Aid, clean water revive Afghan village
Although less than a day's drive from Kabul, where the largess of the world's donors is starting to arrive, Kobakai and its estimated 1,800 residents are light years away from being able to easily benefit from the world's generosity. It is almost four miles to the nearest bazaar to sell and purchase goods, a trip made by walking or riding a donkey along a dusty, pitted track thrown a mountainside strewn with huge boulders. The nearest school is an hour's walk; the nearest health clinic is 90 minutes away on foot.
Those who need their artificial limbs adjusted as they grow older, the price of stepping on a land mine, must make the long trek to Kabul.
"The city gets everything," sighed Mir Afghan about 42 and one of the village leaders. "We are very far from everything."
He says that not out of greed, but out of need. Things that are routinely available in the United States and in many parts of the world food, education, medical care, water, easy access to and from the village are considered luxuries here.
As the world's richest nations concluded a two-day meeting in Tokyo to determine how to pledge money and spend it here, it is the remote villages like Kobakai that are at the long end of the aid pipeline. But it will be what happens in places like this that will ultimately be the measure of the success or failure of the world to help Afghanistan get back on its feet.
Piped water relief
Thus it was a good feeling indeed for Mir Afghan and the other residents of Kobakai to wake up this week and remember that they would not have to walk down the two-mile hill to fetch water for their daily use from the stream where the animals drink and defecate.
Thanks to Care, the international humanitarian group, there is now a water pipeline that leads to four water taps in the village, gushing clear, clean, crisp and cool water with the turn of a squeak-free spigot.
One day earlier, the first food shipment of 100kg, sent in by the World Food Program arrived in the village on the backs of donkeys. The outside world was beginning to trickle in.
"Each humanitarian group has a role to play," said Alina Labrada, a spokesperson for Care. "The most important thing is the people, who have the very same basic needs and dreams as everyone else. There are so many things that need to be done, we're not going to run out of things to do for a decade."
The Care project in Kobakai brings the water in a pipeline from a reservoir in the nearby mountains. To those in the village the water was akin to a far-off oasis; it could be seen but never reached, its liquid bounty out of their grasp.
"We needed the water because people were getting afraid and they were going to leave the village," said Majidullah, 35, another village leader.
Like many Afghans, he and Mir Afghan go by only partial names.
Mir Afghan agrees the pipeline is a long-sought blessing. "That is where the water is," he says, pointing to the mountains. "We are grateful for the assistance. They did much work for us."
Money for projects
In many ways, the needs of Kobakai are symbolic of the needs of the country.
Afghanistan will need about US$45 billion to rebuild its war-shattered economy and infrastructure and launch long-overdue development projects, government ministers said. One-third of that should finance immediate reconstruction and rehabilitation needs over the next two years. The rest would go for long-term projects, including railway links to Iran and Pakistan and new dams for irrigation, that have been lying dormant since the 1978 communist coup that launched 23 years of war and unrest, the ministers have said.
The US$45 billion estimate is far higher than sums already being discussed, which have ranged from US$3 billion to US$15 billion. Priorities include reconstructing the most heavily damaged areas of west Kabul, the farmlands of the Shomali Valley north of Kabul and war-torn provinces further north.
Shouldering most of those tasks will be the plethora of United Nations and non-governmental organisation humanitarian groups, which are gearing up their efforts in Afghanistan now that the Taliban has been routed.
Thirty-five such groups had operated in Afghanistan before the Taliban took power.
For Kobakai, for example, the group Doctors Without Borders could build and organise a clinic, if the money came through. The group Oxfam is prepared to launch a winter school programme. Mercy Corps has experience in building irrigation systems. UN groups like Unicef and private groups such as Save The Children will provide hygiene training and supplemental feeding for children, pregnant women and nursing mothers.
In a year, the village could have a whole new look and a healthier and more productive population. But how soon that could happen in unclear. "You do what the money is funding," said Jordan Dey of the World Food Program, the UN spokesperson for humanitarian affairs in Afghanistan. The World Food Program, which began its work in Afghanistan in 1964, now feeds roughly six million of Afghanistan's estimated 23 million people. It has rented up to 800 donkeys to deliver food to remote areas across the country.
Wish list
The residents of Kobakai had vaguely heard of the "big money meeting" in Tokyo early this week, but had little clue as to how it could have any impact on them. The amounts of money promised to Afghanistan are staggering to the village elders; it makes their eyes widen. They know what is atop their wish list now that they have water: a good road to the village. A steady supply of food is next, then a clinic or some kind of health care. In the spring an irrigation system for the farmers and a school for the children should be built.
The children have their own request "Volleyball," they shout. They want a volleyball net and some news balls; their makeshift portable net is in disrepair but nevertheless accomplishes the purpose in a rousing game.
Kobakai is a farming village, roughly one square kilometre in size, which grows of wheat, potatoes, carrots, turnips, beans and onions. Presently potatoes are the only crop produced in sufficient quantities to be a cash crop in the bazaar. The drought that has hit most of Afghanistan is in its fourth year here. A few people work in Kabul, and it takes them three hours to get there one way. It is typical of much of rural Afghanistan.
One blessing is that there are no more land mines in the area. The village has about 130 mud and straw houses, with straw and wood roofs, in the village. Each house contains at least eight people. No one knows how old the village is: "It was here before us," Mir said. (The oldest resident is 103 years old.) The village sits on a small, dusty ridge with the steep mountainsides surrounding it, all terraced to grow crops.
Mulberry trees ring the village and line some of the farming areas. The village council, comprising roughly 10 males, meets irregularly to discuss and settle local issues, plan the farming and deal with unexpected events such as the civil war which raged in the mountains around the village in the 1990s and the opportunity for some humanitarian largesse, such as the water system.
"We had heard about them (Care) before they came but we didn't know 'what they did or what they knew about us," Mir Afghan said.
Tea tastes better
Care learnt of the village's need through one of its regular surveys of rural areas. Care workers go to bazaars to gather information about rural areas in need of help and visit the villages to assess what can be accomplished.
The group's workers first visited this village in March 2001. They came back in May to survey the location and draw up preliminary plans but the project did not get underway until November. It will be completely finished with concrete poured around the pipes and the taps stabilised when the weather warms up in two months.
Cost of the project: about US$25,000. The water pipeline ends the twice-a-day ritual of women and children bringing water from the polluted stream up the hill to the village. It also means children now have the days free to attend school, when one finally opens, and have the nights free to sleep and not to deal with diarrhea.
Perhaps of most significance, it also means the tea tastes much better.
Ah, yes, the tea. The staple of Afghanistan. Like it or not, you must drink it. So today in Kobakai, the tea served to guests has a vibrant colour, a zestful smell and an addictive taste, thanks to the clean water that can now be used.
Majidullah said villagers were worried at first when Care officials did not immediately come back and build the project after first promising it last March. "We had little thoughts that they had forgotten us, and we were waiting and waiting," Majidullah said, pouring another cup of tea. "But as you can see, now we are fine."
