Does the number of picnics match the living standards of Afghans?

Waiting for kebab, we lodge on a wooden platform just above the foaming Paghman River. Definitely it is now the most beautiful season in Afghanistan. Under trees full of pale white blossoms, everybody seems so relaxed: men smoking water pipes, giggling women, young football players, dressed in pink shalwar khameezes. This year the spring is different: there has been a lot of rain and it is now very green. Good crop is expected.
I am back in Afghanistan for a month. It is exciting to be here: to settle down again in “our” lovely garden house at an Afghan family compound, to meet our Kabul friends (both Afghans and internationals), to visit familiar shops on Chicken Street. Sad part is that after one and a half year my Dari language has almost vanished. At first I struggle even with the words for vegetables: Bubakshed, ba dari chi megan? – sorry, how do you call it in Dari?
We have a very special guest at our first picnic in Paghman: my husband’s former driver Karim, who has been our good friend for a long time. He had helped us with everyday problems (and believe me, there are a lot of minor headaches in Kabul). Even more, often he spent his only off days – Fridays - in order to wander together with us around Kargha Lake or at some other lovely place close to Kabul. Sometimes he took along with him some of his lovely children, but never his wife. For Farzana it is not acceptable to go out in a company of a foreign man, my husband. But as a woman I have been lucky to meet her: I was invited as Farzana’s guest into a traditional wedding party at their house (sorry, no pictures).
Karim found a new job that matches better his qualifications, as once he studied law at Kabul University. Now he is working for an NGO as an attorney in order to help Afghans in prisons. His job is quite complicated: there are laws made by the government, but he has to consider the laws of Islam as well. But so far he seems to be much more satisfied as I have ever seen him: his wife is happy with his improved reputation and four of his children are studying in a private school (the smallest one is still at home).
We walk up by the river away from the picnic area. We have done it before, but every time the walk has been different. This time the road upstream is under water. Some cars (full of young modern Afghans) race through the water, so we have to cling to the rocks alongside.
I notice that there are now many more picnic areas when compared to the season three years ago. The terraces, once King’s gardens, are full of people again. A playground has been built for children and the ruins are turned into a mosque. “There are now more wealthy Afghans who can afford to go for a picnic,” is Karim’s opinion. Just so you know: we paid $10 for the kebab, tea and yogurt.