ANA On Their Own

Afghan children hoping to get more school supplies.

Yesterday I mentioned that the ANA visited a village school and dropped off school supplies and Beanie Babies for the children.  Today I had an opportunity to discuss the trip with Mir Wais, the interpreter who accompanied them and took these photos.

Since there was so much stuff to transport, they piled everything into a 7 ton truck including some of the vitamins and medicines our medic provided.  The shelf life on the medicines was expiring soon, so this was a beneficial way to dispose of them instead of throwing them away.

Beanie Babies and school supplies waiting to be handed out.

The ANA Brigade surgeon along with his contingent of soldiers drove to the village school.  This school hosts both boys and girls during the same time period.  However, the buildings are segregated and inaccessible to each other.  One side has the girls’ classrooms and the other side houses the boys.  But in typical Afghan fashion, the girls are not provided the same resources as the boys.  None of the classrooms for the girls has any desks in them, except one designated for the teacher.

Afghan girls pose with school supplies.

But all the boys’ classrooms have antiquated desks and benches.  The girls are required to sit on the worn out floor mats while the teacher conducts the lesson or sits at the only desk present in the room.

Notice only one desk in the classroom for the teacher.

The principal insisted on handing out the school supplies to the boys first and then

Afghan boys reaching for pencils.

anything left over be given to the girls.  What was really surprising is that the girls have a female principal and she was totally unaware of what was going on.  Otherwise, they could have split the school supplies equally.  So the boys prevailed this time and received notebooks, pens, pencils, and Beanie Babies.  Only a handful of girl classrooms were given any items.

Afghan girls receiving Beanie Babies.

I’ve mentioned before in my blog, we aren’t just trying to rebuild a nation, but the real challenge is changing a culture.  I’m sure I have critics who disagree with me and even the term “ nation-building” is not PC, but I really don’t know how else to explain it.  Our taxpayer dollars contribute to 50 percent of this country’s national budget.  Much of it is specifically coded for the ANA and the ANP salaries and resources.  In addition, we are expending hundreds of millions of dollars for building infrastructure projects to include roads, dams, wells, electricity access, sewage systems, etc.  We are building schools and refurbishing them along with providing agricultural assistance in the form of seeds, saffron bulbs, etc.   So if that is not nation building, I don’t know what is.  I suppose the correct term is a generous aid package for rehabilitation.

What really gets me upset is the amount of corruption that continues to fester in this country.  I am a big proponent of education and seeing these young girls forced to sit on raggedy floor mats is appalling.  This school is less than 10 miles from the capital city where corrupt government officials are becoming wealthy by siphoning off the aid that is received in this country.  Sure they try to legitimize it by paying high consultation fees (bribes) or charge American prices on contracts only to subcontract it out and pay pennies on the dollar while pocketing the difference.  One could argue that at least these girls have a school building and are permitted to attend, unlike the remote villages where females are prohibited from going to school and the female illiteracy rate is above 80 percent.

Women are not treated equally here, including the women who serve in the ANA and ANP.   Even the women elected to Parliament (who I recall compose one third of this body) are powerless and vote according to the powerful warlords and businessmen who put them into office.  In the next paragraph I have copied an article from today’s local newspaper.  I will let you form your own opinions.

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MAZAR-I-SHARIF – Afghan officials have banned women from having an exclusive day for visiting the main shrine in the northern city of Mazar-i Sharif, saying the restriction was imposed for security reasons. The head of Balkh Women’s Affairs Department, Fariba Majeed, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the restriction was in place both for security and traffic problems. Before the restriction, at least the initial five Wednesdays of each solar year were reserved for women to visit the Shrine of Hazrat Ali, the fourth caliph of Islam. Ms Majeed said a number of ‘immorality incidents’ were reported during those exclusive days, which led to the women’s visit ban. She argued that a girl, who eloped with a man and then returned, told the interrogators that she had met the man on a Wednesday at the Shrine. However, the ban was welcomed by religious scholars, but not by women in the city, saying the move was a violation of their right. They argued that moving around ‘independently’ in the courtyard of the shrine on every Wednesday provided them opportunity to enjoy and entertain themselves. However, the women’s affairs director said that small parks had been constructed for women in different areas of the city and they could go and enjoy their leisure hours there. A local Maulvi, Abdul Rahman Rahmani, said the shrine was a sacred place and not an area of enjoyment for women.

The Mutilated Face

HERAT, AFGHANISTAN - Nazgul, 35, a self-immolation victim sits on her hospital bed covered by her headscarf at the Herat Regional hospital November 17, 2006 in Herat, Afghanistan. The medical staff at the Herat hospital says that they have registered around 700 self-immolations cases so far this year. Hospital officials say they lack proper salaries for the nurses and doctors and suffer from a lack of medical supplies. A new burn center for the crowded hospital that was suppose to be finished in 2005 is still under construction. Afghan women are in a subordinate position in the society, where conservative Islamic laws and traditions dictate what a woman is allowed to do in a male dominated world. Forced marriages, domestic violence, poverty and lack of access to education are said to be some of the main reasons for the suicides. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

From Liisa, SMSgt Temple’s wife: Rex is still out on his mission and I’m using the space to publish some very graphic reminders of why education is so vital especially for women and young girls in Afghanistan. Many of you may have seen a report on ABC News this week about a young Afghan woman whose husband cut off her nose and ears. She was nursed back to health by U.S. military personnel and if you can stomach the gruesome images, the video story from ABC News is a thought provoking piece – you can see it here.

This story was first reported in the Western press last December by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon for The Daily Beast Blog. Here is a short excerpt:

“U.S. Air Force Major Dr. Jeff Lewis still remembers the stifling August afternoon when Nadia reached his surgical team near southern Afghanistan’s Tarin Kowt, a town long known as a Taliban stronghold.

The young woman, whose name has been changed to protect her security, had been brought to the coalition’s Forward Operating Base Ripley by her father, who hoped the base’s medical clinic could help his teenage daughter, who he said was around 17 or 18 years old.

She was missing most of her nose and both ears.”

“I have never seen anyone do something like this before to another person,” said U.S. Air Force Major Dr. Jeff Lewis.

(read more here)

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But the woman at the center of these two reports is clearly not alone. Much earlier in 2007, Abudlhadi Hairan filed this article for GroundReport .

Husband cut off wife’s ears, nose on Eid day

Qalat: A man named Mumtaz in southern Zabul province of Afghanistan first shaved wife, Nazia’s head and then cut off her ears, and nose and damaged her teeth on the first day of Eid ul Adha, an Islamic ritual of sacrifice.

Hospital sources in Qalat, center of Zabul, told this scribe by phone that Nazia, 17, was admitted on Wednesday (First day of Eid) evening and now she was in a critical condition due to the severe beating she has borne. (more text + photos here)

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Chelsie Vandeveer dropping off donations at WUSF Studios on March 12, 2010.

If you read through these amazing stories of women helping women, you will be inspired. And here is the latest woman who is a true source of inspiration for me. Her name is Chelsie Vandaveer and she dropped off all these school supplies yesterday at WUSF Radio and TV for Rex’s school supplies drive for Afghan children. Chelsie and her husband along with her coworkers Gracie Sharp, Sari Kondis, Dot Miner, Katie Plein, Mark Seibel, Allen Shuey, and Paco and Allison Amram at Environmental Consulting & Technology in Tampa collected all these hundreds of donated items since last September after Chelsie heard about the drive in one of Bobbie O’Brien’s My Last Tour news reports.