“So you want a continuation of the same level of aid or an increase?”
“Obviously the level must increase. We have more people to feed, we have more people to heal, we have more people to clothe, to give drinking water to; we have more cattle — and the logistical problems involved are enormous, you know. We had only 300,000 people in 1979; that is our base, that is the benchmark. And in the last one and a half years, we have about 2.2 million people …”†
“Do you have much of a problem with dishonesty — refugees reporting larger families than they have, and so forth?”
“No,” cried Abdullah, annoyed, “that is a human factor; you always find it in all refugee theaters in the world. I don’t think it’s the kind of factor which should affect our planning or the basic health of this operation. We have been fully cognizant of the situation right from the beginning, and in this last reevaluation operation, which continued more than five months (and even now it is continuing in some areas), we have become very sure of our figures. Those unverifiable families have not been counted.”
Commissioner Abdullah, it seemed, spoke on so lofty a level that the Young Man could not relate the words to anything in his experience. For the life of him he could not get a single concrete picture from what the man said.
“How possible do you think it is to separate refugee aid from political aid for the Afghans?” he said, hoping to hear some reference to Gulbuddin.
“Well, that question need not be asked at this forum, for we basically deal with the refugees, not with the politicians. But when you help the refugees, you, in a way, directly or indirectly, are helping their cause also. So, the greatest help for the refugees would be to create conditions where they could go back to their country and live there peacefully and honorably.”
“I was under the impression that certain political groups … were doing a great deal for the refugees on their own …”
“… Yes, they do…,” said Abdullah. “We treat them all alike …”‡
At the end of the interview, Abdullah made him play the tape back for him, listened very carefully, approved it, and dismissed him.
Going back out, he lost his way and passed through a suite of do-nothing clerks whose desks were clean of papers, pencils, or anything other than their bare feet. They were rolling cigarettes on their knees.
A lesson at school (Hangu Camp)
“So the school is closed today?” the Young Man asked. The administrator nodded earnestly. “It is closed today. They have been given leave.”
“Because of the heat?”
“Because of the heat. There were, um, so many illnesses in this school, you see. But the other school is open. The students are studying. We’ll take you there.”
“How often are the students given leave?”
The administrator sighed. “Only when it is extensive heat, like nowadays. Oh, it is terrible.” —He fanned himself. — “For us it is terrible; for them it is, um, killing, you see.”
They walked up to the school. The children were reciting aloud, in unison. The nearest one was a tiny boy in blue, leaning over the cloth pages of the book that was almost as big as he was, his hands clasped as he studied the picture of the tent, beneath which were three lines of Pushtu cursive, then the picture of the parasol, and he huddled very close because the tent was dark. The Young Man thought in anguish: so I have seen him, recognized him; but I can never see all the others! — For he could not get over this recurring difficulty. — When the administrator and the Young Man arrived, the schoolteacher stopped the lesson immediately, in order not to waste the Young Man’s valuable time.
“What are they taught here?” he asked.
The administrator interpreted.
The schoolteacher stood at attention. “Pushtu, Urdu, English, ABC, and so forth.”
“But religion is the most important course?” the Young Man hazarded.
“Yes, it is compulsory, you see.”§
“How many students do you have?”
“The total number is about 290. But the smaller ones, they have allowed them not to come, because of the heat.”
“What is your biggest need?”
“Books,” the schoolmaster said. He was a young, very serious man. “These have been supplied by Hezb-i-Islami. The education department, they have not supplied them to this school.”
The children stared up at him from their mats.
“And, you see,” the administrator added, “I was feeling very thirsty just now, so I asked them what about these people when they become thirsty and there is no arrangement for water? I have now told one of their watchmen to have a big jug and fill it up.”
“I see,” said the Young Man. — How odd that no one had thought of this until now! Perhaps by some coincidence the children had never been thirsty before today. That must surely be it.
“Still, this water problem is general,” confided the administrator. “In every camp we face this insufficiency of water.”
“How do you manage to teach students of different ages all at the same time?”
The administrator did not bother to translate. “But it is all the same class!”
“Could you tell him for me that I’m very sorry to have interrupted his class?”
“No, no, never mind; it is too hot!” the administrator laughed. “They want some diversion. There are very few diversions in their lives, you see.”
Strange as it may seem, I did not understand the nightmare that I was seeing. Partly it was because I was sick that I was sometimes little more than a data collector; partly it was because I was so young that the exoticism of the experience made the greatest impression on me; partly it was because, thanks to my background, I had little understanding of physical suffering. Now, when I reflect upon this school without books, open on a day so hot that the other school was closed — this school without water, this single class for all students irrespective of age (I saw six-year-olds there, and I saw ten-year-olds, all reciting the same things over and over) — I want to weep — no, to do something — but I don’t know what. As for the Young Man, I don’t remember precisely what he thought, but the plain of his speculations had already become flat, sandy ground, oval-shaded by a single tree, on which grazed scrawny cattle light and dark. Tents and little stone houses lay along the ridges. It was very hot.
“In education,” said my informant in 1985, “the English language was the main foreign language. Now Russian is. But they do not call it a foreign language; they call it ‘the language of our big neighbor to the north.’ They are gradually eliminating English in Afghanistan. The puppet government is on good terms with the Cuban government, so now Spanish is taught. — This is a new phenomenon on our cultural scene,” he said sarcastically. “They still have a German Department, but it is now an East German Department.”
Surely thy Lord [2]
In every camp he went they were hospitable to him (except, as I said, when he took pictures of their women). They made him tea and served him bread and meat, always waiting until he had had his fill before they ate. Some of them worked with their trucks and tractors, hauling things. A man laughed and showed him how to plait a rope from grass. The boys played ball. Never did he forget the man laughing so happily ha-ha! showing all his white teeth, as he braided grass into rope to show the Young Man, and his elder son watched the Young Man with a polite upward-bowing of lips but the younger son stood half behind, resting his head dreamily on his brother’s shoulder…