KABUL, Afghanistan — These days, Abdul Farhad tries to sleep with the lights on in his bedroom and his eyes wide open, because as soon as he closes them he is back in his shop in central Kabul and it is 11:30 a.m. on the eighth of September.

He is sitting behind the desk in his office, a small room with a floor-to-ceiling plate-glass front wall, with a view he says he will never forget.

The usual street children are clustered in front of his car rental shop, in the heart of the capital’s military and diplomatic quarter. Khorshid, 15, dressed, as always, in a brightly colored tunic over prim trousers, is a skateboarding sensation who dreams of winning the girls’ world championship one day.

Her younger sister, Parwana, 11, has even bigger dreams, to become a doctor. Somewhere nearby is their big-eyed little sister Mursal, who is 7 and already speaks English well enough to soften the hearts of passing G.I.’s, and separate them from “just one dollar, mister.”