kalashnikov rifles the tanks the grenades you know a country look covered with military vehicles and suddenly this became the story of afghanistan woven right into their carpet but there is so much the women can't control some told me in whispers they prefer the kind of cold i'm wearing their husbands wouldn't let them and yet for all of that there is some light in the darkness it's a cancer that has spread elsewhere in the country but you really feel it here hebron are dying others are full of life of course in this traditional muslim society this isn't a place like night clubs in this cultural capital i found another kind of night li in this moment it did feel good as if everything was somehow possible but the future like these poems was full of promise even if when you're ten years old you still need a bit of help across this all just of afghan cities i found the oldest of human desires to rise above daily cares to see what's beautiful and sweet to celebrate what it means to be  but that's harder in other places the road is too dangerous the only way i could get there was by air despite tens of thousands of foreign troops there but to understand afghanistan you have to go to kandahar heartland of the nation's biggest tribe the pashtuns birthplace of the taleban foreigners don't usually walk the streets it's just too dangerous but with local guards watching my back it was worth the risk to talk to afghans about their city when you're on the streets g o feel safe one belongs to one of the country's most famous bodybuilders become to visit afghanistan are not normal maybe now that he's not governor but even here i couldn't stay for long on the streets outside unpredictable kandahar it struck again i found myself in the midst of a military operation springing up to cater for the influx of foreign contractors and troops billions are being spent to fight the taliban and win the war for afghan hutson minds it's a good life in this bubble  barriers for now it's a boomtown never the safety of the american bubble to go into and out there one of the men keeping an eye on us here future taliban and the people caught in the middle there working as a deliberative which is a coalition of the americans are paying them salehi so they were going to go to the work in the morning and the taliban eighty percent of afghans live in rural areas like this is a meager existence the further you get from the city center the hops this is what it's like you feel like your point back in time there are no roads the houses are mud brick people pretty well live like they've always there's no electricity there's no running water after several hours of driving the car could go no further on this road if i wanted to travel as most afghans do i would nee i mean they're not so good when we left they said it was about forty minutes riding on donkeys twenty minutes later they said well another hour and then an hour later it was  in another hour and finally after five hours i made it to the village but we reuse was swept away by the warmth of a traditional well come back and say it doesn't matter how  in the foothills of the cooey baba mountains is home to around seventy families don't have much the nearest school in clinic are hours away on foot young men have to leave to find paid labor know they say even the bread isn't good here they would love to have bread made of wheat instead it's made of barley life expectancy in afghanistan is around forty five years around half the children are malnourished it's easier to talk when we gather as women on our own what do you think about the world outside afghanistan what is it like for all the distance between their life and mine there was still a space for girls to share a giggle what do you do for your entertainment for fun at moments like this you feel a shared humanity no matter how different our lives but i'm leaving this village they will stay in lives that are for the most part determined from the day of first nearly two thousand years pilgrims and poets flock to marvel at two stone buddhas hume from the mountainside they were carved when balmy on was an important center for buddhism hundreds of years before the birth of mountains but how do you get here when there are no commercial flights in the main road from kabul isn't safe but that wasn't stopping good hussein's dream if we talk about all of guns and it's difficult but when we come to help improve those statistics i decided to be the third and last tourist of the season with the snow was all but gone we had to walk to one of the furthest peaks fortunately the afghan ski lift was working made this country give him the peace and prosperity just enough to make a mosquito champion some day i fell in love with this country on her first visit in the eighty's she came back to report after the attacks of september eleventh and found more than a story but then you also  i couldn't help but smile a japanese married to an afghan from punchier eating sushi in balmy on with a canadian a lovely way to end the evening it was the last day of my trip before heading back to kabul but i couldn't leave me on without making one last stop matter how many times you see these empty shifts they still take your breath away and every time i come to army on no matter where i am in this valley you feel the presence of these but in the taliban's extreme creed all this was sacrilege and had to be destroyed surprisingly the evidence is still here only to show to a fragment from here the valley seemed so serene so peaceful but even here in this most hopeful of places i still found fear about what lies ahead at night you go home and you worry that the country by me on is a place where afghans can find space to dream big dreams quickly run into limits here by me on can only realize its promise for the rest of afghanistan does to i want to spend my last hours in afghanistan and one of my favorite places the old royal palace on the edge of the city i remember it in its prime a magnificent building overlooking call but like so much here years of conflict have taken a terrible toll and afghan friend once told me this palace seemed to be weeping tears for the country and its people there is something about afghanistan and i've seen it again on this journey it's afghans with their sense of pride and honor great sense of humor sense of self there's this afghanistan about this place and on this journey i've seen so much that is good and bright and strong but there's also this long shadow of the war there are moments when you hold your breath knowing that all that's so bright it just become dark again