"Why are you traveling without a mahram?" the Taliban guard asks a young Afghan woman about her missing male escort.

She sits on her own in the back of a beat-up Kabul yellow taxi as it pulls up to the checkpoint marked, like all the others, by the white Taliban flag with black script.

What is allowed now in Kabul, and what is not?

The turbaned Talib, rifle slung over the shoulder, tells her to call her husband. When she explains she doesn't have a phone, he instructs another taxi driver to take her home to get her husband and bring them back. Once completed, all is resolved.