Hope for Afghan Children

Bashardost, his given name, means lover of humanity.  Ramazan of course refers to the month of fasting, a month of sacrifice.  As people die in this war (for NATO and ISAF soldiers and Marines, and for Afghan forces the worst month in the war’s nine year history, for civilians the worst year), and as oil slowly suffocates the life out of the Gulf, it is a lie if I say I particularly love humanity, and as I see the only sacrifice being made is by average people, not the ones in power, not the ones with the money and hands on the wheel, I grow tired of caring.  There do not seem to be any alternatives to capitalism, as all other systems equally succumb to the same and sometimes even more brutal arrangement.  I guess this is why I work with children; with them there is always hope.

It took four days, but I managed to download a Disney film onto my computer.  It is a film that is new, yet harkens back to my own childhood dreams.  Narrated by James Earl Jones, a celebration of beautiful, all powerful Earth.  As we head into exam time at the government schools, I discuss our blue orb with every one of my students (now around 120).  I first showed them a shuttle launch I pulled from Youtube, and then photos from space, from the moon, the Hubble telescope.  The experience was unforgettable.  How do you explain such a thing to grown, developed children who have never actually seen such photos nor contemplated such a concept as being alone in space?  I worked my way back from deep space, to planets, to the moon, and finally Earth.  This culminates tomorrow when I show the film at Mehan, a celebration of what is ultimately worth fighting for, that which sustains us, our consciousness, our love and our joy.

My first “semester” of this year has concluded.  To all my 14 and older students (there are 30 of them) I gave a mid-term exam, 100 questions, about two hours to complete.  Only two failed.  Twenty-three of them ranged from 78 – 88%.  Five got scores in the nineties: Hala, Sadiqa, Maria, Ali and Sosan.  I am pleased that I seemed to have composed an exam not too difficult, not too easy.  I am moving Sosan to the twice a week, two-hour tutorial (Purple group).  When I announced this to Purple group, two in that class sank in their seats, Yasamin and Pashtana, because their scores (86 and 83) were according to them a failure.  They assumed one of them was getting booted to make room for Sosan.  A half-hour into class I put my marker down.  “Why the long faces?  What is wrong?”  They wouldn’t say until at the end of class Sosan, equally dejected, spoke up.

“Ian-jan, who is going?”

I completely missed her meaning.  She had to ask three times before it dawned on me.

“Oooh,” I said, almost collapsing, admonishing myself for not being clear, “I only said Sosan is joining Purple group, did I say anyone is leaving?”

The relief was so intense Pashtana began to cry.

I want to address a quality in most of these children, particularly the girls, and that is toughness.  Pashtana’s tears were silent, yet she didn’t try to hide them either.  There is nothing remotely self pitying about any of the girls when their pain rises to the surface, or in this case the tears of relief that indicate just how important a single hour of instruction is to Pashtana.  The pressure they feel to seize opportunity and succeed is not associated with parental pressure or peer pressure or even pressure from within.  I believe it has to do with the pressure of the alternative lurking, waiting, fawning: life as a slave, or worse.

I have managed to pester the university enough, and our eternal ally on the inside Mike Smith has managed to circumvent the urge to suspend use of the football field.  Last night I got to be the “head coach” so-to-speak in the girls’ return to the field after a month delay following the suicide bombing.  (Jamshid is in Dubai, meeting Farzana and Mahbooba who are returning from Italy.)  A gale and cloudburst roared through south-west Kabul.  The girls did not huddle in the vans.  They rushed onto the field and ran through the torrent, kicking the soccer ball up and down the field.  I could see the storm would soon blow over, sunshine was on its way, so I let them play.  As we started a match a double rainbow arched across from one mountain to another in the east.  Swallows by the dozens flitted across the field.  It was a glorious break from the heat and dust of summer that had hit this past week.  The match was intensely competitive and physical.  Leema got smacked by an elbow full force on the face.  Sahar got a line-drive in the stomach, Malalai butterfly got another ball square on her nose.  There were six incidents where a girl was hurt.  No babying here.  Within a half-minute the ball was back in play and the injured girl, only a moment before in pain on the ground, was up and after it.  I was on red team, and a staff member Ghani was on white.  Ghani is young and very swift on his feet.  I on the other hand…  My one shining moment was a perfect pass angled in front of the net for Khalida to punch in.  Score was white 4 and red 2.  Hands on knees, panting, I shook my head.  I am an old man, I muttered.  Parwana raced over.  “Ian-jan, you are old, but here you are young.”  Her right hand was over her heart.  “Come, we have five minutes!”  Together we ran downfield for a final push.

What I am doing is not remotely brave.  I am merely doing what I’ve unconsciously been training myself to do all my life.  Nor is it so difficult to be brave if it is your job, if you are a parent or a soldier or a firefighter.  Bashardost goes without a bodyguard, but he I wager does not feel or consider himself brave.  Is it bravery to choose death to save a life, or is bravery subtler than those hallmarks?  I wonder if it has something to do with choosing life when all around you is death.  So many times I have negotiated with the idea of giving up.  It is very tempting, and thus I could never besmirch those who have.  History never seems to change.  In the end, as those photos of a distant star now verify, our sun will swallow Earth whole.  Why all the fuss?  When I in my daily activities get to experience such real bravery as exhibited by the children of AFCECO, it is not difficult to explain why all the fuss.

They had never experienced questioning a leader of their country.  They had never experienced a two-hour exam.  They had never experienced running through a storm just for fun, a football in the face, competing to the final minute, and they had never seen their world, our world, as one blue and white island spinning in seeming endless nothingness.  As I watched, in every instance they recovered something of what it is I used to believe is good in the human spirit.

It is clear now, what I will say to God if she exists, on the day I will die.

“Throw me in the room with the orphans, will you?”