Schooled by the Taliban
A mother's quest teaches us about Afghanistan's deterioration and the Taliban's resurgence.
In the spring of 2007, I traveled with Sally on the day she got to see the school up and running for the first time. I was there to hear the girls giggling and shouting her name, surrounding her and thanking her. I was there to see the joy and hope in their faces that an American woman who lost her son in the Sept. 11 attacks would have such a big heart.
I saw her son’s English language version of the Koran carefully placed in a glass case in the principal’s office. The family was nominally Catholic, but the closest thing it had to real religion was the Red Sox. Peter was born on the day the Sox clinched the pennant in 1967. But Peter had a passion for understanding all religions and he carefully marked certain passages of the Koran that Sally had donated to the school.
The village elders in Logar Province who watched over the school hosted a lunch for us. Sally had gotten to know them through repeated trips to Afghanistan during the fundraising for and then construction of the school. There was Haji Malik, a tall, gentle-mannered man with a thick beard and traditional Afghan dress. And there was his younger brother, Katal Khan, who actually looked much older, with a thicker and more gray beard and deep lines in his face.
Between them, these two patriarchs of the tribe in this small village in Logar had 14 daughters who were studying in the school that Sally built.
After we spent the day visiting with students, the elders hosted an elaborate meal for us in their family compound next to the school. We ate in the top floor of a gas station that the family owned on the main road out of Logar, about an hour outside of Kabul. The gas station was a crossroads in a dangerous, rural corner of Afghanistan and the village we were in definitely was perilous.
Nearby the Taliban had taken to torching girls’ schools, which violated their puritanical and misogynistic interpretation of the Koran. But we felt we were with two elders of the village who were more enlightened. We were the protected guests of these two men and accepted their hospitality and convinced ourselves we were safe.
She told me that Katal Khan also had lost a son, during Afghanistan's violent history, and that they had bonded over this and shared their grief. She felt close to him.
“These people gave me back my life,” Sally told me, repeating the phrase frequently throughout our journey in Afghanistan.
Rather than go in as Sally apparently did without networking with people already on the ground and working to build schools (the article doesn't really explain much about how this all developed), it would have been better to have gone in with an established organization. The Central Asia Institute, headed by Greg Mortenson, comes to mind. This is the private group whose origins and history are described in the book "Three Cups of Tea." Greg already suffered setbacks and cleared the way through hardship, hard work and strong relationships to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. https://www.ikat.org/
There's a lot of good to be done in the world, and I tend to think we'll get more done if we work together and avoid re-inventing the wheel.
We agree that the work done by the Central Asia Institute and Greg Mortensen is vital, as is the work done by other reputable international organizations like Care and the many countries that are responsible for building schools in Afghanistan, especially in the Pashtun provinces.
In September 2005 we were fortunate to have as friend and advisor, David B. Edwards, PhD., Professor of Anthropology and Afghan Scholar at Williams College, Williamstown, MA. Dr. Edwards linked us with then Deputy Minister of the Interior, Shahmahmood Miakhel. Both continue to guide the work of the Foundation.
The history of the construction of the school is in part detailed on our website: www.goodrichfoundation.org. In the fall of 2005, Dr. Edwards was concerned about the lack of coordination by aid agencies and other well meaning donors with the government of Afghanistan. Shahmahmood Miakhel addressed those issues. I traveled to Afghanistan three times during its construction in 2005 to observe the process and meet those engaged in the work: the local elders, the Logar provincial minister of education and the Afghanistan Minister of Education.
The following details are not on the website:
The school foundation was laid by the governor of Logar and the land was allocated through consultation with the community and department of education of Logar. The ministry of education provided a standard design which was being used throughout Afghanistan. There were three conditions that had to be met: The school would be a registered government school and it is. The community would donate the land and they did. Finally the school should be built according to standard design of the ministry of education and the Foundation complied.
From the beginning, the school and its construction were and continue to be supervised and monitored by the Department of Education of Logar. The school was inaugurated by Deputy Minister of Education. The village leader and his brother were part of the community and helped during its construction. Their role was important for the security of the school. The actual protection was provided by a police unit that is close to the school. This was critical. Otherwise this school might be destroyed as many have been in the south and in other Pashtun villages.
The construction process took nine months. As soon as the school was completed in January 2006, it was conveyed to the government of Afghanistan. My husband, Don, and I attended its formal dedication in April 2006 and I continued to visit it annually until November 2009 when it was deemed too dangerous. During the April 2006 trip, Shahmahmood Miakhel introduced us to a registered indigenous non governmental organization, WADAN, www.wadan.org, that has provided oversight and accountability for any subsequent small projects at the school.
The Foundation is one of a number of non-profit organizations in Vermont and New Hampshire working in Afghanistan that are subject of a research study by Jennifer Fleuri, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. She is addressing the nature of sustained relationships with villages and individuals in Afghanistan overtime by these organizations.
It has been my great privilege to travel to Afghanistan seven times during the last four years. I have met many talented and dedicated Afghans and Americans working to rebuild the Afghans. This is a task that grows more difficult by the day. As well, we have in our lives and our home Afghan children studying here. These relationships, taken together, have given our lives meaning. We draw on their courage and hope for the future of Afghanistan.
Sally Goodrich
The Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Foundation
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