The Afghanistan Americans Seldom Notice

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"Yes, there have been improvements in girls' education in Afghanistan. You can see it on the streets when the girls walk home from school in their uniforms, laughing with books in their hands. You can see it in the schools that have been built all over the country, in villages where they have never had schools before," Fariba Nawa, author of Afghanistan, Inc., told us.

"However, in the south there's a different story to be told," she added. "That's the story of girls being afraid to go to school, even the story of newly built schools being burned down, or teachers being beheaded for teaching in them. So it depends on what part of Afghanistan you go to, which story you want to tell."

Seeking Answers in Kabul 

Green laser beams darted from the fast-moving military convoy scanning the pedestrians and parked cars along the road from Kabul airport. As I bent over our taxi's stalled engine, the sharp, pencil-thin beams raked across us menacingly, causing me to stumble back in surprise.

Unlike in Bamiyan or Mazar, Kabul teems with vehicles: military convoys from a dozen nations, Ford Ranger pick-ups (supplied by DynCorp, a U.S. contractor), Toyota land cruisers used by United Nations personnel, and thousands of used Toyota Corollas driven by Afghans.

Our first stop was at the home of Mir Ahmed Joyenda, a member of the Afghan parliament. I wondered, I told him, why, all these years after the fall of the Taliban, entire provinces like Bamiyan had no electricity or potable water supply to speak of. As (bad) luck would have it, Joyenda could discuss the problem on a personal basis -- and by the light of a kerosene lamp.

"You see," he responded, "we are in the city of Kabul. As a member of the parliament of Afghanistan I'm sitting in front of you, but I don't have any electricity in my house. What do you think of the rural areas? What about the poor areas of the Kabul city and other parts of the country?" He suggested I ask the ministry of electricity why he had none.

So I arranged to meet Wali Shairzay, the deputy minister for electricity and water. After enduring an hour-long lecture on all the new projects supposedly in the pipeline, I asked him why there was Uzbek-supplied electricity in Mazar, but no Afghan-supplied sources in most of rural Afghanistan. I noted that many countries had emerged from decades of war to successfully provide basic services to their citizens.

Who knows why a man in his position wouldn't have expected such a question, but he looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "Most people call Afghanistan a post-conflict nation," he began hesitantly. "My terminology is a bit different, I call it post-devastation."

As a result, he suggested, battle-weary Afghans weren't able to articulate what they needed. "Like a patient speaking of the problems, where it is hurting, when it started, how bad is the pain, etcetera. Unfortunately, this patient here -- Afghanistan -- could not speak and you have to find out what the problem is, what is the prior diagnosis and medication."

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