Tenacity
Absentmindedly rubbing his scraggly, Taliban style beard, Bashir stops talking for a moment. Memories bash him in waves. They are evident in his face. The time his uncle held the knife under his chin, slicing only a little until blood fell on his shaking hands. The holiday when he tried to protect his brother from a beating and Uncle punished him instead. That time firebrands from the stove were held against his skin until it smoked. The occasion when he came around the corner where his uncle was whipping his daughter and Bashir started forward to protect her, only to become the one his instrument of torture focused on.
Bashir brushes the back of his hand over his eyes as if to change what he is seeing, “It is passed,” he reminds himself, then louder, “I’m sorry, these things are in the past, but sometimes little things remind me of them.” He leans forward, pressing his hands together.
“You see, I was nine when my father was murdered. My brother was only four. When a man dies it is kismet. It is viewed as his fate. It becomes the immediate duty of the husband’s brother to care for the widow of his brother. In the Afghanistan of my childhood, this meant that in order to not have to care for her, the widow, my mother, was quickly sold to another man, for the best bride price possible.”
He raises both hands and shrugs his shoulders, “and the children? The children are the property of the father’s family. So we not only saw our father murdered, our mother was sold like chattel to another man, several hours away. It was not possible to see her. For a child this is unfathomable, but it is easily explained. It is kismet. Allah willed it. I was now a slave in my uncle’s home, and this was my fate.”
Bashir smiles suddenly. His hazel eyes light up and the crinkles at their edges show his age. “Although the past shaped me, it no longer defines me. See these children, they are our future.”
He passes the Nân-i Afğânī bread, tearing off a piece to hand to two of his children. They dip it in the fragrant Aushak, clearly enjoying every morsel of this treat. Each hand-shaped pasta dumpling is filled with minced leeks and chives, nestled in tomato sauce, and topped with yogurt and dried mint. Only Bashir’s wife knows how long this took to make. It is said that a good wife is known by how small her dumplings are.
Ilhaam is clearly an amazing woman and not just because of her dumplings. She smiles back at her husband, meeting his gaze. The fact that we are seated together, around a table is rare. Mostly the men eat separately from the women. This family, however, is changing that.
“I never really knew my father,” Ilhaam explains, “he lived with the men and I with my mother and the other women of our clan. This was our way. But Bashir and I want our children to experience us interacting with each other. It’s radical, but I’m glad of it.”
This is not the only new venture this couple is undertaking. Take for instance Jawana, from earlier today. And her neighbor. One year ago Jawana was merely one of the 2.5 million widows in Afghanistan. She was considered a dishonorable widow. I was curious. She smiled a crooked, weary smile with hope at the edges of her eyes.
“If a husband dies of natural causes, or serving in the military, a widow is considered honorable, and, if she is one of the fortunate military wives, she may receive $150 a year from the government because her husband died fighting for the nation. I was not so fortunate.”
She goes over to her garden patch. In the dusty street not far away sparrows argue over a dust bath. “Dishonorable widows are those whose husbands are murdered or women whose husbands kicked them out or divorced them. Women are the property and responsibility of males. But a dishonorable widow who can help? Her husband had bad enough kismet that he was murdered! Or she had bad kismet and was kicked out. Such a woman is shunned, like a leper. It is not allowed for her to be out in society, and so she can't work. I was one of those widows.”
Jawana is perhaps, at most, twenty-five, just by looking at her. She has three small children. Two of them are school age. The youngest hides behind her mother’s skirts, two fingers in her mouth. Jawana tousles her hair. “This one? She will live now.” But she doesn’t explain.
Instead, she kneels in the dirt. She picks a deep green spinach leaf and hands it to me. “Have some,” she urges. Thanking her, I nibble. It’s aromatic and delicious.
“Eat! Eat!” she motions as if time were of the essence. “This thing saved my life! It saved her life!” She gestures at the shy girl next to her. Jawana’s neighbor nods her head vigorously. She holds a petite child on her hip who smiles shyly through her curly hair. I smile back.
“Yes,” she agrees soberly, “before this garden, we were starving. Jawana can tell you, my children were laying down on their mats and could no longer move. That’s how hungry they were.”
She pulls me over to the next garden patch. It also has a burgeoning spinach crop, snuggled up against chickpeas and garlic. The bouquet of damp earth rising stands in stark contrast to the arid environment. At the far end of the patch, there are crocuses. It’s a multi-purpose space. “Me? I’m Marzia,” she goes on, “See this food? Ilhaam and her husband taught us how to grow it.”
She throws both hands up in the air. “I didn’t even hardly understand it. We are dishonorable widows, but they took time for us. They showed us how. A year ago my children were almost dead. Now look at them. It is unheard of!”
Listening to the two mothers banter, and observing their interaction with Ilhaam and Bashir, I gradually gain perspective. Because only 38% of women have identification papers few widows qualify for military benefits. And there is no provision for any other type of widow. It is expected that she will become the second or third wife of some relative, and the surviving brothers and uncles of the deceased are charged with ensuring this happens. Her children stay with her only if they are too small to benefit her husband’s relatives. The older children’s role moves from prized children to those tainted by kismet. They stay but become servants or slaves of their uncles. Bride prices go to benefit the family of her deceased husband. And what does she know about such things? Literacy for women hovers at 24.2% and is reserved for those near urban centers with novel and debatable female education.
But that’s only for the honorable widow. A dishonorable one is off of the data charts. She has no identification documents and is shunned because of how she was widowed. Her children are often cast out with her. Her hopes are slim. Having children who can beg is her only course of action. Because she can’t provide for them, this shoves single parent Afghani children into the category of an orphan. Equally stamped with the label kismet, they become their family breadwinners. Consequently, the probable number of Afghani street children hovers at six million. Consequently, also, the number of widows trying to commit suicide is noticeable.
Wazhma Frogh has been working to improve women’s conditions in Afghanistan for several decades. This diminutive woman co-founded the Research Institute for Women, Peace, and Security. Directing an organization like this has brought her face to face with issues across the nation. She understands that widows are powerless. Often choosing suicide seems like their only escape from a hell no woman would want. She notes that there are also cases where a widow is sexually abused either by their husband’s family or if sent home, by her father.
Dr. Mohammad Hemat is the chief physician in an urban hospital. They are accustomed to serving decades worth of those wounded by war. Acts of terrorism have filled their wards, be it from university bombings, bombs set in markets and mosques, or Taliban warfare. But he reports that roughly three women a week survive suicide attempts and make it to hospital. “Emotional and family issues push women over the edge,” he says.
Marzia was not even fortunate enough to look to begging. Her children were too young to send to the street. Starvation was their kismet. Jawana didn’t recognize the signs of hunger until she began her training with Bashir and Ilhaam. Then she realized why Marzia’s kids were just laying on mats.
“She came over and told me, ‘We learned about hunger today. Your children are hungry, that’s why they just lay there.’ She didn’t shame me, she didn’t shun me. She is a good neighbor,” Marzia said, rubbing her long sleeve across her eyes, remembering, “she just told me to come and see what she was doing. And she shared her seeds with me.”
Now both women have Permaculture Gardens. All their lessons are hands-on because these women are illiterate. Literacy can wait when you are starving. It will follow, now that they have the dignity of being able to provide for themselves and see their children survive. Hope is a powerful thing.
Ilhaam is a powerful woman. With a husband like Bashir to partner with, she is unstoppable. The market is on today’s agenda. Her seven-year-old son is the chaperon. Without a male, we would be viable targets for groping and abuse, even though we are covered, head to toe. These blue burkas are cumbersome, thick, and hard to see through, even though they have the handy little mesh screen over the eyes. They are only traditional in the sense that the Taliban insisted on them under their harsh rule, bringing in a universal robe to cover all women, regardless of their backgrounds. Since any woman failing to wear one was severely beaten, they have become the one thing women know that they can fall back on for protection, providing of course, that they also have their male escort.
“It’s how it is here,” Ilhaam explains. “One day it will change, because people will have bigger things to focus on, but people believe lies. It’s taught that if a woman is without a male to guard her, that she is fair game, and even wants the attention. She grabs my arm to navigate jay-walking successfully, Afghani style, “But it has improved a little. It used to be if a woman was in public without a man, she would be flogged. This is the Taliban view. I pray it does not return.”
I’ve seen the Kabul City Mall, with its nine stories, escalator and male managed boutiques. Not far away, the glass-fronted Majid Mall also dominates the landscape, with its Turkish fast food. But riding bumper cars or curved escalators at Golbahar, bowling at the Park Mall, or aiming for the gaming room or cinema at Dawoodzai are male-friendly and male-dominated spaces.
Out in normal society, where most people shop and live, it is surprisingly similar. In Afghanistan, getting groceries, shopping for household items, handling anything technical, digging the garden, even, is considered men’s work. Yes, here in market there are a few women in burkas or chador, seated on the ground, with simple wares spread around them for sale. But they are the exception.
I’m glad for Ilhaam’s steadying hand. We dodge goats nibbling the edge of a fetid trash pile, a boy balancing a basket of crisp carrots on his head, and a teenager selling dusty potatoes out of a wheelbarrow. The air swirls with the contrasting aromas of truck fumes, ripe melons, and freshly slaughtered meat. The vendors each have their singsong proclamation of their goods, punctuated by the canaries in the caged bird booth and the live sheep waiting to be chosen for slaughter.
This throng of people is a microcosm of the people groups here in Afghanistan. The Balochi hunker down near their camels, wearing their turbans with extra swag, conscious of their heritage and confident their blood-feud world views are correct. The dark hair Afghani Tajiks are obviously the craftsmen in market. Their turbans are worn over brightly embroidered caps, and their women are more inclined to don shawls. Most Aimaq used to count their wealth in herds, but have been reduced to bringing melons to market, sitting with rough-textured cloaks slung around their broad shoulders. The Arora and Brahmin cling to their Indian ways, while the Rajasthani Changar speak Urdu and insist fiercely on Purdah which separates men and women, even in the home. The Gujur have maintained their nomadic ways. They are the tinkers and tradesmen, but their widows and street children resort to fortune-telling and pick-pocketing. The boy with the potatoes in his cart is most likely Kohistani. The Nuristani are a people divided by peaks and valleys, so much so that they go by many names and speak twenty-six dialects. Discovering each other in common places like market is part of their modern world. The Pashtun are of course, the most predominant. These are most likely Taliban and their Pashto language leads the pack.
But this brief kaleidoscope of languages and cultures is male-dominated. Ilhaam’s son is our vanguard and rearguard, our passport and knight in shining armor. All seven years of him. In truth, he is soon bored and Ilhaam wisely procures various delights to pay him for his services. While many men are stopping to sit around tandoor cook stations emitting incredible flavors of fried meat and vegetables, our child prodigy is fed items he can consume walking. Freshly baked tandoori naan is stacked up on blankets like so many books in a library or hung on nearby hooks from the wall. That crisp, wood-fire tossed Nân-i Afğânī bread fills the air with it’s essence. My mouth is watering, but women can’t eat on the streets with chadari covering their mouths.
I’m only half distracted though. I’m here people watching, and being in a blue burqa has made me more aware of the women around me. Some are hidden in the more modern black burkas, which sport a cut-out for the eyes. This covering is sometimes called a niqab, but although more fashionable, and lighter weight, it is almost always made of hot, synthetic materials. Some women hide in cheap perfume to mask the inevitable sweat this heat creates. Yet its benefits are that it is made of three pieces, leaving the hands and eyes free. Younger women tend to gravitate towards it, but most switch to the less clingy blue chador upon marriage.
“When females wear the blue chador, you can’t distinguish if she is a 12-year-old child or a 60-year-old grandmother,” explains researcher Ali Arqam. In my travels and conversations with women around the region, I have come to see how people value this. It is not without reason, I learn. “Women have become the symbols of men’s commitment,” Barnett Rubin, director of studies of the Center of International Cooperation at New York University said. Afghanistan is an arch-theocratic state, emulating the principles of other regional nations. Men who keep their women in purdah show other men that they are acceptable citizens. The purdah is genuinely perceived as protection.
Talking with another woman I was told that purdah, or being covered, is the female’s role in their culture and tradition. “I am my father’s honor,” she said with all sincerity, looking out through the narrow eye slits which the niqab affords. “Naturally, when I get married I will be my husband’s honor. A woman guards the honor of the household. If she fails at this, bad kismet may come upon them all. Even though I prefer the modern niqab I know I will need to wear a blue burqa after I get married. This is what one does.”
Yes, covered women are the only women in market. But there is another consistent presence I’ve noticed throughout this bazaar. There may be many men, but there are more children. Many simply hover together, seeming lost. Some are begging. Others with runny noses and malodor pull at your sleeve, trying to sell you little packs of Kleenex or water, hoping you will pay much more than it’s worth. Quite a few are keen-eyed and running in groups of two or three. Ilhaam stops me and points them out.
“Be careful when you see them in groups like that,” she warns, “they are trained pick-pockets and will get beaten if they come back to their masters empty-handed.” I reach to protect my pockets and then smile behind my chador. Pockets are not available with this model, so I haven’t much to lose.
“The children you see just standing about?” she says, pointing discreetly by lifting a nose in their direction, “they’re new. Either new to the city, or new to their mothers being widows.” The penny drops. These are the children of women who are out on the streets, hoping to find a way to make money.
“You watch,” she said, stopping to haggle for a melon. I do. From out of nowhere several men come over to the children. Quickly they pick out the strongest looking boys and talk briskly to them. The children nod, with big, sober eyes, then, looking sideways at their siblings, follow the men away.
“The brick kilns,” Ilhaam whispers as we walk away, “We have a woman in the garden project whose son turned nine shortly after her second husband died. He had been a wealthy man, but the family decided she brought ill-luck upon them and kicked her and her children out. She was suddenly out on the street with toddlers.” Ilhaam guides me in a wide berth around a puddle only just in time to avoid a bicycle kicking spray all over us.
“This woman’s son had to work in the brick kilns. She couldn’t work because she is a woman. Every night the child would cry himself to sleep saying, ‘I can’t do this! It is such hard labor!’ The woman was forced to say, ‘If you don’t we will die.’ Thank God we found her. She ended up in the food security project. One year later she is doing good. She now raises enough money to send this child to school! I’m so proud of her!”
We stop so that Ilhaam can bargain for tomatoes. I watch the children. They are so forlorn. I wonder what happens to the girls. At home, Ilhaam tells me. We are cubing the tomatoes for supper. Each globe is ripe, fragrant, and perfect, and somehow more a treasure for having worked so hard to access it.
“Girls are sold,” she explains, “for the cost of one child, the rest can be fed for a time. Frequently it is above board and legal. You see, with the war, families can’t afford a bride price and the cost of a wedding. Culturally a wedding lasts for four days, and you must host and feed hundreds of guests. People go into lifetime debt for this, so, when a widow has a decent looking little girl they arrange the marriage early, and pay a lower bride price. This way the mother gets something to feed her family with and their son gets a bargain bride.”
“That’s the above-board part?” I wonder out loud, reaching for a tomato.
Ilhaam raises an eyebrow. “In their mind’s eye, it is,” she responds, swishing greens in vinegar water. The sharp flavor of flat-leaved parsley fills the small kitchen.
“A few weeks ago a family sold a six-year-old girl for $3,000. The groom’s family will pay it in increments. When she reaches puberty, she moves to their house and become a domestic servant until the boy reaches eighteen. Then they’ll have the wedding. It’s not ideal, but if the child is not sexually abused in that home, it is better than other situations we encounter.”
She gives me rice to sort and wash. Stones are plentiful and dentists are not. I do my task carefully. “A month ago we got word that someone had sold a two-month-old girl. Other times it’s been a toddler,” she goes on, ”but we know that there’s an underworld and girls are being sucked into it. Often the mother doesn’t even know where they’ve gone. Prostitution is technically illegal under the Taliban, but it is very much practiced, and girls never choose this for themselves. We’ve also heard that there’s a market that uses some boys for dancing.”
“Dancing?” I guess I’m ignorant. It doesn’t seem like this culture does much dancing.
Ilhaam stops her work, realizing there’s a lot I don’t know. “In Afghani culture men and women are separated, as you know.” I nod. She starts tearing spinach leaves, partly because they need to be bite-sized, partly because she is upset.
“There’s a tradition that came into our culture many years ago, where boys are trained to dance provocatively as if they are girls. Owners will rent these boys out, and it is not unusual for them to also then be sexually abused. Some widows get offers from pimps, and because the mothers are ignorant, they believe the lies that their sons are going to go to school. Instead, they get sucked into this trafficking ring.”
I feel sick to my stomach. My mind is overwhelmed by the fact that, despite purdah and such a careful guard on social behavior, little girls are being sucked into prostitution and boys are equally vulnerable.
To clear my head I’d like to go on a walk. I hear this country is stunning. Out of the Nuristan Mountains springs the frigid Kunar River, which flows to join the Kabul River and eventually merge with the Indus and meld into the Arabian Sea. Centrally, the blue Band-e Amir Lakes mirror that incredibly deep color which is replicated in the chador Afghani women wear. Stark cliffs and stone pillars are reflected in lonesome grandeur. It is part of the 85% arid and agriculturally challenged landscape of this nation. Mazar-e Sharif to the north uses the cold steppe for livestock. The stunning river bordering the country with Turkmenistan is called Amu Darya or Panj, but, in spite of agricultural potential, mostly hosts smaller border towns known for their camel trains. The steppe here is known to kick up dust storms that hang like curtains in the sky. Those cities which hug interior rivers have more options. Semi-arid Herat, for instance, on the Harirud, with its arched bridge is historically considered the pearl of Khorasan, it has been the crossroad of trade for centuries. As the poet, Rumi remarked in the 1200s,
“If any one ask thee which is the pleasantest of cities, Thou mayest answer him aright that it is Herāt. For the world is like the sea, and the province of Khurāsān like a pearl-oyster therein, The city of Herāt being as the pearl in the middle of the oyster.
One river town, Sarobi, is famed for the world’s best pomegranates. Despite a desert climate, Ferah, close to Iran, also has some agri efforts. Lakshar Gah, in the southwest, sits amazingly between two rivers, the Arghandab and Helmand River. It’s fields and orchards hold potential.
But, as I said, I hear the country is stunning. Adventurous men may set out and stop at chaikhane across the region. These inns harken back to the days of the traders of the Silk Route of antiquity. Dinners of kebabs or soup, stews, and fresh Nân-i Afğânī bread are dished up with copious amounts of perfect tea to men who are seated on the carpeted floor. As evening rolls around, the owner procures mats, and the guests spread out where they once ate, communal and well-fed, to sleep before the next day’s journey. As a woman, however, I may not traverse it. Neither is that walk I so desire possible. I must content myself, as the other women do, with inside activities, apart from times where male escorts allow women outside the home. Thankfully I am in what may be the most beautiful part of the country.
Bamiyan is picturesquely nestled in a fertile plain. In the distance, the high, forbidding ridges of the Hindukush stand in stark contrast to the rosy, warm local hills. A beautiful setting indeed, yet challenging. Sanitation, electricity, pavement, and industry are almost foreign here. Men still walk behind oxen slugging through the earth with plows. Women still use mountain streams to wash their laundry. The valley might be compared with a bowl, hugging the hills where the famed Buddhas once stood before their Taliban demise. With only 15% of Afghanistan favorable for agriculture, each plot of ground is guarded carefully. A widow whose husband dies would not inherit the land. The few who have access to a piece of ground do so because they have sons who inherited it, and for whom they are still guardians, because of the child’s tender age. Other widows might have male relatives who have been kind enough to rent land to her. But typical of the treatment of dishonorable widows nationwide, many widows in this part of the country have been forced out of town and live in caves at the edge of town. This space is completely arid and useless to anyone else. For these women, it is better than hammering tin cans into flimsy walls to create shanties. They consider themselves fortunate. But agriculturally speaking, their only hope of planting a garden is a collective.
This is just what Bashir and Ilhaam are hoping to achieve. Their pilot project is with widows who have been able to rent land from male relatives. These men look on with growing interest. Having women who would otherwise be a burden able and interested in caring for themselves holds some appeal. For Bashir it’s like a fire in his belly. He lived the orphan-shame reality. He was torn from his mother. Neither of these needed to happen, and he gets up each morning eager to make a better world for today’s widows and orphans who should not have to repeat history.
Ilhaam is an eager partner. Her love for Bashir started that day when he protected her from being beaten by her father, who is also Bashir’s uncle. Yes, culturally it is normal for cousins to marry here, almost always in an exchange that financially benefits the men in the family. In a happy twist of fate, Bashir and Ilhaam’s marriage was viewed profitable enough to the family that it was arranged and decreed without asking them, and they were the elated beneficiaries. Now equally yoked business partners, they are both fully dedicated to seeing this experiment bear fruit not only for the widows and orphans but also for the region.
“Initially, I wasn’t so aware of the widow issue myself,” Ilhaam confesses. “I saw what happened to Bashir’s mother, but I was a small child and didn’t understand. Then, when I was a teen, a neighbor fell off his roof and died. After the funeral, this man’s mother threw his wife and children out. The family fully believes she was to blame for his death. She had brought bad kismet. Her father’s family were refugees in Iran. She had to travel alone to try and find them. She had no other recourse. It hit me then, what is this thing kismet? Why does it have so much power? Why is it lodged in the hands of a widow?”
Ilhaam shakes her head and looks out the window. The bucolic valley, perfectly peaceful, with patchwork fields stretches out to the edge of the rosy cliffs, where the widow caves are. Dust clouds swirl at the edge of the horizon, but here, close to the garden, the air is sweet and fragrant. “When Bashir and I were married and began talking we both realized that we share a vision to not only make this town a fruitful plain but also make it possible that widows and their children have equal rights with every other human here.”
Nationwide others are beginning to give a voice to this as well. Even teenagers like Zahra Wakilzada write posts for blogs like Free Women Writers and point out that there is something wrong when an Afghan mother does not have custody rights for their children when they are widowed. Relatives on the father’s side get the children. “This is partly due to a lack of economic opportunities for widowed women. When they can’t afford to provide for their children, their deceased husband’s family is more likely to take over custody.” she says.
Sheila Qayumi at the nonprofit Equality for Peace and Democracy agrees, pointing out that these women are often uneducated and have few options to create a livelihood. “They are also generally denied a share of land and property, even though these rights are recognized in the Afghan constitution, its Civil Code and in Islamic sharia law. Security of tenure is usually tied to men, and Afghan cultural norms and customary practices often deny women these rights, particularly those who are widowed or divorced. Especially in the provinces, women face severe restrictions and are treated no better than a cow or a goat. They have no rights, and their names are generally not on any documents, so it can be hard for them to claim their legal rights," she said. "Divorced and widowed women often have to live in the homes of their male relatives or in-laws, where they can also face harassment or violence if they claimed their land or property rights. So they often give up their claim to avoid that.”
The World Bank considers Afghanistan’s arable land to be about 12% of its mass, and with forty years of conflict, families don’t only have the terrain and culture to consider, they also face warlords and powerful landlords who are in control. Landmines left from 125 years of war are another ever-present reality. From 2009-2016 64% of civilians have been injured or mutilated by conflict-related violence. I stop to consider the math. There are roughly two million widows, with about six million children who are fully or half orphaned, but who represent as orphans because they are street children. Nearly 75% of these kids are clearly at high risk of human trafficking, bonded labor, or slavery. Many are mutilated by violence, all of whom are suffering from intense trauma. The statistics are mind-blowing.
This is why I am drawn to this initiative. Bashir and Ilhaam have been able to start this project because they were trained with Village of Peace, an NGO whose Agricultural director grew up in Malawi. Dr. Jaco Smit shares his heart freely. When he witnessed people dying of starvation in his childhood, he instantly knew that he was going to dedicate his life to prevent hunger and its related outcomes. When he discovered the vision of the Village of Peace, he knew he had found a way to implement his heart’s cry. Food security is a basic building block of a healthy nation. Village of Peace includes commerce, construction, livestock and textile as additional ventures Afghanis can use to rebuild this country.
“The training is what empowered me,” Bashir explains, leaning forward. Drinking the proverbial Afghani tea in their small back yard is a sweet reprieve. Turtledoves murmur on the balcony railing, while swallows dart furtively under the eaves, patching old nests. “I not only needed to understand human development, management, agriculture, and accounting, I needed to learn that family is core to society. A healthy family builds a healthy nation. I had to realize that I was bitter against my uncle. How could I really love my wife if I hated her father? That took some doing in my heart, I can assure you! But it changed me. I was a man of resentment and grief. Do you know what this means? It is the root of not sleeping, of getting sick easily, of blaming others when I make a mistake, of avoiding personal improvement and having a positive impact on my culture. When I put this in the past I found peace, which is a crucial tool to move forward.”
Dr. Smit notes that Bashir has put this peace into practice. When Village of Peace was starting training in another city, conflict was endemic and carried over into the dealings between potential co-workers. It was to be expected. The national atmosphere is charged with disputes and historic grudges. But Bashir stepped forward and shared his personal experience. He explained that he was not free to move forward in life until he stopped holding anger against those who hurt him in the past. This brought peace to the situation, and with it, solutions. Since then, a chicken farm has successfully started in that town. It’s not without reason that the NGO is called Village of Peace. “It takes a village…” is an easy phrase to throw around, but to have progress, there has to be a basis of mutual understanding and respect. In a land of war, this takes extra work, but it seems to be paying off.
Now that Bashir and Ilhaam are trained, they are the ones training others. This is their project, their nation, their city, their vision. Dr. Smit works with Bashir in an advisory role helping them apply what is called the RUTF or a ready-to-use-therapeutic-food model. The recipe was created by a French pediatrician named André Briend who was passionate about helping starving children survive. Bashir and Ilhaam and their team are in process of buying land to start a RUTF factory in Afghanistan. The first crop of peanuts has been excellent. They are now creating a coop with local farmers to plant peanuts, which they will buy to produce RUTF.
Peanuts are one super food that is taking off. Spinach is another. The team introduced it into the region in direct response to a felt need. Many women in Afghanistan suffer from anemia. By growing spinach, they see an immediate benefit. “One lady suffered for four years. When she went to doctors nothing helped. Then one of the team told her about spinach. It grows like a weed under the right conditions. She didn’t know how to use it, but just pounded it and added sugar. After a few months, she had energy and didn’t need to spend money on medications. It was such a simple solution!” Dr. Smit smiles. “Adding saffron crocuses to the gardens as their cash crop was a game changer too! The team helps widows custom make their gardens according to the region they live in. They also teach them about seasonal pricing.”
Giving the mothers a cash crop meant they had the money for the items they couldn’t grow, as well as funds for housing and education. “I was in a meeting with various NGO representatives,” Dr. Smit explained, “They said that it costs at least $2.50 a day to eat healthily. I pointed out that women in Afghanistan don’t make that much in a month. So we developed this high-diversity garden so families of five can eat sustainably for $2.50 a day, not just because they have immune-boosting crops, but also because they are selling products and have the potential to make more money.”
Ilhaam explains that literacy is the second step they apply with these women. “92% of these widows are illiterate. They also have no skills because they are not allowed to work. But our initial training is completely oral and done with images.
Statistics don’t paint Afghanistan in rosy colors, but seeing Bashir and Ilhaam’s leadership of their local project it becomes apparent that Village of Peace has equipped local leaders to own the transformation of this land. The passion, purpose, and dedication this couple evidences is seen in how those they are training are equally invested. This is a change from the inside. Village of Peace may stimulate this with the training they offer, but it is the local people who are overcoming violence, poverty, and injustice. The foundational principles are simple: transparent honesty instead of corruption, peace instead of revenge, being generous and paying it forward for others, having compassion instead of injustice, and good leadership that lets one’s life speak for itself.
Watching Jawana and Marzia taking ownership of things in their own community shows me that this is working. They walk with light steps, reaching out to other widows around them. “I am what I think,” Jawana smiles as she proudly shows off the plot of land she is renting from her brother. “I could brood on the past, the way I have been shamed, or I could throw my hands up and say evil is my kismet as so many have verbally thrown at me. But instead, I have overcome all that. I had to see that change must happen inside of me. I value myself and others now. As a result, I see a future for myself and my community.”
The ladies are proud of this garden. It’s been a lot of work, getting it started, and learning to use tools they never had before. They know it will take at least three years of working compost into the soil, and weeding, digging, and rotating crops before they see the ground naturally do its best. They are hoeing a patch which is being turned under and rotated to receive new seeds. The clay soil will be tended with some of the compost they have cultivated.
Today the widows are planting trees. When they complete step one of their program, they each are rewarded with a walnut, pistachio and almond tree. Afghanistan has a history of excellent nut orchards, but during war desperation for firewood over rides the protection of a food source. By giving each woman protein producing trees, they are far more likely to protect their own trees personally.
Marzia is nodding her head, agreeing with Jawana, “It’s almost like the inside of me needs the same work I give the garden. I had to see that in me was something like a … how can I describe it … like a dark cloud, or swirling storm, or muddy hole. Almost like it had a voice, because I spoke in my own head all the time, repeating all the bad things people had said about me. I realized these are not true. They are lies that people have been telling each other about widows for too long. I am not that lie. I am a human being and a mother, and I don’t want to be that way. When I chose my thinking I didn’t waste time worrying and not sleeping and fussing and blaming others. I had the energy to work and have hope. It’s so simple really!” She smiles and I see that it is true.
One of the little girls is digging in the compost pile, stirring up the materials for decomposition. Jawana laughs and brushes some mud off her nose. “See this smelly stuff!” she says, pointing at the pile, “I can view this as something dying and destroyed, or I can look at it as the creation of excellent compost which will make the soil to feed us all. Bad things have happened to us. How I see this matters. This is a land with many wars, but we can bury the past garbage and learn from it to make Afghanistan a home for all of our tribes.”
She is waxing loquacious, but I am impressed by her vision. She is not the only woman with vision in Afghanistan. Several have been chosen to be part of an Afghani delegation who will take part in peace talks with the Taliban. They will specifically represent issues that pertain to women’s rights. Habiba Sarabi is a physician and appointed leader with the government’s peace council. She says the women will represent their right to vote, to work, and to speak freely. Women’s citizenship rights encompass this all, she points out. Shahla Fareed is another of the five women appointed to be on the delegation of twenty-one. She hopes the peace negotiations will begin soon.
To understand this better, I try to learn from Piet van Walsem, the founder and CEO of Village of Peace. He explains that each Village of Peace center functions as an incubator for employment. Those trainers who have been trained are now local managers and have the skill to set up cooperatives. These central offices provide the facilities to do the brainstorming and trials, as well as the classes for the constant stream of new applicants. Part of the training includes a chance to work in the various specialized fields. “As Ashraf Ghani pointed out some time ago, ‘Afghanistan should not be approached as a charity, but as an investment.’” Piet says.
Dr. Smit is focused on the food solution aspect which Bashir and Ilhaam coordinate. During our interview, he leans back in a chair at his office in the Netherlands. “I teach cultural anthropology and development sociology at Radboud University. All we do is focus on the science of development work. I partner with Village of Peace because of the track record of fruitful development. I’ve studied many models, but the local people have true ownership in this venture. Those from other nations are merely consultants and help ask the right questions so that they find their own answers.” He looks out the window into his past. “I’ve worked with Somali widows, and of course, in Malawi, but Afghanistan has a special place in my heart now.”
“I’ll give you an example,” Dr. Smit says leaning forward, “There was a man who got to know Bashir, and went to the training. It changed him and he stopped beating his wife. After two weeks of this, she asked him if he was ill. He told her about what Bashir was teaching. To her surprise, he told her she should go to the training too. The day she came I was in the country. I taught a short part of the training, explaining how widows and orphans have talents as everyone else does. I left the group with the question, ‘How do we each use our talents so no one is left an orphan?’ This provoked her to thought and she told Ilhaam her talent was to embroider. So they chatted and she decided to teach some widows how to do embroidery. Within six months she had trained six widows to do embroidery and found a market for their work. I got the chance to hear this from one of these widows the next time I was in Afghanistan. She didn’t have to send her children to beg for the first time in four years. And it gets better! The woman whose husband no longer beat her? She and her husband worked together to start a factory where widows now work in the textile industry.”
He gives me a list of statistics from the World Bank, Gallup-Heathway’s Well-Being Index, the UNDP Human Development Index, Amnesty International, the CIA, and UNICEF. A few things pop off the pages and catch my attention. Roughly half of Afghanis are between the ages of ten and twenty-four. Very few live to old age, in fact, few reach fifty. Afghanistan has one of the highest infant mortality rates on the planet. Most women are in forced marriages. 30% of children begin work at age five. Over half of the children are malnourished, one third are underweight. Dr. Smit points to this last sentence.
“This is my focus issue,” he says, “not that the other factors don’t contribute, but chronic malnutrition leads to many diseases which are easily prevented. There is a substantially lower IQ, stunted growth, a lot of cognitive disorders and resulting inability to either learn in school or progress to get a good job. Addressing malnutrition is a key to the future well-being of this nation.
Listening to Dr. Smit, I catch his enthusiasm. Perceiving Bashir and Ilhaam’s leadership role, I realize that many other leaders around the nation are being empowered. Village of Peace has centers in several cities like the one in Bamiyan. Those who are trained learn Human Development, Family Life Skills, management, accounting, building, and literacy. The center had trained staff who now manage not only the food security program but also construction, livestock, trade, and textile industries. All five of the Village of Peace centers share knowledge across these disciplines. They brainstorm for solutions and are all fully Afghani managed cooperatives. They are coached and encouraged by professionals in their line of focus, like Dr. Smit, who also helped develop a chicken farm and orchard. I note that the website has more I could explore.
Getting both a bird’s eye and a close up view of life in Afghanistan is helpful. It is clear that the best future requires investment and trade to help any nation who is recovering from war. The key to this nation is to recognize the tipping point. Afghanis are done languishing in constant conflict. They are willing to take significant risks to change things for the next generation. The population is mostly younger and have the potential and impetus for change. They have crossed a brink and are reliably committed to doing what it takes to achieve this.
Bashir and Ilhaam may never have crossed cultural thresholds and taken the risks they do if the convergence of events hadn’t come together for their catalyst. This is no game with kismet. They realize that their children’s Afghanistan is being made now, and it’s their hands on the wheel. Realizing that they have that simple power has started a chain reaction. And it’s a good thing.
Abas is a swarthy man with chiseled features. His enemies know his name means ‘lion’ and that he is the king of his pride and domain. His eagle beaked nose and bushy eye-brows are forbidding, his tall stature and commandeering carriage are accentuated with the typical Taliban ensemble. Abas is also Ilhaam’s father and the uncle who cut, beat, burned and enslaved Bashir as a child. His behavior was culturally condoned and being repeated in households all over Afghanistan. Ironically, talking with Abas, you would find that he also was a child in a home with a physically abusive uncle and father. He witnessed his mother malnourished and weak, kept home in the dark spaces of purdah, and die young. When everyone’s normal is fairly uniform it’s natural to reduce ownership of the issue to an abstract like kismet if only to minimize the personal pain that would follow if reality were faced head-on.
Yet Abas would be the first to tell you now that he is proud that his daughter and son-in-law have become catalysts for the transformation of their town. It was Bashir’s change that impacted Abas. Bashir’s choice to change transformed Bashir. His interactions with Abas became respectful and honoring, with a kindness that Abas couldn’t pin down. Now he understands. He has changed too. His tough exterior belies a man who genuinely wants to do what is right and now is released from the weight of his past to do so. He is an eager and strong proponent of the Village of Peace model and wants to see it replicated in communities around Bamiyan.
Jawana and Marzia may spearhead one such innovation. They have started classes at the training center to lead a widow and orphan household to which they are going to invite other widows from the cave home community. They are learning literacy, how to plant a more diverse range of crops, and participating in the leadership classes. They are part of a class with other widows. Each team is eagerly envisioning where they will move, and how they will support each other. The symbiotic relationships forming are charged but also grounded. They have no pie-in-the-sky ambitions.
No, these people have hoes and seeds, whiteboarding brainstorms and the humility to realize when things in their past are hampering them and need to be dealt with.
Abas is the one coordinating the acquisition of rental properties for these women. As he leaves for an appointment in the next town I hear him stop in to hug the grandkids. “This one,” he says proudly, slapping his grandson playfully on the back of the neck, “he is my hero!”
“Why would that be?” Ilhaam smiles at her father.
“I saw him help his little sister up and kiss her knee when she fell yesterday,” he states proudly. “He thought no one saw. But I did! That’s my man!”
I watch him leave from my upstairs room. The view of the garden spreads below me, widow’s caves barely visible in the rosy cliffs at the edge of town. Birds are singing in the almond trees, which stand as sentinels over each plot. Time will tell what fruit this all will bear, but there’s reason to believe that there’s finally hope in Afghanistan.