Monday 8 April 2019

Afghanistan Visit April 2019

Kabul March/April 2019 


Sitting at Kabul airport on my way to England, two weeks of Afghanistan behind me, memories to last a lifetime.
Kabul moves on. The concrete walls may grow higher, the road blocks may spread their tentacles further, the ring of steel may hold up the irrepressible traffic, but like water to a riverbed, the Afghans find their way through. Businesses continue to spring up and change continues its relentless march.

I notice an Apple store, shopping malls, fast food shops, pizza delivery bikes, more women than before with faces uncovered.  Giant billboards depict flawless, unveiled women or smiling dentists in immaculate kit, their patients with gleaming white teeth and shiny new braces.
But poverty outpaces change. Beggars tap on the windows of our armour-plated vehicles, which prevent even the softest hearts from leaning out and giving. There is no safety net here. The disabled propel themselves between the cars on handmade carts, desperately trying to attract attention and money, courting death in the choking fumes midst the angry wheels of uncaring traffic.  Young girls in dust worn scarves, cheated of childhood and school, clutch plastic bags of rubbish as they pick their way through Kabul’s detritus.

The streets of Shar-I Nau buzz with life, its vibrancy palpable. Young men, their faces veiled in smoke and shiny with sweat, fan glowing coals under sizzling Kabuli kebabs. Fish strung outside crowded stalls catch the light with rainbow scales and scents of spicy street food and sticky sweets fresh from bubbling cauldrons, fill the air. The leafy park has swings and slides, and trees which have born witness to years of conflict and now a tense peace, cast their shade over wooden benches where weary residents rest. The cinema, once derelict is now back in use. I hear it attracts few people, and mostly truant kids, because there are so many movie channels on TV, that people don’t need to go out.

The pollution claims as many lives as the conflict. Traffic is often at a standstill and the miracle is how it moves at all, often with no reason or order, vehicles just weave in and out of each other in every direction, hooting their way to freedom.
Kabul is one of the most dangerous cities in the world and the concrete walls and endless hesco almost feed the fear. The barriers are thicker, the sniper shields higher and yet after a while, it becomes a norm and the harsh backdrop becomes just that, a background to a city which refuses to give in.


Takhar

The sun shone over Kabul City as we boarded the UNHAS flight which, like a bus, stopped at Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz and finally, Faizabad. As we flew over Kabul, the city stretched out like a vast old carpet, worn and faded until it reached the snow covered incisors of the Hindu Kush. It has been a harsh winter and just a few shards of silver rock face emerge from the dazzling layers of snow. The snow promises water and the water is a gift to a city in a land which has been too long parched in a relentless drought.


Faizabad holds a special place in my heart having been the first place I landed back in 2001 on an adventure that would shape the years to come. After the pollution of Kabul, those first steps into the crystal light are cleansing and powerful. Spring is emerging from winter and the fields and hills are cloaked in camouflage as the vivid green wheat emerges from the copper soil. Some years it fails, responding only to the gift of water, which has proved elusive recently, leading to untold suffering and displacement through drought.
I am back. I feel so at home in these areas, have so many years of memories, know each turn of the road. Our drivers have been with me almost from the start and it is good to be re-united. Like an old familiar record played over and over, but which never ceases to please, nuanced changes and new observations, giving colour to the past.
We reach Farkhar and there we meet our school consultants in a strange garden full of street lamps and plants, plastic pagodas and streams. We eat fresh trout from the Kocha River and enjoy our reunion before heading on to Worsaj.

The mud brick houses and adobe walls are there as ever, the terraced fields and the wooden ploughs drawn by oxen. A timeless scene and yet new life is springing up. Things are changing. There are more buildings emerging along the way. New or half built mosques are in every village and sometimes more than one. There is a vocational training centre and an agricultural college, a brand new petrol station and bright blue schools, largely built by AC, standing proud against the backdrop of mountains.
As the light fades, we are taken to a village house for the night. And there I see the most dramatic change of all. Usually we are in simple village houses, very clean, but very basic. This house is a palace! Instead of the usual thick wooden gate, elaborately carved and beautiful in its defence, the wall and gate are metal and the old door lies redundant in the garden. The house is concrete and of modern design and we enter through a hall bedecked with oversized and incongruous armchairs. The electricity is dazzling and in the men’s quarters I glimpse a huge smart TV on the wall and an equally large electric fire. There is a shower, hot and cold water in the house, a washing machine. I feel almost confused by the surprise of what I find. The house is owned by a family whose mother is illiterate, the children educated. One son is in the Ministry of Defence, a daughter is employed as an education field officer, and another son is at Kabul University. They have all been educated in schools supported by AC. Money is coming back to the village.
I am ushered into the women’s quarters and spend a delightful evening with many of the village women. One is the headmistress of my favourite Worsaj School. I am happy to hear about all the changes afoot in Worsaj. I ask her if she would mind being filmed the next day for an interview. I am very disappointed when she makes the excuse that she is heavily pregnant and having a bit of pain, but somewhat humbled when she gives birth that night!
Our first morning, we head to a school we built back in 2013. The sun is coming up over the mountains and the almond blossom is in full bloom and stretches as far as the eye can see, creating a carpet of lace clouds in the softest candyfloss pink and white. The stark beauty of this area never fails to astonish and remains a secret from the outside world.
The school is on the valley floor and as we park directly above, we can see the columns of children waiting to greet us. As we get closer, we see they are holding banners and flowers. The banners have splendid messages on….everything from we love you Dr Sarah, to thank you for your humanitarian aid and  Welcome we are happy to host you! Someone has been very busy.
This school when we first visited, was held outside under the trees. Most girls were dropping out of school at the end of primary level because of the lack of a building and female teachers. This time, I go into classrooms which have been kept immaculate and am struck by a huge transformation. The girls in the upper grades are sitting there, their faces uncovered, all asking to tell their story. We have an Afghan camera man with us. The first girl we interview has already graduated from the school and tells us it is only because of the school building that she was able to complete her studies. Before her parents would not allow her to go to school. She is from a large family and both her parents are illiterate. She got into the Medical faculty at Kabul University to study Public Health. She is full of hope for the future and she fills me with a similar hope. This is the new, literate generation, completing school, marrying later and having fewer children, a generation determined to serve their country and bring an end to the conflict, their dream, a peaceful Afghanistan.
The girls tell us what they want to do with their lives and dream of being doctors, engineers and pilots, determination etched on their young faces.

The teachers and elders, including the head of the Shura and the local Mullah, are all waiting for us in the meeting room, sitting on red carpets, their faces intense. They thank us for all we have done. The school has revolutionised opportunities for the families in these villages, giving the chance for girls to complete their education. The Mullah speaks and tells us that he preaches that all children should be educated and all his sons and daughters are at school. He sees education as the light of the future.




Everywhere we go we are smothered in garlands of flowers and scattered with bags of glitter. And  we are fed. The hospitality knows no bounds. I fear the population of sheep, partridge and chicken has been severely dented. You cannot visit a school or a home without a huge feast being laid out on the floor and many hands have been at work to provide this generosity. The problem is that it limits the time we have for visiting schools and by the end of each day, I am exhausted from the rushing from school to school. 

The evenings are spent in long discussion with the village women, who give me a privileged insight into their lives and the dramatic changes unfolding through education. These are moments to treasure, huddled on the floor, sharing plates of steaming food, cooked with love, grannies, mothers and children together, the soft babble of voices never silent. Sleep is sparse and privacy a forgotten privilege.

We spend the days visiting new school buildings and resource centres with labs, computers and libraries and community based schools, where previously there was no education at all-the rich results of years of fundraising and the remarkable generosity of donors. We interview community members, parents, teachers and students and collect a catalogue bearing witness both to the miracle of education and to the challenges of unemployment and poverty. It is hard to describe the immense joy I feel when I hear of the positive changes our support has brought and it is clear that the community holds us close to their hearts and values hugely what we have done.

The change is rather symbolically summed up for us as we leave the beautiful valleys of Worsaj and head for Farkhar. We stop to interview a farmer who is expertly guiding his oxen, ploughing a field with an old wooden plough just in front of a new school building. He tells us that he is illiterate and never had the opportunity to go to school. All his 8 children attend or have attended the first school we ever built in this region, back in 2007. He thanks us and says we have changed their lives and given them all hope for a better future, they will not have to suffer a harsh life like his.
As we head to Farkhar the clouds darken and unleash their burden of rain. The cars struggle
through river beds and slippery mud and I marvel that we have managed to build schools in these impossibly remote areas. It is Friday and in theory, the schools are closed. We have asked one school if we can do a few interviews and see the new Resource Centre, built by National Geographic and equipped with funding from the UK government. As we walk the last bit of the journey, jumping over the snowmelt and rain filled gullies, we see a bedraggled line of children, all holding garlands awaiting our
arrival. They have all come despite it being Friday and the welcome is overwhelming. I love this school. They keep it beautifully and have done so much extra work themselves to the school we have built. The doorways and window frames have all been beautifully carved and it is lovingly cared for.
We meet with Fahima, the first girl ever to graduate from school in this area. She was the girl I met a few years back and was so impressed by her ambition to be the first ever girl to complete her education. When I saw her last year, she was in despair as the Grade 12 class, her final year, had been cancelled by the government. I went to the provincial education

director in Taloqan and pleaded with him to help and he allowed her to enrol at a school some 3 hours away to complete her studies. She had done it despite every challenge. But now all she wanted to do was to teach at her school, so that other girls could complete their studies. There are no female teachers because these are the first girls to be educated. So now we will try and support her with teacher training and a teacher support job in this school. We will find a way. She is one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. So softly spoken and diminutive, yet with courage of steel. She is a true hero. She is the hope for the future. Her father is desperately poor but has done everything he can to support her. He has even built a room onto
the house, so that she can teach illiterate women in the village.
The harsh reality is that most of the girls drop out of this school early because there are no female teachers and most of the boys are sent, aged 16-18 to Iran to work on construction sites. We all think about the barriers to girls’ education, but where we are working, more boys than girls are dropping out because they are so poor, they have to seek work to support their families. One boy told us of the terror of going to Iran, the beatings, the police, the abject fear.
Trump and his sanctions have had a devastating impact on income in these villages. Now there is no work in Iran, and as one villager put it, the sanctions on Iran are actually sanctions on Afghanistan too.



We reach Taloqan as the thunder and lightning crash around us and the irony is that having had electricity in the rural areas, we have none in the city. It is bleak and the rain pounds the iron sheet roof all night. I don’t feel as relaxed as I do in the villages. This is an unknown place, lacking the warmth of the villages I know so well and where I feel so safe. My room is a safe room, with thick steel grey shutters and a 6 inch steel door, with a massive bolt that I draw across just once, when my nerves fail me and I think I hear a gun shot, which is most likely just an innocent noise. As I lie in bed with my torch, feeling a little homesick and not really relishing my stay in this Northern city, I also realise that we are unlikely to reach Rustaq next day. The rain just won’t stop. The main road – a good tarmac route- has been taken over by Taliban and so we would have to travel by another way, and one which is all off road and subject to landslides and flooding. 

We set out next morning but are forced to turn around as the way is just too dangerous. By evening, the sun is out and the sky is bright blue over the snowy mountains. I have hope that we will at least reach Rustaq the next day, though sadly we have lost a day of school visits.

My journey to Rustaq is breathtaking. The rain has fed the landscape and the response is a patchwork of vivid greens against the vast white mountains. The views are eternal. Villages cling to the hills, flocks of goats caked in mud interrupt our route. It is wild and dramatic, with great sheer drops below the muddy track. I am certain we would not have made it the day before. We are well shaken by the time we reach the first school. This was funded by Euromoney and is a wonderful school in a remote community which now has girls attending school for the first time.


The next school is supposedly 5 minutes away. 1 hour of bone shaking journey up old river beds later, we arrive. The whole community has come out. A line of elders is waiting for me and I greet them all, looking at their faces which have been exposed to so much sun, snow, drought,  labour, conflict, poverty. Their histories are etched in those faces. It is at times like these that one wonders how one ever arrived at this moment, the hopes of so many people in such a remote and forgotten corner of our world resting upon
your visit. They want a school. They all sit on a mat in front of me and talk to me, the camera recording them, telling me that they want to educate their children but desperately need our support with a building. But there are 700-800 children and this would be a vast project.
How do we decide, what do we prioritise, how can we say no, or yes? A hundred questions fill my mind and I do as I always do, say I understand, say I cannot promise anything, say I will do my best.
There is a request for me to meet the women of the village. They are huddled in burkas and I
cannot see their faces. They hold my hand and pull me close and I hug them, trying to look into their eyes through the grills of their burkas, trying to connect, trying to show that I care. They are illiterate and want a better life for their children. They put garlands over my head and thank me for coming all this way.
Then there is the inevitable and obligatory lunch and the realisation that we will never reach the next school on time and still manage to get back before dark. I make the uncomfortable and frustrating decision to turn back, meaning we will not get to the school I most wanted to visit. I know they will be standing there in lines, excited that we are coming and I feel utterly miserable to let them down, but absolutely sure that we must return. I curse the Taliban for taking the road which could have given us a much easier journey and led us to all the schools.

Cricket
It is the most incredible achievement that Afghanistan will be playing in the Cricket World Cup this year and we want to share the joy and celebration with young people in Afghanistan. Whilst I had been travelling in the villages, our partner, the Afghan Youth Cricket Support Organisation, led by former Captain of Afghanistan, Raees Ahmadzai, had rolled out our world cup celebration projects in East Afghanistan.
The first project was for 6 teams from schools where we have built pitches who came together and played a tournament in Jalalabad and the winner then came to play a final in Kabul. Very sadly, the Kabul venue was moved from the National Stadium, as they were re-turfing the pitch and the new venue was off limits for me for security reasons. So I sent my camera along with our film crew and was delighted to see the joyful photos after the match.
The power of sport!

I am nearly home now, just 2 hours from Heathrow and those Takhar villages already seem a lifetime away. It has been a very special visit and as ever, it is a privilege to be able to travel to those regions and I am indebted to our partner, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan.
The progress in Worsaj is dramatic and it is clear that by concentrating all our efforts on this one district, we have made a transformative impact. It demonstrates the possibility, the hope, the absolute positive outcome of education and all our efforts have born fruit and are helping the people to take a giant step towards a better future.   Rustaq remains a vast challenge. It is a very large district, with more than 20,000 children out of school. The population faces poverty, drought and the emergence of the Taliban. Education is vital and there is no time to waste.