the schools that the taliban don't torch

(From The Washington Monthly, December '07)

The road from Kabul to Azra, a mountainous district in Afghanistan's central Logar Province, is, in places, not a road at all. At some points it's a rocky riverbed, at others an open desert. For one terrifying stretch, it's a twisty gorge known as the Dubandi Pass, famous for carjackings by Taliban bandits. The steep terrain and treacherous roads have always made this part of the world remote, even by Afghan standards. Tribal ties are stronger than national loyalties, and the unguarded border with Pakistan makes the region an easy access point for insurgents. Azra is the kind of place that both Kabul and Washington worry about most.

As violence has risen, development in this area has floundered. The United States Agency for International Development is funding a much-needed new highway in Azra, but work crews have been repeatedly evacuated because of insurgent threats. This past summer, the murder of two aid workers in a nearby district led Azra's only local nongovernmental organization (NGO) to shut down its office for a month.

But there is one project here that's proceeding relatively unimpeded. One sunny morning in July, I visited a small hydropower facility under construction in the village of Dadi Khel. There I watched a few dozen villagers building a small channel, slapping together stones and mortar beside a riverbank. When the project is finished, river water will spin a turbine that will bring electricity to about 300 village families. It will be enough power to allow those residents to turn on lights, iron clothes, and watch Bollywood soaps—a small advance in the face of their many problems, perhaps, but also the first development project that any villager here can remember. And it's remarkable that it exists at all.

Read the rest of the story here.

lowered expectations

Refugees in the little town of Barikab. Click here for story on The World.

if you're a journalist, help us

I am walking to my favorite kebob house for lunch when I see an old woman sitting on the sidewalk, screaming. She is well dressed and she is clutching another woman who seems helpless and embarrassed. There are many leather jacketed men moving in and out of a furniture store like bees after their hive has been cracked open. I know this store. I bought a desk chair there once. But they don’t want to talk to me and so, after standing around for a while with the other gawkers, I go in to have my lunch.

Inside I am seated directly in front of the TV which is loud enough to make my teeth rattle. The program is a talk show in which we are shown tight close-ups of bearded men talking about the corruption problem in government. Then an ad comes on which shows a turbaned genie perched on a village wall. I know he is a genie because there are video-effect bubbles hovering around his head like swollen luminescent gnats. The genie is telling a farmer to warn the police about IEDs. The man seems surprised. It’s the right thing to do, says the genie. OK, says farmer. He runs and flags down some approaching police jeeps. “Look!” the farmer shouts, and points to a landmine which looks something like a lime green bicycle gear embedded in the dusty road. “Thanks!” say the police. The farmer’s son thanks the genie who promptly snaps his fingers and disappears. It's like the persian version of those subway posters.






Outside the screaming woman is gone and the crowd is dispersed and the leather jacket crowd at the furniture company are more amenable to speak. In fact. they spot me and flag me down. “We have big news!” they say. For a moment I wonder if they are trying to sell me another chair. But then I see the manager has blood on her hand which has spattered onto her shirt. “If you are a journalist, please help us," she says. “They came in, they kicked everybody they kicked everything." It takes a while to get the story. They are subcontracting a cell phone project to a shady dude in the east who came in this morning to demand more and more money. An hour after he left, the ‘special crimes unit’ police arrived. They wore no uniforms. They dragged away the owner, and smashed his cell phone when he tried to call for help. “He has a heart condition,” says his daughter.

As I'm sitting listening to this story, one of the "policemen" come back! He says he needs the man's heart medication. His daughter screams and jumps into the car to go home to get the medication. The cop sits looking bored. I fear the worst.

I am writing this while sitting on the desk chair he sold me.

I’ll call tomorrow to see what happened.

christmas in kabul

let me start with some sorrys. first for the title of this post. i really didn't want to begin on such a cheesy note. But it's a holiday with a lot of gravitational pull. Second for falling off the blog for a few weeks. i don't exactly know who i'm apologizing to, but you know who you are, my bench team.



Somewhere in the mess on my floor, among the multivitamins and DV tapes and old saucers, among the notebooks and paper scraps and alka seltzer and flak jacket and wasabi peas, pepper garlic flavor, among a selection of bagged tea and the collected stories of Barthelme, my dusty sneakers, my little red accordion, wires, cords, memory cards and baum de tigre and some long underwear, somewhere amongst the junk is a christmas card from Waheed. Festive Greetings, it says, Especially For You.

There is an odd feeling one gets at christmastime in a strictly muslim country. I suppose its a bit like being a Jew in Kansas. The holiday differentiates you from your neighbor. Today I got a text message from an Afghan friend which read: "Christmas is a special occasion for you. Hope you are enjoying it in afghanistan any way."

It's the opposite of christmas in new york, where the collective spirit might either epel you or sweep you up. here, christmas makes you the object of attention, so you end up feeling a weird sense of ownership towards the day. it's like a little crumb of holiday. But somehow it tastes quite sweet.

anyway, my power is about to be shut off. so, merry christmas, and enjoy.

g

meat of human

There are big warlords, and there are little warlords. Big bombs and little bombs. Suicide attacks are happening with increasing regularity in Kabul, but when you consider that 3 or 4 people die out of a city of 4 million, the risk of actually getting killed by a bomb is very small.

The bomb up north last month, though, was one of the big ones. Not just because more people died than in any blast in Afghan history. Not just because there were six delegates (the entire economic committee) and 70-odd schoolkids that died. But because no one took responsibility. And thus the bomb is like a question mark for Afghans - was it Taliban? warlords? Even Karzai himself gets blamed in the furious rumor mill that has its own aftershocks and casualities.

That is the significance of the bomb up in Baghlan. I went to Baghlan a few weeks ago and did this story for The World. You'll understand the title of this blog if you hear the piece. If you don't have time to listen, I'll just say that 10 days after the bomb the trees were still red.

(And yes, for those most loyal readers, this is the same story I talked about doing with Dr. Daud up north, i'm just a dork and forgot to post it until now.)

give me my top

got my visa today. The five hour ordeal involved trips to two different ministries and four different offices. By afternoon I was ready to eat the carbon paper. Finally we got the various stamps and signatures and we drove across town so I could pay the $10 fee for the visa itself. The bank is a dimly lit old building inlaid with marble and mahogany and dust. My teller had blocked off his window with a newspaper; looking closer I saw it was the NATO propaganda paper. I had nothing to do but wait and read the tortured syntax: "After long periods of suffering and destruction, Afghanistan is moving forward, not the least of which, economically," began the lead article. The next article was "Taliban Kill Hostage." Then there was something about kids in a library.



Then I heard a voice from behind the newsprint. I stooped down to the little slot and eyed the teller, whose suit matched his gray moustache. "Give me my top," he said again.

"Top?" I said.

I shuffled through the multiple thin sheets of paper with dari script I was clutching. It was only when he used the arabic word bakshish that i realized he was asking for a tip. I just laughed and he laughed and he gave me another thin sheet of paper with scribbles and I left, having paid my $10 and no more.

I think what surprises me about bribe-taking in afghanistan is not how common it is but how half-hearted. I've been asked for bribes dozens of times but they always back down pretty quickly. Unlike in the former Soviet Union, where they rarely ask outright for the bribe but god help you if you don't pay something, or know someone, because you will dribble half your life away waiting for fairness on the cold tile under the fluorescent bulb.

children with adult faces

finally got myself a cell phone with a camera, so expect a lot of grainy pics of kabul from here on. these were two kids i happened to meet yesterday. the boy on the left is a shepherd, i passed him with his father leading a herd of sheep and a few goats down a kabul alley. (The alley near my house turns out to be the main thoroughfare between the squatter homes on the mountain and the street with all the butchers where blood runs down the gutter.) In the kid's hand is a thin tree branch he uses to whip the animals if they fall out of line, though, really there's nowhere to go. I squeeze around the animals copping a feel of rough warm wool as I pass by.

the boy on the right is a chimney sweep I guess you'd say, he cleans out the neighborhood wood stoves (bukari's). I met him this evening in the corner store. I turned around and there's the afghan huck finn at my shoulder just staring at me. His ruddy cheeks are smeared with grey ash. His voice is like a hammer hit hard on iron. He's speaking Dari but I can't understand even a single word he says. He goes over to the cooler and grabs a carton of juice and tips it down his throat. I request a picture. First he says no, then he laughs and says yes. Then he gets shy and hides behind the cooler. This photo was taken during the yes period.

According to the Human Development Index 2007 released last month, life expectancy in Afghanistan is 43 years. That's down from 44.5 years in 2003.

"Afghans live almost nine years less than people in other Least Developed Countries, the report's findings show."