First person: return to Afghanistan

Breakfast's Graham Satchell has been back to Kabul - after a reporting assignment there earlier this year - to assess how much life has changed in the year since the defeat of the Taleban.

To read and watch his reports, click on the stories on the right hand side.

Here, he gives us his personal impressions of a very special assignment:

"If this was Bin Laden's wife's house I hope she had better heating than this."

It was incredibly cold in Kabul in December and my cameraman Steve was having trouble getting to sleep.

Fully dressed inside a sleeping bag with two blankets and we were still freezing.

The home of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's wife had been turned into a guest house and that's where we were staying.

Changed lives

I'd come back to Afghanistan to catch up with Seema Ghani. We followed her back home to Kabul in the summer and since then her life has changed almost beyond recognition.

Strange contradictions remain. Women read the news on Kabul TV - but they've been banned from singing on television.

A year ago she was living in London with her parents - working in the city - but dreaming of going home. With the end of the Taleban regime she could live her dream.

When I left Seema in Kabul in the summer she had just started working for the UN. A lot has happened since then. Seema became frustrated with the UN and in October she left.

She told me she's always been the kind of person who lives for other people.

When she was in London she spent much of her salary funding an orphanage for Afghan children in Peshawar in Pakistan's north west frontier province.

Today she's moved the children to Kabul and is running the orphanage herself. It's an extraordinary life-changing decision to have made.

Marshal Plan

While I was in Kabul I wanted to see what had happened to the country.

President Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan - Tony Blair said this time the ordinary people of Afghanistan would not be forgotten.

Ordinary Afghans have seen very little improvement in their lives and think promises that were made by Western leaders are hollow.

I was pretty disappointed. I couldn't see much change - and neither could most Afghans I spoke to.

We met one 70 year old man called Suleman living in a bombed out house in the west of Kabul. He'd written a letter to aid agencies asking for help - so far he's received one sack of charcoal.

The UN who have the job of spending money from the international community is rebuilding the government.

It's a good strategy - without a system of government nothing can be done.

But ordinary Afghans have seen very little improvement in their lives and they think promises that were made by Western leaders are hollow.

As the Deputy Director of the United Nations Development Programme told me - rebuilding Afghanistan will take time - but Afghans have very little patience.

Driving lessons

One of the more terrifying things you can do in Kabul is go for a drive.

There are no traffic lights - not much in the way of road markings and most importantly no rules.

Imagine my apprehension then as we set out with Hassina, a woman learner driver.

A year ago Hassina could have been whipped for showing her face in public - could have had her fingers chopped off for wearing nail varnish.

The end of the Taleban is an enormous relief for most women in Afghanistan.

But as I found out strange contradictions remain. Women read the news on Kabul TV - but they've been banned from singing on television.

Girls' schools have re-opened but some have been firebombed. And what in Western eyes is a terrible symbol of repression, the burka, is still worn by most women in Kabul.

Hassina told me women are afraid that Taleban will come back. There remains a culture of fear.

A trip to the zoo

On our last day we took Seema and her 16 kids to the zoo to do some filming.

I'd brought over some soft toys for the children from London and they were having fun teasing the animals with them.

But at the monkey cage, tragedy struck.

One of the toys - a saggy old cloth cat - was about to meet a violent end. Emily may have loved him, but Bagpuss got no mercy from the monkeys at Kabul zoo.

If you want to contact Seema, you can e-mail her at: [e-mail]