KABUL, Afghanistan — Remember cash? These days, when a wave of a phone or credit card gets you a cup of coffee or more, it's easy to forget what actual bills look like — and the abuse they receive in an average five-year life span.
Not for Allah Mohammad Araya. In a country so sanctioned that much of its own cash is out of reach, he sat cross-legged in a corner of Kabul's main foreign-exchange market, sifting through a pile of what looked like paper trash but was actually a disaster area of distressed afghanis, Afghanistan's currency.
"Out of every 10,000 afghani bills here, maybe 1,000 of those bills are still OK to use," he said, pointing to a 100-afghani note faded to the point that one side seemed plain. Another looked more Scotch tape than bill. A third wasn't much better, the victim of a bad cut-and-paste job that left its color scheme — and serial numbers — mismatched.
