60 New Mattresses for Bamyan Orphans

Thanks to your generosity, we just purchased 70 new mattresses in Kabul for the orphans in Bamyan who currently sleep on rough wool blankets.  And thanks to my pilot friends here at Blackwater Aviation, these mattresses are being flown in as I can get them on planes.  It is amazing how much room one can still find on a "full" flight, if it is for a good cause.  We will soon post Pics of gleefully soporific children and the orphanage's new solar electric system.   For now, here is Meredith and I on the Bagram flight line getting ready to load mattresses on a flight to Bamyan.

UPDATE 12/6/09:  All of the mattresses have been delivered.  Note that the children are wearing warm winter clothes,which some of you will probably recognize as from your own children.  There is no central heat in the orphanage and it is pretty cold in Bamyan.  They have about 6 inches of snow on the ground there right now.  But at least the children have, what is for most of them, their first mattresses ever.  The blankets were donated by folks in New Zealand.

A Visit to the Samar Orphanage

Nine-year-old Ajmal Khan lives high in central Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains. He plays in the shadow of cliffs from which were hewn the magnificent Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban. He loves books, school, kite flying and potatoes. He lives with fifty-seven other children, not far from mass graves that may hold the remains of their parents.

But Ajmal and the other children at the Samar Orphanage do not focus on what the world has taken from them. Instead, Ajmal sprints to be the first to greet a surprise visitor from the US. Soon, an undulating knot of children warmly envelop the visitor. Handshakes become hugs; greetings become English demonstrations; everyone is soon a friend.

The Director is eager to meet me in his office and discuss the orphanage's acute needs. But the votes of fifty-eight enthusiastic children are that it is more important I first see what they have, rather than what they lack. Of course, the children win.

Each room houses eight children in steel bunk beds. Like children everywhere, they are pack rats. Their oddball possessions fill the corners of their bunks. Barney the Dinosaur is missing his purple tail. Not from a land mine, I am assured. Hello Kitty dons a headscarf as part of a light Moslem makeover. And they obviously love picture books in any language. They seem to love anything in any language, collecting everything from stones to discarded hardware to any sundry ephemera. Just children.

I meet some of the six adults who act as "parents" to the children.  They are among the few saints on Earth who really know the meaning of a ten-to-one child/parent ratio.  They tell me their secret is for the children to learn to help one another at an early age.  Something is working, as the Samar Orphanage seems more like a family with fifty-eight brothers and sisters than an institution.

Now it is time for lunch. The children line up in Dickensian fashion, each with a tin bowl. They await a serving of food cooked over an open wood fire. Some of the older children (they range in age from four to sixteen) help with the cooking and serving. Today's lunch: white rice and fried potatoes-a child's, if not a dietitian's, dream. The Valley is deservedly famous for its fine potatoes.

After lunch we tour the outside. While the Bamyan Valley is mostly full of lush potato fields that are currently in bloom, the orphanage seems to have been located in its most sun-baked, desert-like reaches. It lies at the mouth of Dragon Valley, so named because of a serpent-like rock outcrop. The rock dragon was once alive, it is said, requiring a human sacrifice per day for its dietary needs. Then Mohammed's son-in-law swept in from Mecca, turned the dragon to stone and thereby eased the area's forced conversion to Islam.. Unfortunately, it did little to green up the area immediately surrounding the orphanage, which is hot and dusty in the summer. And at 8,500' elevation in the Hindu Kush, presumably cold and snowy in the winter.

The buildings housing the orphanage were built by NGOs like the Shuhada Organization and look clean and new. But the orphanage is pretty much on its own to fund operations, particularly things beyond bare necessities. For instance, they have a donated generator in the yard, but are generally without power, as there is no money for fuel. Instead, the Director shows me pictures of a small solar electric system he hopes to install. Then the children can at least have electric lights in the evening for their studies.

It takes little time to realize just how well-studied these children are. Some of them actually brief me on the Valley's history. I'm told it lies on the ancient Silk Road and predates Alexander the Great, so there is plenty of history to talk about. "But is anyone still afraid of the dragon"? I ask. "He only eats potatoes now," I am told to intense laughter. Finally, I have found another vegetarian in Afghanistan.

The children attend school right next to the orphanage, girls included. Here they mix with children from nearby families and apparently excel at their studies. One Samar alumnus now attends university in Kabul on a merit scholarship.

Ajmal thinks he may someday become a doctor. Here, he can look to his Provincial Governor as a role model. She is an epidemiologist, as well as Afghanistan's first and only woman governor. Such advances are possible here because the people of this region practice a relatively moderate and tolerant form of Islam.

Yet one thing these people have never tolerated is the Taliban.  Isolated and independent, they were among the last holdouts. When they finally fell, the Taliban slaughtered thousands. Their legacy is orphans and the rubble of shattered antiquities.  The Taliban have no friends here.

But that is the past. The Samar Orphanage is the future. Fifty-eight reasons why this perpetually war-torn nation can hope for better.  And after already losing so much to extremism, these children could become the most promising weapons we have in the so-called "war on terror." For while terrorists are arguably a mixture of ignorance, despair and hatred, these children's unique lives appear to have made them miraculously opposite concoctions.

For centuries, the people of this region have been renowned for their hospitality to strangers and loyalty to friends. Based upon my visit, it appears nothing has changed. Whoever befriends these children is likely to have loyal allies here for many years to come. Not to mention having helped some extraordinary children.

W.