Aschiana

Both of these photos are from our initial meeting with Mohammed, the manager of Aschiana ("Aschiana" is the Dari word for "nest"). I'm not really sure how to handle security/anonymity issues regarding the people we met on this trip; I don't want to put anyone in undue danger from a reckless blog entry, so even though it's probably not really necessary I won't use full names for anyone we met with.

The photo below shows Mohammed holding the 2009 Humanitarian Award which Aschiana won, beating out more than 4,000 entries from 35 different countries.



These photos were taken in the room containing all the handicrafts and art products that are made by the students at Aschiana and sold, providing part of the income used to run Aschiana. And all the art was absolutely beautiful.



This painting was my personal favorite.


This was the first classroom we visited, where an art class was taking place.









These was the special ed classroom. These women were wonderful with the students--very kind and gentle and supportive.

This cabinet we saw on the path between different buildings and stopped to look at. It contains a display of different ordnance, I believe the word is, that can be found everywhere in Afghanistan and particularly Kabul. This is meant to show the children at Aschiana what different bombs and grenades and various things that go boom look like so they leave them alone. Unfortunately it's not uncommon for children looking for playthings or scrap metal to sell to find something like this and pick it up, only to be killed when it goes off.

Afghanistan is also one of the most heavily mined countries in the world--landmines are everywhere. The HALO Trust is a mine-clearing NGO that locates and destroys landmines and other "debris of war," as their website puts it.



Students in another classroom. The big guy on the right is one of my fellow travelers, not an unusually large Afghan kid.

Notice the poster at the top left of the picture below, and the close-up below that. This type of poster was more common than the HALO Trust display cabinet and was prominently displayed at every school or children's organization we visited in some form or another.




More handicrafts in the woodworking shop. Aschiana also does vocational training, teaching people to make things like this to sell.


The dojo or whatever it's called where they teach judo.

When we walked in and they explained the gym to us, Jake informed everyone that he is a black belt in something or other and Mohammed asked if he would like to go one-on-one with this kid, one of their students in judo.

It was very entertaining--for us at least. We weren't the ones getting slammed into the mat:)






We kept huddling under David's umbrella while we were waiting for Abdul, the driver, to bring the bus over when it was time to leave.

It was cold and rainy the day we went to Aschiana. Aschiana is a program that provides education and vocational training to street children in Kabul, and they do great work.

Aschiana was developed to support street children, who are the most vulnerable in Afghanistan. It is registered/funded by the Ministry of Education. The center we visited is not the only center they operate; there are others in Kabul as well as in different provinces. They work with more than 9,000 children and also work with children from IDP camps, which stands for Internally Displaced People--or in other words, refugees from other areas of Afghanistan. Aschiana works with1,300 families from four IDP camps, which is about 2,500 kids total.

Their main goal is to integrate children from the streets to schools, and also provide vocational training for both boys and girls. School activities include art, literature, sports, health education, work with special ed/handicapped children, etc and vocational programs include carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, and so on.

It costs $20 a month for each child to go to school, and since most families can't afford that Aschiana has a school sponsorship program that finds private donors to sponsor a student and pay that student's school expenses.

Aschiana also has a foundation in the US, based in Washington, D.C. which helps fund Aschiana's programs and also helps locat and provide sponsors to pay the childrens' school fees. If you're interested in learning more about Aschiana or donating to their exceedingly worthy cause, you can find their website here.

The Briquette Project

There is (obviously) no central heating in Afghanistan, so every room has one of these wood-burning stoves for heating. This is the stove in the room I shared with my three fabulous roommates at the guesthouse. They pretty much all look like this.


Wood is becoming scarce in Afghanistan, not to mention expensive in a country where the average yearly wage is something like $300. So someone, somewhere came up with the idea and formula for briquettes. Briquettes are round blocks that burn hotter and longer in stoves than anything else. They're cheap and easy to make and the best part is, they're made of waste products and garbage like shells, leaves, plastic, mud, sawdust, etc. Paper is used as a binding agent so it is always a vital ingredient, but everything else varies according to what is available. The organization that runs the guesthouse we stayed at runs a project that not only makes briquettes, which are then sold and are actually the number one source of income for the organization, but also teaches women how to make them and then provides them with the necessary machinery to do it themselves. That way women can make a living for themselves--and a pretty good living for Afghanistan, at that. The guesthouse therefore always had them available and we used them for our stoves at night. As soon as the fire got going with briquettes it would instantly make the room toasty warm and comfy.

When we visited the girls' school, we also visited their briquette vocational training project they run at the school and got to see how the briquettes are made.

A Girl's Life

The very first place we went on our first full day (the day after we arrived; March 2) was a girl's school. That was also, if not my favorite then one of my favorite things we did. Those girls were adorable and it was great seeing them pursuing an education, because I firmly believe that schools will single-handedly do more to solve all the many problems facing Afghanistan today than any other possible solution.

One thing that really struck me about the classes was how varied the ages were. There would be young girls sitting next to middle-aged women in first, second, third grade classrooms. Just another example of how women were denied education under the Taliban and everything during the civil war.

In case you couldn't tell, the second to last picture is a shot of several of the people on the trip standing at the front of one of the classrooms, along with Najib, our fixer/translator/tour guide. He would introduce us to each class in Dari and then start asking the girls question, like what they want to be when they grow up. Then whichever girl volunteered to answer would stand up and answer in English, always prefacing her statement with "In the name of Allah".

A Mountain Keeps An Echo Deep Inside

In Silence There is Eloquence

It's official: I'm going to Afghanistan!

I just can't believe that in less than a month, I'll be in Kabul. It doesn't seem real to me yet. Maybe because the whole thing came about so quickly, with very little time to plan once the decision was made.

After days of agonizing deliberation over whether I should go or not, I finally decided to throw caution to the winds and sign up for Global Exchange's Reality Tour to Afghanistan. This decision marks a change for me, a split from my usual path of pragmatism and logic. Logically speaking, I should NOT be going on this trip. Partly because of the danger, but mostly because of the money. I knew from the get-go that this would be expensive and I would have to blow both my meager savings and also my expected income tax rebate--leaving me with NO safety nest whatsoever and therefore living paycheck to paycheck again for the foreseeable future, or at least until I head off to grad school next fall--but it actually is turning out to be MUCH more expensive than I had anticipated. So instead of merely spending all my money, I will be spending all my money and going several thousand dollars in debt. So far I've spent $360 on vaccinations alone, $240 on travel insurance that doesn't even cover half my flights, $1500 on airfare, and $1750 on the program fee itself. Although I applied for an internal scholarship within the organization I'm going with, so hopefully that last number will be lower.

Any philanthropically-minded readers out there with some spare cash who would like to donate to my cause? I promise, it's not a purely selfish one. Yes, this is to send me to another country, but it's an educational trip meant to promote connections with Afghanistan and show Americans that there is much more to that country than terrorists and women in blue burqas. You see, the only thing that could make me abandon my cautious nature like this is belief. I truly believe in what Global Exchange is trying to accomplish with their Reality Tours, particularly with this one. Call me a bleeding-heart do-gooder liberal if you must, but I think that this accomplishes much more than guns and bombs and shows of force.

The only news we hear back here about Afghanistan usually involves American soldiers and the war, which is important and should be reported. But there is so much more to the story! There's a whole country full of innocent people just trying to live their lives, and often working to make them better! Never mind that your average American is probably just full of incorrect and insulting stereotypes about Afghanistan. I firmly believe that trips like these are important to correct these errors and educate the people here about the people there. We need to see the human side for something to matter, and that is exactly what this trip will do. I can't wait to come back here and write an article to publish in the paper that I write for, along with my photographs, and to tell all my co-workers about the people I met and the work that they do.

This trip is called Women Making Change, and is all about what women are doing to empower themselves and receive the rights that we take so for granted in this country. They have been through so much, and still work so hard for such little reward. Their strength humbles me. I think that this trip will be eye-opening in so many ways, and not only for me but for anyone I am able to share it with upon my return.

Light a Candle For Me

More photos from St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC. I'm not Catholic, so I'm not sure of the entire significance of these candles near the entrance of every cathedral I've ever visited, but they're beautiful and I love the idea of lighting a candle for someone.





I really love this close-up. I like the way the flames reflect off of the glass holders in addition to showing from within them.



Or how about black and white?

A Cottage Full of Books

"I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read."

-Thomas B. Macaulay