We arrive at the road construction camp by foot on a cold afternoon in April 2019. It is snowing and a chill wind blows through the narrow gorge carved by the Wakhan river. Coming from Sarhad-e Broghil, at the eastern end of Afghanistan’s road network, it takes us a few hours to make our way up the roughly ten kilometers of gravel road. Here, a dozen men spend months on end blasting and digging a narrow road into the rock along old shepherd tracks. This road – which barely fits two cars at once – is part of a grander narrative and vision of connectivity with China to the east.