Leaving Afghanistan
PERSONAL NOTES FROM AGCOM INTERNATIONAL SENIOR PRODUCER AND PRESIDENT, LAWRENCE KLAAS:
The explosion was deafening. But somehow I didn’t even flinch.
I was numb from nearly two weeks’ travel and filming in remote villages, farm fields, and the rugged Hindu Kush Mountains. Hours of waiting for a long-delayed flight, preceded by a sleepless night on the eve of departure for home, had left me feeling as if my entire body had been injected with novocaine.
When I looked up from the novel I’d been reading I knew the explosion had been real. Half the waiting room passengers had dived for the floor. Except for fatigue I’d have been there with them. Windows in the ramshackle waiting area of Kabul Airport rattled violently with the aftershocks.
Had we been shelled? Was another round on its way?
Moments later someone whispered "land mine." A grey-brown cloud of smoke rose slowly just beyond our Ariana Airlines 727 parked fifty yards outside the waiting area. Just as slowly people began standing up. Many shuffled cautiously to the windows to see what had happened.
We never found out. Sirens wailed as ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) vehicles rushed to the site of the explosion, hidden from our view by the 727’s fuselage. Two days later I read a U.S. soldier had his foot blown off by a land mine the day I left.
Danger is a way of life in Afghanistan. War, first with the Soviets, later among various tribal warlords, has ravaged the country for 23 years. The fighting has claimed nearly two-million dead. Millions of land mines remain undiscovered. Since 1979 they’ve killed 500,000 people and maimed more than 400,000 others. Piles of red painted rocks along the roadside warn of the danger. Still, farmers and flocks are returning to their fields.
I arrived in Kabul, the capitol city, in early October. By the time I left near the end of the month I had seen destruction and carnage that would’ve driven weaker souls to despair. The resilience, resourcefulness, and optimism of the Afghan people are quite unbelievable to the outsider. Their courage has inspired the international community to help rebuild the country.
My mission was to produce a film showing the work of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), and other aid organizations in helping Afghan agriculture.
Wheat is the major crop in Afghanistan and a major component in the national diet. Thus far IFDC's efforts have helped some 70,000 Afghan farmers double the yield of spring wheat over what it was last year. Plans are to distribute more than twice the seed and fertilizer used in the spring. The help will go to 113,600 of the nation's poorest farmers for the critical fall planting that began during my visit.
International aid groups, including IFDC, are also working closely with the Afghan government to discourage farmers from growing poppies for opium, used in the production of heroin. Their efforts will concentrate on providing economically viable alternatives. But it'll be an uphill battle. Afghanistan is the now world's top opium producer.
The landscape is very much like the American Southwest, particularly the high desert region of Arizona where I'd lived for years. Desert colors, arid climate, rugged terrain and drought are common to both areas. But the Hindu Kush are staggering, massive mountains that dwarf anything in our Southwest. While I was there the first snow of the season dusted the mountains north and east of Kabul. I saw people stop to stare wistfully at the awesome beauty. "The people are hoping it means an end to five years of drought," my translator told me.
From the people I had expected to see at least some scowls, sinister stares, or suspicion. But the Afghans I met, whether in Kabul or the countryside, were models of smiling hospitality. Children everywhere would wave and call out perhaps the only three words of English they knew, "How are you?"
They were, I came to realize, simply happy to be alive. After years of terrorism and brutal repression, all they seemed to want was a chance for peace and happiness. They were, and remain an inspiration for those of us who take life’s simple treasures for granted.
The tragedy that is Afghanistan continues. Tribal conflict smolders. The peace that is struggling to survive is still fragile, tentative.
But hope is strong. The people cling to it as a drowning man clutches a life preserver.