Jawzareen Valley-May Journal 2008

Jawzjareen Valley, Bamyan
April/May 2008
Journal

April 27th
7:00 am our team loads into our battered SUV and we head for Bamyan. This is the first trip to Bamyan that I have taken without guests from out-of-country and although the road is worse than it was last trip, we are relaxed, happy to get out of Kabul and ready to get to work. I have Palwasha with me, 11-year veteran of PARSA and one of the Afghan directors. She has brought her mother as chaperon. It is very difficult to hire women who will travel, and most of the time tradition requires a chaperon. We have Sami-gak, (Little Sami), who has worked for PARSA since he was about 14 years old. He is one of the youngest staff members and everyone bosses him around. He is always happy for a road trip to Bamyan, where he assumes more responsibility and is treated as an adult. And then our great driver, Gul Achmad, who is quiet and competent.

We are headed up to Jawzjareen valley to hire our teachers for the “Community Village Schools” and get our programs started. Twelve teachers from my home, Seattle, have raised $12K to start this project. PARSA has other education projects in the Paghman district, but this is our first project integrating education, economic We We are headed up to Jawzareen valley to hire our teachers for the “Community Village Schools” and get our programs started. Twelve teachers from my home, Seattle, have raised $12K to start this project. PARSA has other education projects in the Paghman district, but this is our first project integrating education, economic support and health education (and hopefully later healthcare) under my watch as executive director.

We spent almost a year and a half traveling up to Jawzjareen, speaking with the villagers about what they needed before we launched this program. (The history of this project is posted on our web journal www.parsakabul.blogspot.com).

The nine-hour ride (150 kilometers) is bone jarring, but we have left early enough so that we arrive in the afternoon to our office/residence. Rides like this are the only time I wish that I didn’t understand so much Dari. Afghans have to be the most garrulous people in the world. They love to talk about anything and everything and my Afghans chatted non-stop while I tried to sleep, for the entire nine hours.

Taher and Zahra, a couple with children who are based in Bamiyan City, greeted us. They are tremendous and we are lucky to have them. But Zahra had month’s worth of complaints she was ready to take up with me the moment I arrived. I excused myself, scheduled a discussion for the morning and we ate dinner and went to bed early. A cat has adopted us, and he settled in with me for the night so I felt quite at home.

April 28th
This is our first day to go up into the valley with Zahra and Taher crammed into the car as well. There are four villages up there and we have quite a few decisions to make as we get started. On an earlier trip, Yasin had secured agreements from elders in the villages, to provide us with space to begin our school. We are hoping to walk to all of the villages, as we have to determine where to place our program so that it is not too far for any of the women we enroll. Our goal is to start with 28 women in our economic program and around 40 women in our literacy program. We also are prepared to start two Early Childhood Development Programs with 60 children under the age of 5. Additionally, we have to secure land for our “Kitchen Garden” program.

Jawzjareen is only 45 minutes away from Bamyan city, on a very bad road, but they receive no services and have a number of very poor families. Two families are orphaned and the oldest child, are providing for the younger siblings. We have met over 10 widows with children, who live high up on the mountains, where there is no water and bad soil. There are also disabled adults who are trying to care for their families. This area does, however, contain a number of wealthy Afghan potato farmers who are very miserly with their support to other community members. Where as in other communities, such as Paghman we will be providing economic development training to the entire community because the whole community is so poor-in this one I are very focused on providing just for the marginalized. The good news is that there are people in the valley that have money so our women won’t have to go all the way to Bamyan to sell their products.

Yasin has worked very hard to convince wealthy members of the community to provide land and school space for free. Today we will see how successful he was.

Palwasha, Sami, and Gul Achmad are quite light hearted, being out in the beautiful weather and spectacular landscape. We are stopped on the road up to the valley by a huge truck delivering rocks to an irrigation project and we opt to get out and walk the rest of the way. We walk by the public school, holding mostly boys. It is over a mile just to the base of the Jawzjareen valley over very tough terrain and most girls are not allowed to walk so far to school. Additionally, all family members are working the fields so education is less of a priority than providing for family. Projects like ours are being conducted by a number of agencies around the country as an interim education strategy while the Ministry of Education attempts to get public education going again. Still it is estimated that only 40% of the children in the country are receiving education, 80% of girl children are still not being educated. It was estimated that there is a shortfall of over 75,000 teachers to provide education to the children of the country. Over half of the Afghan population is under the age of 19 years old.

We hope that girls in our literacy courses will go on to a public school education, but we also understand-firsthand- the problem of distance.


We are met at the beginning of the path to Orashgosh village, by one of our teachers. Yasin tested over twenty possible teachers and selected Akil and his sister Negbah, as our teachers for this program. They had a high school education in Pakistan and both have a bit of English. However, they have no teacher training and teaching them to teach will be one of our objectives this year. At the public school, I took a picture of a proud teacher, stick in hand, with his students all lined up-and made a note to myself to connect with the teachers and see if they wanted to participate in our teacher training. Most education here competes in quality with schools in the middle ages.

We go through the hiring process, and then outline the plan for the next couple of days, including meeting with all the women that want to be in the program. Akil makes an appeal for a literacy course in his village and we say we will consider it as learn about the distance between the villages. I ask him where he was going to teach our classes for children and he take us up a sheer cliff to a little room teetering over a 200-foot fall. I ask him how he proposes to get his little students to the school, which he hadn’t considered. Much discussion and we are led to the mosque that he said they only use once a year. It is a great classroom. We tell him that he should gather the women of the village who would want to attend literacy courses at 10 tomorrow so we can consider whether to have an additional course in his village.

Akil, Negbah, Zahra, Taher, Palwasha, Sami and I set off for the next village to meet with the elders. We have forgotten to pack a lunch and are hungry. The “Wali” (leader) of the next area, is found quickly and we meet with him in his mosque. He is very amenable to having courses in the mosque. We are served a coarse but delicious country bread with yogurt as we talk. He tells us that he will gather the women the next day to meet with us about starting a literacy course. We are very tired and sore after our long drive yesterday, so we are happy to finish our work in the valley for the day….as beautiful as it is.
I have observed that as heartbreakingly difficult a life Afghans have, they can let their troubles all go and enjoy themselves immensely. My group was so happy to be in the country away from Kabul. Young Sami-gak, walked down the valley road holding my hand and swinging our arms, telling me that I was like his mother. I tried to think of a professional response as his executive director but gave into the lightheartedness of the day and let it be. He works his heart out for me and PARSA, as do I for him, and my western work style just didn’t apply today.

April 29th
We were out early and back up in the valley today. Lovely day. At the first village, Orashgosh, 50 women gathered to meet with us. Palwasha and I talked about the opportunity of learning to read, as well as have their children start to an early childhood development class. I made the comment that life is richer and sweeter for people who are educated. One exhausted looking woman told me “What life? I am like a cow. I have no life but work that I am born to and will die doing!”

A young bitter man, Mirage, was in the back observing. He chastised the group and asked them why they didn’t tell us really how awful their lives were. I asked him to leave, and I would talk with him later as I felt he was intimidating the women. I learned later that he was 21 and orphaned when he was 14. He had been caring for his brothers and sisters all this time farming on a small, rocky patch of land. I am going to see if I can hire him to help us maintain our kitchen gardens.

We left Orashgosh and moved up to our next village. We first unpacked our supply boxes so Palwasha could brief the teacher’s on the attendance and what the supplies were for. Unfortunately, she hadn’t remembered to check the boxes before we left and we discovered that our operations manager had bought over one hundred tiny aluminum cookware sets for the ECD classes-complete with plastic carrots and that we only had 10 literacy books. About 60 women waited for us at this location. Our original plan was for between 30 to 40 women from all locations. The women informed us that they would be moving to the summer grounds with the villages herd of sheep, goats and cows in two months and they wondered how they could be in literacy class if they were going to leave it. I said we would work out summer activities and visit them up in the summer grounds on my next trip…something I have always wanted to do.

|We made our scheduling arrangements. Akil is going to teach two children’s classes, and Negbah will teach two literacy courses. Then we went further up the mountain. Palwasha wanted to meet the widow I met a year and half ago that inspired the program. She hiked way up the mountain while I went with Taher to negotiate for land close to the river for our gardens. We hope to build a small two-room center down there…but have to work with the community because it is prime land.

Palwasha discovered that the widow had bought a cow with her earnings from quilting for PARSA over the winter…I try all our ideas out on her. She is a hard-bitten, proud woman who chews tobacco. Palwasha bought some “dogh” a special yogurty mild drink, from her and I was extremely pleased to learn how well she had thought everything through and invested her money. She has five beautiful daughters, and Palwasha invited them to the classes.

Taher and I met with the elder of the second mosque school to discuss renting land. All businessman, now, he offered to rent it to me for $200 for six months…a small piece although it would support the 14 families we want to work with on a kitchen garden. In Bamyan everyone grows potatoes, which they sell for a cash crop. Unfortunately they end up buying staples and vegetables from Pakistan and an exorbitant rate. We plan on working with our poor families to grow vegetables that the villagers would get from Bamyan city, to sell in the village, along with other products from the garden.

I refuse his offer as too expensive. This is a very short trip to be followed up in a week by a more comprehensive training from our team from Kabul. I am just establishing the perimeters of the program and making sure I have the right PARSA staff working on the project. Haggling over the garden land I will leave to Yasin or Palwasha, who have an Afghan’s love for bartering. Additionally, as young Afghan community leaders they feel passionate about wealthy Afghan contributing to less lucky community members, and do not mince words when dealing with the “wali’s”.

We all convene at the bottom of the valley and eat eggs and bread by the river. Sami has found a group of youth who are fishing and convinces them to give a try. We brief Taher and Zahra on their tasks in the following week but we have hit a snag with transportation. Local transportation to this area either requires an overnight if traveling by bus for $1.00, or will cost $20 by minibus. No budget for this kind of transport and if we don’t solve it our ability to monitor and support the economic programs will be severely limited. I would like to have Taher and Zahra work in the valley everyday. Another problem to solve this month. These kinds of costs are what limit the development community at our level of fieldwork from doing a good job.

We haven’t been able to visit the two upper level villages to recruit people into the courses but will do so in the next two weeks. All courses start tomorrow-and we will see how much enthusiasm the women have for education by how many of them take time out of their busy days to attend.

April 30th
It is time to travel back to Kabul. I have scheduled Zahra and Taher to visit the programs the following week, and then our training team will be up there for almost two weeks of intensive work. Word back from the villages is that 60 women showed up this morning for our second literacy course scheduled in the morning. The “Wali” responsible for that course has already asked a man in the upper villages to find a location for another course as he doesn’t have enough room for all of the in his mosque. So there is a request for yet another literacy course and for PARSA to work with over 160 women. This is way over the 30 to 40 women I had planned for, but I am going to go back to Kabul to figure out how to do so. Our next team will establish how many women are really serious about studying over the course of their time here.

Negbah, our teacher is undeterred by the fact that she only has 10 literacy books, and with Palwasha’s help she figures out how to conduct class using a blackboard and giving each woman a notebook and pencil. Palwasha gets a call back to Kabul to order 150 more from the Ministry of Education.

We load up our car, and pack my goat “Gul-lak” or “Little Flower”. She is part of our dairy project for livelihoods, but we need to work with her and her sisters back in Kabul to figure out our dairy program. She has wintered with another herd, and is pregnant, but she does remember me and is quite happy with some good snacks.

The nine-hour ride home is not enhanced by the smell of goat, I must say, although she traveled well. Nine hours of non-stop chatting and exhausted we hit the checkpoint just out of Kabul around 4:00. The Afghan officer there took one look at me and told me that I needed a registration card for traveling out of Kabul. I pulled out my Ministry card for “Foreigner’s” which he looked at and then said that was for traveling “out of country”. I need a traveling “in country” card. Over the years, having encountered every type of bureaucratic requirement, most an opportunity to collect a fee - I resist. I told him that I would be glad to come into his office to fill out the required paperwork, but I would have to bring my goat as she was a bit carsick and I couldn’t leave her. He smiled and wisely waved me on.
Marnie Gustavson
May 2008