Afghani Arcade Offers Break from Reality

A generator-powered arcade in Kabul, Afghanistan provides the city’s inhabitants a welcome respite from the ongoing war and helps keep wayward kids off the street and out of trouble.

14-yeard old Ubaydollah Sharafian spoke to the Christian Science Monitor about the arcade, saying, “We come here to play games and relax from street-begging.”

All such forms of entertainment were banned when Afghanistan was under Taliban rule, perhaps leading inhabitants to embrace the ability to forget their troubles for a few minutes even more than might be the norm.

As a youngster in the midst of a game succinctly stated, “I don’t want this game to finish, I want to keep on playing forever.”

Another passage from the CSM article:

“The lads come here and stay off the streets,” said Abdulghaffar Sediqi, the proprietor of one store as he watched his young customers playing Mortal Kombat, a 1990s arcade game that placed martial arts warriors against one another. “They’re not filching pockets, they’re not sniffing glue.”