Bright paint splatters everywhere after the little boy tumbles from the ledge of a rock face. The small bucket he is carrying spirals off down the mountainside. Seconds later, the youngster stands up, rubs his chest for a while and smiles.
Nine-year-old Ruhullah is helping a painter work on his small house on a hillside in the centre of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Around 2,000 houses in the dusty, poverty-stricken Joy-e Sheer area, barely a kilometre from the Afghan presidential palace, are painted in bright colours thanks to a new project run by Kabul's municipal authorities.
The pilot project launched last week aims at "beautifying" Kabul and contributing to the citizens' "mental relaxation," Abdul Jalil Sultani, a spokesman for the Kabul municipality told dpa.
A bit of beauty and relaxation are sorely needed in the city of five million inhabitants these days. Hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people still flee here from the ongoing fighting between Afghan government and Islamist Taliban movements across the country.
The city is currently unable to deal with the mass influx of people, jobs and housing are scarce and poverty in the sprouting slum neighbourhoods is on the increase.
At the same time, danger levels in the Afghan capital are rising too. Since January there have been seven large attacks by the Taliban or Islamic State militia groups which have killed or injured hundreds of citizens. Smaller attacks, for example explosive devices stuck to police vehicles, occur weekly if not daily these days.
With Kabul's new colourful house painting project, mountainside residents can choose from either orange, red, yellow, white or blue for their houses, city spokesman Sultani said.
However, red is not a favourite colour among the locals apparently.
"Red is the colour of blood and we have seen enough blood," says Mohammad Musa, a 60-year-old resident who has lived in his small, three-room house, now painted light blue. He has lived here with his family for the past 14 years since he migrated back from Iran.
Musa says that the colourful houses contribute to the beauty of Kabul and he wants the project to continue. But, it doesn't solve the underlying problems, he admits.
"Our area is mountainous, we have no proper steps to climb up, no roads, no clinics and schools are very far," Musa says, adding that the area still lacks running water.
Many of Kabul's neighbourhoods are located on similar hillsides, most of which are very rocky.
Houses are made of dust brown bricks or rocks from the mountainside. They seldom have sanitation, are frying hot in summer and offer little shelter from the freezing winter winds.
Shamsulhaq, a 52-year-old resident originally hailing from north-eastern Panjshir province, says the initiative will "portray a brighter face of Kabul."
Ali Mirza, another resident, says if they need a doctor he and other residents have to carry their sick family members down the mountain on a stretcher, which takes over an hour. Sometimes patients die on the way down before medical assistance can be reached.
While excited that his house will no longer resemble the colour of the mountain he lives on, Mirza really hopes that "maybe the media coverage for this project will have authorities and aid agencies pay attention to our problems."
