When
the actor David Hayman first visited the mountain villages of Afghanistan, the
people were in desperate need of medical care - and hope. As he returns with his charity Spirit Aid,
he writes about a personal journey to change lives.
Day
one in the main village of the Dahana-I-Ghori district, and the doctors and nurses
are already in the mosque, sitting on the floor, each surrounded by at least 20
people thrusting themselves forward for examination. Nearby, the pharmacists
sit surrounded by boxes and packs of medicines - everything from penicillin and
malaria treatments to multi-vitamins - trying to keep them away from grasping
hands.
The mosque measures 20ft by 40, and
there must be 150 people in here already.
Outside, hundreds more are being kept at bay by Dr Obidi and his
assistants, but they are losing the battle.
They are swarming past him to force their way in the door, handing
screaming babies and children through gaps torn in the plastic sheeting of the
windows. Some children are on the roof,
trying to find a way in. The noise of
shouting and arguing is intense. There
is a sense of panic in the air.
The women are being dealt with in another, much smaller,
room next door. If anything it is even
more intense. Strong men are valiantly
trying to hold back the force of desperation trying to flood in. But all you have to do is look into the eyes
of these people to know that nothing is going to stop them.
I struggle against the tide to leave the mosque and its
teeming courtyard to climb the hill behind.
From my vantage point above the chaos, I have a clear view in both
directions along the valley. For as far
as the eye can see, small family groups of villagers are making their way to
the mosque. Out of the houses, out of
the caves they come, on foot and donkey, along the well-trodden paths, across
the dried river-bed. The women’s
brightly coloured shawls and scarves stand out in relief against the
dun-coloured landscape of this biblical scene.
This is crazy, I think. There
must be another way to do this. Yet
when people are this desperate, there is no other way.
It is early December 2003 and I am three weeks into my
third trip to Afghanistan. I am here
with £16,000 of aid money raised by my charity Spirit Aid’s Children of the
Rubble appeal, co-funded by Aid International in Edinburgh. I have put together a medical team of eight
doctors, eight nurses, two medical technicians, a dentist, two pharmacists,
four drivers and an interpreter, and we are delivering emergency aid to the
mountain villages of Baghlan province in north-east Afghanistan; I am also
making a documentary film for the BBC about our work.
The people of these mountain villages have not seen a
doctor in 24 years, and they are dying.
They are stricken with tuberculosis, bronchitis, malaria, whooping cough
and gastro-intestinal disease. All of
them are treatable - but, in this betrayed and forgotten country, that is not
so easy. The life expectancy is 43
years, a quarter of all children are dead by the age of five, and only 17 per
cent of people have access to medical services - but not necessarily the money
to pay for them.
This country has been bombed and forgotten by the
West. Two years after the bombing -
carried out by the West to overthrow the fundamentalist Taliban regime
following the terror attacks of 9/11 - a little aid is beginning to come in: a
few more Bailey bridges over the ravines or some maintenance work on the
potholed roads. The humanitarian aid,
however, is not forthcoming. The people
of this country are dying and we seem to be turning a blind eye. How can we bomb an innocent country, reduce
it to rubble and walk away?
Word has spread over the hills to other isolated villages
that we are here. A small, middle-aged
man walks two miles carrying his 16-year-old daughter in his arms, her limbs
badly twisted from polio. “Will the
doctors look at my daughter?” he asks, the light of hope in his eyes. “Yes, of
course they will,” I reply. I ask
Anwar, my interpreter, to walk him and his daughter straight into the women’s
room for examination, yet I fear he will leave a sad and disappointed man.
Some elders come to me with a boy of eight, Mohammad, who
has a lump growing out of his neck the size of a football. His father died three years ago and his
mother three days ago. He has four
sisters and two brothers; he is the eldest.
I take Mohammad to Dr Najeep, the paediatrician on my team. It is Hodgkin’s disease; he is also
suffering from malaria. I ask Dr Obidi,
my medical coordinator and the deputy director of health for Baghlan province,
if anything can be done. “Yes, if we
can get him to Puli Khumri for special treatment. “ I tell him Spirit Aid will pay for his journey to the hospital
and for his treatment.
The first time I set eyes on Habiba was in January last
year, when I stopped in Derwasaqan - one of 16 villages that go by the
collective name of Shekh Jalal - to give the children some oranges. She stood out from the haggle of eager young
faces crowded round my Land Rover, hands snatching at the unusual sight of fresh
fruit. The children were sick, and Habiba
had lost three of her young friends to “the cough” in the ten days before I got
there.
“They cough and they die,” said Sultan, her father. TB,
chronic bronchitis, whooping cough and URI (upper respiratory infection) were
widespread among the 5,000 population of the villages. Again, these people had not seen a doctor in
24 years. I had come with £10,000 for
humanitarian aid, but was so moved by the plight of these children that I took
the decision to put together an emergency medical team.
We were back in the country within three days. Over a period of two weeks the team examined
and treated all 5,000 people. As well
as the chronic chest infections, we also found malaria, gastro-enteritis and
serious diarrhoea. I was left with
indelible memories of people clutching little plastic bags of medicines as if
they were the greatest gifts anyone could have given them; running off with
huge smiles of delight, wearing warm new jumpers and shoes or wellies.
I vowed to come back again.
Afghanistan is a hard country. Life in this mountainous, rugged land would not be easy at the
best of times; after 13 years of war with the Soviets, four years of drought
and the allied bombing campaign, it is a brutal struggle for survival. According to UN figures, it is the poorest,
most desperate country outside Africa.
It is also one of the most heavily landmined areas in the world. Yet everywhere I go in this beleaguered
land, the courage and the spirit of the people uplift me. People tell me their stories not in anger
but in confusion and surprise. When is
the aid coming? When will you rebuild
what you destroyed? Why has the West
deserted us? Their smiles belie the
disbelief they must feel.
I first came here because I disagreed so passionately with
the West carpet-bombing an innocent country.
Let’s forget all this rubbish about “smart bombs”. Bombs aren’t smart: they kill people and
destroy roads, bridges, tunnels, schools, hospitals, homes, farmlands and
lives. There have been many thousands
of civilian deaths since the West began its campaign in 2001. How does that stand up to the statements by
George Bush and Tony Blair that they have “nothing against the people of
Afghanistan”?
There are still some 12,000 allied troops in Afghanistan,
hunting Al Qaeda rebels and the remnants of the Taliban - and, of course, Osama
bin Laden. The death toll is still
rising.
Driving back into Shekh
Jalal in November 2003, then months after I met Habiba, I am apprehensive about
what I will find. The climate in these
mountain villages reaches from 45ºC to -35ºC in the winter; the villagers eke out a meagre survival by
growing rain-fed mountain wheat and keeping chickens and goats. This is my third visit in 16 months, but I
am very aware that whatever work I do on behalf of Spirit Aid and our donors is
but a sticking-plaster on one of the wounds of the world. Important, yes - but still a
sticking-plaster. I will feel happier
when we have raised the money to provide a permanent mobile clinic or two,
something that can regularly visit these mountain communities so they do not
have to wait 24 days, let alone 24 years for medical treatment.
Before I came out on this trip, I wrote to two of the most
successful motor dealers in our country, both of them multi-millionaires,
asking them to donate a four-wheel-drive vehicle written off against tax, for
such a mobile clinic. One of them sent me a cheque for £500. The other didn’t bother to reply. I try not to be judgemental of other
people’s actions or inactions, but at moments like that I want to scream:
“Where is your humanity? Where is your
compassion? Will one little vehicle
that could transform the quality of thousands of vulnerable people’s lives make
such a huge dent in your personal fortune of many millions that you can’t risk
it?”
The mud houses range up both slopes of the valley, growing
as if out of the earth itself. We drive
up the dried-out riverbed - there has been a drought for four years - and I
spot a little figure silhouetted on the slope.
“Habiba!” I cry. I leap out and
run up the hill towards her as she shouts my name. I run with my heart beating to see this seven-year-old princess
standing with her adopted brother Bashir.
Habiba is alive and well and looking healthy. Her beaming, bright smile and her big dark eyes shine out from
beneath a shock of jet-black hair. She
is overjoyed to see me again, laughing and clapping her hands in delight.
My interpreter, Anwar, helps with the conversation as I ask
how Habiba’s family is. “I have lost no friends since you came last. My grandmother is very ill and my father has
a ob. “Good and bad news for this
vulnerable family. Habaiba’s
grandmother is suffering from TB, while Sultan is working as a policeman,
earning $50 a month: a pittance, but also a lifeline to this man. Not only is he is the sole breadwinner for
his family of ten; he is the only one in his community of ten families - about
70 people - who earns money. That is
why he has recently adopted 13-year-old Bashir, whose parents were killed in
the bombing. The people carved caves
out of the hillsides, big enough for families and their animals, so they could
escape the worst of those brutal attacks from the sky. Bashir’s parents were still outside the
caves when the bombs fell.
Habiba tells me Sultan is worried about her
grandmother. I tell her the doctors are
coming back so we will do everything to help. Suddenly she brings her shawl up
to cover her mouth and shyly says: “I’ve still got it, the crystal.” She tells me she treasures the little quartz
crystal I gave her. “How about you and Bashir coming in the Land Rover to the
main village?” I say. They are ecstatic
to be in a vehicle for the first time in their lives as we drive to the main
mosque to meet the village elders.
In the road that runs through
the valley, I meet the leaders of all
the villages of Shekh Jalal. A crowd
has gathered around us. I tell them I
have come to bring back the medical teams and to distribute clothing and shoes
for as many people as possible, and I ask for their co-operation, especially in
helping control the distribution of clothes and drugs. But the new head of the main village
launches into a speech about how I must not film the women, and accuses me of
selling footage from our last visit - which we shot without argument - to make
money.
I argue that if we do not have film of the women being
treated, it will be hard for me to raise more funding back home. All I have with me is a little video
camera. I push it and say: “No filming
- no doctors.” Women might be second-class
citizens in this country, but on this project they will not be.
We are surrounded by at least 100 men, the elders to the
fore. Women are in hiding behind walls
or cowering in doorways; some of the younger girls, however, are closer and
bolder, squatting with the boys.
Everyone is intently watching us.
“We don’t need your help. The last time you came you gave
us bad medicines,” says the village head, grandly. I let the silence land in the dust. “Dr Noor, the director of health for Baghlan Province, and his
deputy, Dr Obidi, bought those medicines for me,” I reply. “Both are highly respected men, and they
used what medicines were left, after you were all treated, in the hospital in
Puli Khumri.”
He lets the silence fall.
A white-bearded elder speaks quietly.
It is a gentle rebuke. “David has come from far away. He has come back twice this year with
doctors and medicines and you insult him like this?” The old man turns to me.
“We do not want our children to die.”
Another elder continues.
“We must change. We know the
world is changing. Let this man film
his work in peace. We respect him and
he is the only one who has ever come to our people and offered to help. Our people are less sick because of the work
he did earlier this year. We trust and
respect him.”
Silence. The first
elder utters a quiet full stop: “So be it.”
There is a general nodding of heads and grunting of agreement. We all look to the head man. “So be it,” he says - with a hint of
defiance. I thank them all and tell
them of Spirit Aid’s plans to have a relationship with the people of Shekh
Jalal and other communities for many years to come; for as long as we can raise
funding.
It has been a strange,
unsettling yet encouraging meeting.
These people lead a simple life and have little contact with the outside
world. There is no electricity, so no
TV; no money for batteries, so no radio.
There is only word of mouth from those that travel to the local markets
for trade: and that word is that the world is changing. Sometimes that change drops in the form of
bombs from the sky. Sometimes it is
blasted from the barrels of guns. On
this occasion, I - with my aid and my camera - am part of the change.
When we start work, we discover that the children are not
nearly as sick as last time. There is
still TB, malaria and chronic bronchitis, but on the whole the people are
healthier than when we were here ten months ago. The children give me the warmest greetings possible, running out
of the houses with huge smiles on their faces.
White men don’t come here, but I have played with these kids, clowned
with them, connected through fun. They
seem stronger - there are not so many runny noses, filthy coughs and open
sores. They still wear the welly boots I brought them before, but they are the
worse for wear and in desperate need of replacement. They wear thin cotton tops in this freezing but beautiful day
where the temperature is reaching a relatively mild -8ºC.
Suddenly a group of women are running from a house towards
the mosque, shouting for help. Anwar
tells me a mother has just given birth and is haemorrhaging badly. I alert some of the team, dragging them from
the chaos of the mosque to go to the woman.
Maternal mortality rates can be as high as 60 per cent in these mountain
villages. After an hour the team
re-emerge to say, in their understated way, that they have stopped the bleeding
and the mother and child are doing well.
I am glad we are here on this day, and appreciate the skill of this experienced
team.
Three weeks later, the medical team have been working
almost non-stop, but the effort seems to have paid off. We have examined and treated almost all the
population, and I have managed to give almost all of them new clothing and
shoes - and even to hand out my oranges and to laugh and clown with the
children. The work in Shekh Jalal has
been difficult and exhausting. Now
Dahana-I-Ghori awaits.
I have been frustrated by the lack of order; by my
inability to speak the language; by things not moving fast enough; by not
having enough time or money to do all the work I want to do here. The pressure has been piled on, but the work
has almost always been good-natured, despite its intensity.
The only anger I have seen has come from Sultan, Habiba’s
father. He was the most difficult
person I had to deal with on my last trip too.
An angry man, he fought with and made demands of me every inch of the
way. He pushed, he pulled, he argued,
all on behalf of his desperate people.
I have come to respect his passion a great deal - especially in a land
where the notion of “Inshallah”, or God willing can lead to a quiet acceptance
of one’s lot.
Sultan is a stern-looking, handsome ex-army commander who
at last has a job. “It is good for us
all, David. I will make a good
policeman. The $50 a month will help a
little,” he tells me.
“We have had too much of death. Every family in Afghanistan holds the memory of those who have
been taken through war or the bombing or disease. We want to live with peace.”
He spreads his arms out. “Who
asks for this?” he says, and I look at the dust, his worn shoes, his freezing
children - who look back with quiet eyes, waiting for an answer. What do you conjure up from the deepest
parts of your compassion to answer a question like that?
At 38, Sultan will reach his life expectancy if he lives
just another five years. His wife could
die during her next childbirth or lose the baby - as she did the last one. The children have no shoes other than the
remnants of what I left ten months ago, and no warm clothes. Three scrawny chickens peck away at the
barren earth.
Sultan’s mother has advanced TB. After talking to the doctors, Spirit Aid will provide the
complete course of nine months’ worth of medicines they prescribe. But they say she will probably not last.
We drive back over the hills to my base at Puli
Khumri. Sultan is in the Land Rover too
- he wants to be there when I buy the medicines for his mother. I have also made a promise to Habiba: I will
buy her a warm jacket. We head for the
bazaar, where for $4 I find her a little padded jacket for the hood. Sultan nods a thank you as I tell him: “This
is for the princess.”
This is my farewell to Sultan: we move on to the villages
of Dahana-I-Ghori tomorrow. It is
difficult to say goodbye in the busy market.
I ask this proud man if there is anything more I can do for him before I
leave. He looks at me and says quietly:
“Take me to Scotland.”
Within his statement is a message: no matter what my life
holds for me, no matter how life improves in this country, it will always be a
struggle to feed and clothe and protect my family and stay alive. It is too hard. I see the enormity of the task etched in his face.
After Dahana-I-Ghori we are
snowed in for three days; we then have to make our way across a white
wilderness of two-metre-deep snow to get back to the capital, Kabul. This is my last night before I head, via
Dubai and Amsterdam, to Glasgow.
Leaving Afghanistan is always a rush of mixed emotions for
me. I love the people of this country,
their warmth and hospitality, their resilience, their ingenuity in survival and
above all their wicked sense of humour, which can transcend any language
barrier. Yet I have a sense of a job
unfinished, no matter how successful my mission. There is so much work to be done in this country that my
sticking-plaster seems woefully inadequate.
I climb into bed at midnight. At 1am there is the unmistakable whistle of a rocket, followed by
the “crump” of the blast. It feels about
half a mile away. Five minutes later a
far more powerful blast shatters the freezing night. It is much closer - I reckon it must be two blocks away. I pull the blankets tighter round me. It is a brutal reminder that, for the people
of this country, peace could still be a long way off. But the delivery of mobile clinics may not be … Inshallah.
First published in The
Herald Magazine, 17th January 2004; reproduced here with the kind
permission of David Hayman.
Special thanks to Su Bainbridge
for retyping it.
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