Diary from Afghanistan (2)

More Diaries - 2006 - March 2008 - June 2008 - November 2008 - January 2009 - March 2009

18-03-2008

Today Samsolé, a girl who autoimmolated six months ago, came to say goodbye to me. I didn’t know her, but I knew that, since she got out of hospital, ACAF had been paying for her medication. One of the days that she came to the centre to fill the prescription, we got talking. I told her that if she wanted us to pay for her medication, she World have to help us. She asked “How?”, surprised. “You must come to the hospital once a week to keep an autoimmolation victim company.” The fuss she made! Not because of her: because of her husband. He was outside waiting for her, because we have the norm that no man enters with the patient, so Samsolé had to go out to ask his permission.

We explained to her husband what the work was about (we called it work, because she World get 500 afgani - €10 – each time she came, which World allow her to pay for the medication), and he replied that it would not be possible, because none of the women in his family worked. I couldn’t contain myself and retorted “No, but they burn themselves.” I really was not very diplomatic, and I was lucky his reaction was calmer than I thought at first it would be.

It took us a lot of work to convince him. He didn’t accept the offer that our driver would go and pick her up and bring her back, because it’s prohibited for a woman to be alone in a car with a man. Nor did he accept for María also to be in the car for both journeys; what would the neighbours say?! And another problem was where to leave their son.

In short, the only thing he agreed to was bringing her personally, which we didn’t mind, as long has he respected our condition: Samsolé, alone and without the child. And that is what we agreed.

Samsolé is now very happy, her face has changed, she’s talking ten to the dozen, and explaining to us the problems of the patients she keeps company. One day I told her: “This week, make anything you like to give to the patient you were with today.” She turned up with a bunch of flowers (there, they’re all fake) she’d bought. I was very displeased she’d had to buy something, but she was so happy! I suggested that, instead of giving away the whole bunch that week, she could give a flower to each new burns victim.

Now, when you go down onto the ward, you can see where Samsolé has been, because there is a flower on the bedhead.

13-03-2008

I talked to Fatime’s parents. The mother affirms that she will do whatever the father says, and the father says that he personally would have no problem taking her back home, but it is “the town elders” who are in charge, and he will respect their decision. This complicates the situation still further. We agreed that ACAF, along with members of Herat’s Shura of elders, would go to talk to them. Things should be simpler! To start with, this girl should never have been married without her consent; besides, if she autoimmolates, it’s not because she wants to go shopping, it’s because she can’t take any more. Her parents can only bow down to a group of old men. Let’s hope Fatime can remake her life as she wants to, because she’s a young girl of 16 who greatly wants to live her young life.

09-03-2008

We spoke to Fatime, a woman who was admitted two days ago after immolating herself because she doesn’t get on very well – very badly, in fact – with her husband and mother-in-law. She does not want to go back to living with that family. We didn’t think she was going to make it, but she’s still here; her mother is looking after her now.

Fatime was married against her will two years ago. It was like an exchange: her husband’s sister married her brother. So far it doesn’t seem so bad, except that she doesn’t want to go back to her husband, and her parents won’t have her back home because they would have to give up their daughter-in-law, their son-in-law’s sister.

I’ve been talking to her mother, who does nothing but cry. When I say I hope she will take her back home, she responds that it’s impossible, that Fatime must go back to her husband.

It defies belief, but I think I’m beginning to understand these people a little better. This mother is truly pained and is trapped by this culture which won’t let her do what her heart wants: have her daughter back home and be able to look after her.

03-03-2008

We're working many, many hours. It's a good job that conditions in the hospital have improved, but all sorts of things keep happening. If I wasn't living it for myself, I would never believe it. From the autoimmolation in prison of the woman everyone rejects for having engaged in prostitution (finally we managed to get an organisation to take responsibility for her who will take her to Australia and now we're under threat from her husband), to the nomadic (15-year-old) wife, forced into marriage at knifepoint, who immolated herself because she couldn't stand the family, to... I shan't go on... it's always the same: they can't take any more and burn themselves... yesterday, a woman with 100% burns died. Why? Because somebody wanted to marry her off. From 2005 when I joined the project, to the present day, the causes or factors have changed, making it very difficult to predict.

...Now I'm longing for the Spanish electoral battle.

24-02-2008

Culture shock, which is still affecting me: a woman cannot shake a man's hand as a greeting. I know this, but it's hard to remember it when several westerners are there and our translator stays totally apart from the greetings we exchange with the men, Afghan or otherwise. It's punishable by law, and in social terms, women risk their reputation and future.

They are also forbidden from wearing sunglasses, because men wouldn't be able to see which way they are looking; they can't fly kites; single women can't sit in a car with a man (we have constant problems with this); in fact, a woman cannot ride in a car alone with a man.

I'M GIVEN AN UPDATE:

The snowfalls started at the beginning of January 2008, simultaneously in the three western provinces. All roads were closed and communications cut off, and there was no transport. We were told that the people who bore the brunt of this calamity were the shepherds, the chuchis, who live in the mountains; they were taking care of the animals, and got lost in a snowstorm, because they couldn't find their villages and houses, so they were forced to stay in the open countryside for three or four days. As a result, their limbs froze, and many have had to be amputated.

According to local television, after two weeks of daily snowfalls, more than 48 people have received medical attention and many surgical interventions have been necessary, amongst them the case of a 23-year-old boy whose arms and legs had to be amputated; he is (or was) a shepherd, who was trapped with his sheep, which were dying of cold; he sought cover to no avail and was was lost without food or drink in the middle of the blizzard for three days and two nights, until the village people found him. They took him to the village but since the village was also cut off, he was without any medical assistance for another week. When finally he was able to be transferred to the nearest hospital, it was too late to do anything, with the above result.

Asghar tells me that at nighttime, floods of whole families, barefoot and dressed in rags, would knock on his door in Herat asking for help. They asked him for blankets, 5 afghanis for bread (€0.001) and food. He remarks that at that time, the price of bread doubled, from 4 to 8 afghanis, and it is still so. In these subsistence cultures, bread - NAN - is vital. Unfortunately, they not only asked him, but went in to every house. The majority of these homeless people are themselves Afghans, who have come out of the countryside seeking refuge in the cities.

During the final days of the snowfalls, the Iranian government deported many young Afghans who had gone there looking for work to help their very poor families (Iran is 150km from Herat), arguing that they were living and working illegally in Iran. The freezing streets of Herat were invaded by legions of country folk, and those that were left wandering the streets because of the difficulty in getting home spent the nights with cardboard boxes and makeshift fires.

Now the roads are once again open, but they cannot go home because they don't have money for the journey. No-one has helped them: neither the Afghan government nor international organisations. Only the Fundation de Bayat (Bayat Foundation) has helped more than 500 families in Herat, distributing blankets, coal, wool, food (flour, rice, oil), coats and shoes to the little ones; Mr Bayat himself, founder of this foundation, handed them out personally. An important statistic is that 90% of victims are in Herat.

From the plane, you get a spectacular view: the entire country is a blanket of white.

23-02-2008

4:30 in the morning, the 23rd. After nearly 6 hours delay on the "Ariana" airlines' flight back to Kabul, we take off from Istanbul Airport. Apart from the considerable delay, not uncommon with this Afghan airline, everything seems normal, until, an hour and a quarter into the flight, the pilot informs us that we are "going to land at Istanbul International Airport". A maintenance stop in Ankara was scheduled for roughly the same time, which is why I thought I must have heard wrong, half asleep and tired as I was, and with the announcements in Dari and English. Besides, I notice that the other passengers are very calm. In a fraction of a second, I wonder whether I didn't leave from Madrid. Then I realise that at these hours of the morning, I need to snap out of it and think clearly. Of course I didn't leave from Madrid! I was going to Kabul. I'd taken off from Istanbul, and was landing again at the same airport with no explanation apart from a possible cupo or illness en route. Those are just ideas that are flashing through my head, because there is nothing whatsoever normal about the situation.

I kept on telling myself: "Gloria, this can't be; you must have heard wrong!" But seeing the wonder of the Bay of Istanbul, there could be no more doubt: it was not Ankara. Nobody gave us any information, and nobody asked, which surprised, given that Afghans insist on knowing everything, and when there are questions to be asked, neither lives nor miracles nor circumstances beyond their control stand in their way. I didn't understand anything.

After being on the plane more or less an hour, seeing how air and ground staff grouped together at the entrance to the plane, searching, moving things, taking down and rehanging things, serving us the breakfast that was scheduled to be the second on-board service, the announcement was made that we were going to fly direct to Kabul, and, what a surprise, the people on the plane started applauding like little children, without a word of apology or clarification. That's the way things go in Afghanistan.

Today I noticed the first changes in the waiting room: Not a single man was wearing the pirantoman (the typical Afghan jacket, obligatory in the times of the Mujahideen and Taliban regime) and, yet more surprising, the changes in the women: there would be five women on the whole plane, among us an old lady dressed in western style with two handkerchiefs covering her head, and her daughter, in trousers and a long jacket, with a handerchief on her head, travelling alone. Whewther through 'fate' or Afghan policy, we were seated together, and we shared bits of everything they were carrying, along with many smiles. The other three wore western clothes in more modern style (fitted trousers, boots, and short jumpers over blouses in similar style). Styles have changed, so I was the most Afghan of us, in my wide trousers and wide, long blouse, and they the representatives of the new westernised trends. Hurrah for them. When we got to Kabul they didn't cover themselves - another hurrah. I don't know what they will wear tomorrow, but it won't be a burka. I was also surprised to hear them speaking Dari.

A bigger surprise were the Ariana hostesses.   This may be a clear example: their uniforms consisted of skin-tight jeans beneath the waist, a tight transparent white blouse, wide belt, stiletto heels (which clack on the floor of the plane and won't let you get to sleep) and, for take-off and landing, a well-fitting short black jacket. I'm not sure this little number is wonderfully comfortable, but they look attractive because they're skinny and very heavily made up. What a contrast with their countrywomen on the ground! Could this be so that Afghans travel by air more? The scale has yet to balance itself out.

22-02-2008

I leave Madrid for Istanbul at 6 in the evening. Ana Garralda and Julian came to the airport to give me a present for Salvador, the Spanish military attaché in Afghanistan.

It was brief but enjoyable - enough time to have a coffee and look through a few things in the report Ana is preparing about ACAF.

I met this couple last December in Kabul, as briefly and on-the-run as today. They were in Afghanistan to write about and film a number of things, one of which was "Spanish Women in Afghanistan". I was very keen to help with this topic and threw myself into it wholeheartedly. They were with me for a few hours following everything I was doing. It was confused and chaotic, just like everything here: in the car with Julian driving, in the middle of the Kabul hustle and bustle, Ana bombarding me with questions, me answering and looking frantically at the time because we had the flight to Herat and a lot of work ahead of us, the Afghan cameraman filming and ACAF's translator taking note of what we wanted from the ministerial offices, which was where we were heading. The car was straight out of the Max brothers, in the heart of Kabul. According to Ana, they got a good report out of all this chaos.

I've lost count of the number of times I've travelled to Afghanistan, and although I'm much calmer now, I still haven't got used to the feeling of panic that sometimes invades me. Every journey is different, although the places are the same.