In the political politesse of the West, it would be called "cautious optimism." Three weeks after the Taliban was ousted from Afghanistan's capital city, life has changed dramatically. But make no mistake - there is no dancing in the streets, music is not blaring, women have not thrown off their burqas and the rule of law does not apply.

Nothing works; electricity is off at least several hours a day, there are no working phone lines, street lamps pitch at right angles and are never lit. There is no such thing as post or banks or fax machines.

Yet life goes on here without the slightest interruption in the daily affairs of most residents. The feeling in the air is one of relief; the pain, or at least a certain version of it endured for five years, has stopped.

But will it return? Given this country's history, such uncertainty is more than expected; it is wise. Remember this is the place that King Abdur Rahman Khan, who ruled Kabul until 1900, called Yaghistan, "Land of the Rebellius". At this brief instant in history, the Northern Alliance is firmly in charge of Kabul, but this is of marginal comfort to those who remember the civil war of 1992 to 1996. This is the same group that participated in throwing the city to ruins.

Let's be honest about these war-torn places; most of the time the television-cameras have to drive to the "bombed out areas" for their pictures. Here in a vast city of 1.5 million it is difficult to find an area that is not in ruins. The buildings that still have roofs and walls are pock marked w ith bullets holes and mortars hits.

One old hand said the only comparison really is Dresden circa 1945.

"We hope they will be better this time," said Amal, a law student. "They are the same people but we hope they have learned."

The Northern Alliance has learned to be better at business, at least in the mafioso sense of the term. There is, for example, a 10 p.m. curfew, but a visit and payment of a fee to the foreign ministry gains one a password that allows passage through the frequent checkpoints all night long.

The password changes daily and the fee is payable daily. The other day it was "Kandahar".

Another reporter accepted a ride across town from two Northern Alliance officers who said they wanted to be "helpful". They then demanded $50 at the drop-off point 10 minutes away and only relented when a small crowd of the reporter's colleagues gathered. As in most places still in the grip of religious fundamentalism, hypocrisy reigns.

An Afghan translator travelling with some reporters was refused lunch service at a restaurant. The translator, a Muslim but a rather secular fellow nonetheless, was not observing the fast of Ramadan. The restaurant manager actually insisted that he not even sit at the same table with the Western reporters who were eating lamb kebabs.

Just across the street from the same restaurant, a grocery store sells wildly over-priced smuggled Western goods. Spanish olive oil, Cadbury chocolates, Hobnobs biscuits and Kellogg's Corn Flakes are available for a price. But the most amusing matter is the alcohol selection; in whispered tones the proprietor offers a reporter a bottle of Chilean red wine for $85 or a bottle of gin or vodka for $100. Becks beer goes for about $7 a can. A refusal to pay such prices is met with a good businessman's pragmatism and concern for future business. "Yes it is expensive, but wait until Friday. We are getting more in from Pakistan and it will be cheaper."

Then there is famous Chicken Street. This was the prime shopping place for the tourists and hippies and adventurers who have worn a path through Afghanistan for centuries. The five years of the Taliban, it can be said with assurance, did little for the tourist industry.

"I came to my shop every day, but only to talk with my friends. There were no customers," says Shuja Mohammed. He is a jeweller, fashioning beautiful silver rings and necklaces inlaid with the blue lapis stones common to the mountains. "Before the Taliban I had foreign customers but also Afghans.

I made jewellery for the women. But when women were not allowed outside the home, my business stopped." He is a handsome man with light hazel eyes and notably, no beard. His wares are displayed in a glass case. On the floor sits a cassette player. Life has changed dramatically for him.

"The first year of the Taliban we had hope that it would end soon, but by last year, when the Arabs were all over this street buying coats and turbans, we lost hope. I felt like I was in prison, and so was my wife," he said.

The father of one son and three daughters, he had sent the girls to a secret school, run for free by an aid worker. The little girl would carry a glass with her each day so that she could tell the Taliban she was going to a neighbour's to borrow flour. "We are happy now, but we need peace in Afghanistan. My business is good. There are journalists and NGOs and everyone is coming back."

Indeed Chicken Street is again bustling. Antique carpets, colourful pattus, leather jackets and the Tajik woollen hats called pakouls; jewellery stores, antique shops selling everything from samovars to pots to muskets and ivory-inlaid handguns. Chicken Street is alive with commerce and hope.

Abduras Ool Bahzad is still dusting off the books in his bookshop. His father owned this place before him and he has been here 20 years. He was forced to close by the Taliban three years ago. "I put the books in bags," he said, pointing to cloth sacks still piled along the walls, "and then I sat at home. My two brothers used to work here with me, but they left Afghanistan. One went to Denmark; the other, I don't know where he is." Now his bookshop is again busy. Dusty, crammed, he seems to have everything.

Maps, books about Afghanistan, popular novels, scholarly texts about everything from archaeology to physics, a good selection of Shakespeare, and dictionaries of every conceivable language.

"The day the Taliban left is the day I felt human again," he said. On the third floor of a decrepit building that is ostensibly called faculty housing, Prof Mohammed Zarif Azhan greets his visitors. A long-time teacher of political science and law at Kabul University, Prof Azhan endured the peculiar edicts of the Taliban which insisted that all subjects "be imbued with religious culture".

"It all presented a problem," he says with understatement. "I taught about international law for example. I would say that no country has the right to interfere in the laws of another country, but they felt that was not true under Islamic law, where any interference in the affairs of another country is justified. I got into trouble."

He also was not allowed to teach anything about human rights. Today Mr Azhan is hopeful and is enthusiastic about the Bonn agreement.

"We must not miss this chance. All the modern countries are supporting reconstruction in Afghanistan and it is a golden opportunity for us, maybe the first time ever. Islam is a religion which will accept new ideas and new technology. The key to peace is rebuilding our economy," he says.

But why will this time be any different than other times when hope here descended into chaos and infighting between the warlords and tribal chiefs?

"There will be no fighting," he says. "We now have a joke here. If we fight, the American planes will just bomb us."

A week here can leave the observer firmly ambivalent between the cautious and the optimistic. When I return to the house where I am staying, I see Haroon, a young fixer who has been helping me navigate the city, huddled in a hallway next to an electric heater. Earlier in the day he purchased a small English-Dari dictionary at Mr Bahzad's bookstore.

Now he is sitting with an old copy of Rolling Stone left behind by another journalist, the magazine open in one hand, the dictionary in another.

"I am studying," he says, smiling. "This is good."