Small shepherd in central part of Afghanistan

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On the course of Silk Road

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The biggest pass which created fairs and favor to travelers was the “Haji Yaqub” pass. The Haji Yaqub pass is the biggest and the highest one. We already had passed lots of others. The pass was filled with snow and it was stormy. An old traveler with his wife who came pilgrimage was behind me, they were telling weird words of God’s names and lots of others whom are followed by lots of people like prophet and imam. They were asking God’s help repeatedly.

When we were going to a slope and reached almost the end, the old man behind me shouted “Oh! There, the smoke comes up from the house We survived!”

The other whispered, “Yes we really survived. This was the most dangerous pass not only difficulty with snow, but robbers too.” They pulled their hands up, spelling words of Arabic and thanked god.

More than two hours later we were going into the darkness. The narrow road caused a traffic-jam and we stopped until the others left the road. After a few hours we reached a small coffee shop, which was almost full. There was only one room, where food was served. It had also a place for sleeping. I asked people where we were and what the name of the place stood for.

“This place is called Sarayee Markhanah” said the owner of the coffee shop. He told me the long history of this road and the “Sarayee”. He insisted that this was one of the roads linked with Asian countries.

I didn’t have a voice recorder to record the story. He was very old, almost 80 years old.
I realized that I am on one of the “Silk Road” routes. The Silk Road is the famous route where the Asian countries linked together. The Silk Road recently became a symbolic political aim for the western world to follow their worldwide political strategies in central Asia. Today, this road has a lot of specific signs telling its history.

“Sarayee” is a Farsi word meaning a big garage with lots of rooms for travelers and their horses. Lots of custodians took care of the luggage. People came from Japan and other Asian countries, through this route to India.

Several Sarayee still have their signs for counting time and distance. For example from this Sarayee to another one takes a whole day walking until the next one is reached.
I just asked the people and they named a few of them like: “Sarayee kotal onai”, “Sarayee duzdqol”, “Sarayee saisang”, “Sarayee Du Sang”, “Sarayee Markhanah” and “Sarayee Kotale Mullah yaqub”.

In the books written by historical writers, the Silk Road continues until Bamian but the end seems lost, it’s never mentioned where it goes after that. The reason why the history writer couldn’t follow continuing the Silk Road is still not mentioned and it remains anonymous.
But now I am on the route of one of the Silk Roads and in one of the famous Sarayees with the name of “Sarayee Markhanah”. I am writing this post from a coffee shop in this Sarayee. I don’t know the name of coffee shop. My travelers and others who came late in the evening are all sleeping. I am writing my diary and two others are talking about their adventures of being in different frontlines of fights during the Soviet Union invasion.

This place is in “Behsood” district, part of “Maidan Wardak” province. The room is almost 5x10m, more than 25 people sleep stuck to each other. Their breath makes me think of the sound of a generator, but not normal.

Tomorrow I should follow my way to the destination and step by step get it gets clear where I am going. I never before stepped around here, or heard the name of these places.

I just went to the toilet; I saw a young boy shivering out of the door, wearing a summer suit. “From which tropical climate you came here?” I asked him. “From behind the backside of this hill, called Gurdam, just 30 minutes walking” he answered. “How did you come here? By car or walking?” I asked him. “I came by walking here, there is no road where a car can pass, but a motorcyclist can get through the narrow passage.” He answered.

He told me there is a big valley, where 3500 people live, “But we don’t have road, we don’t have a clinic, we don’t have schools.” I asked him if they don’t have a hospital where they take their patients. “Mostly they die, but it happens rarely that they are taken to a hospital for treatment, because the hospital is so far from our place. The nearest hospital is 60 kilo meter away from us”, he said.

Almost sixty thousand people, and they have to take their patients to Tagab hospital in Behsood.
This is after five years of Karzai government.

In the last five years billions of dollars were spent in Afghanistan, but if you ask the people if they ever received any help from the government, they answer, “we think we are forgotten and we are probably not from Afghanistan.”

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Trip to Forgotten Land

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I left Kabul on a misty morning. Dust and smoke covered the face of the city, the laps of the mountains had been filled with snow by the clouds that came rolling down. It was different from other mornings. I couldn't see a hundred meters away, and worried about what would be ahead of me. But I left anyway.

We were 14 passengers, including the drivers, planning to reach the mountains in a van. I bought a small radio to listen to the news. As I walked out of the garage, the driver yelled: "Hey man, hurry up! We're leaving soon!"

The driver was afraid to leave the main road. The reason, he said, was the traffic police. "The traffic police always makes problems and asks money for nothing," he explained. I was sitting on a bench in the van with three guys from the Ministry of Education. The two beside me started to talk. Their breath smelled horribly and even the chewing gum I offered them did nothing to end the nauseating odor. I covered my nose with a shawl and didn't remove it during the whole trip.

We passed the Maidan shar, where three cars had been robbed by the Taliban not too long ago. The Afghan National Army (ANA) fought with insurgents here recently. Going down a hill, we saw the wreckage of a car that had been blown up.

"My brother and my wife were killed in this car," the driver sighed. "My brother worked for an international NGO."

Just minutes later we reached a narrow passage entering a small valley. "Look! This is the place where the three carred were robbed by the robbers!" said Ali, the driver.

We arrived at an old bazaar where we'd stop for lunch, and I couldn't take my eyes off wrecked cars ridden with bullet holes. This was Siakhak, in the district of Jalez, with a population of about 40,000 people. Eight years ago, when Kabul was captured by the Taliban and I fled from the city, I passed here on my way to Mazara-e-sharif. Then, this was a very busy and crowded bazaar. Now it was empty. I walked down the street and took pictures of the walls with all the bullet holes. I saw some people and asked them what had happened. They told me that when the Taliban captured this place they destroyed it because the bazaar was the main source of income for the Hazarajat and there was a military base of the Hizbe Wahdat party nearby -- they were fighting the Taliban.

This was not the first time the bazaar had been destroyed. When the Soviet Union invaded in 1979, the same had happened.

We continued our trip and reached the top of the Onai mountain, covered in snow. We arrived at another small bazaar called Tagab and halted again, this time for praying. That gave me time to talk to people and take some pictures. I asked a small boy if he went to school. "If I go to school, who is going to give me food? I am a shepherd here," he answered.

A young man, asked about education in the area, pointed at some place in the distance and explained that there was the only and first intermediate school ever in the area, built last year. Turning around and pointing to another part of the village: "Here is the only hospital which was newly constructed for us. Before that, we had to take our patients to Kabul, most died on the way, only a few survived."

The hospital has only three doctors. Patients are being brought here from all over the Behsood.

/
I'll post more if I survive and have internet access again

Going to unknown trip

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I had always dream of discover, where I lost my kids, where I stared to fox’s green-eyes. The day, when I found my treasure, was an old book. It was a bunch of love poems. This book, later helped me to write in top of my love letter to my beloved but she never looked back and never heard my heart beat. She went until I swallow my tears. She went but drove me to trace her in poems, story and sounds.

Later on I wrote down for her absence:

Burned my garden of tulips,
Gone flower of my side
Without you, I have neither color nor scent
Oh, your step is my spring

And now I am going to unknown trip. Where Paulo Cohilo found her love “Fatima” in the oasis of Egypt in red dress carrying jug of water, where he was searching to discover his treasure which a gypsy woman whispered him. No, I am not going to feel in love but not certain again. Oh I am going to discover some where but where? That is unknown for me.
A trip to unknown territory may be which is not discovered yet.

My absence here has two powerful reasons:
Either I am gone to the land of dead
Or I am alive but don’t have access to internet.


Your comments make me courage and feel not alone.

But the news never heard from media

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"Early morning my mother gave me these eggs to sell them in the street in order to buy food. It was too cold to hold these in my frozen hands.
The eggs were supposed to help us survive, but i am not to go back like this..." the child said.

Excerpt: Nowadays, many Afghan children are working and selling eggs, cigarettes, plastic bags, chewing gum, and lots of other cheap things in the streets. Many others lay naked on the streets to attract passionate people to give them money.
Many others have been taken from the streets and smuggled into Pakistan. A few smugglers have been arrested but they are still active.

Day by day live is becoming more frustrating for Afghan children. There's no safe shelter nor places nor funds to educate them. There was horrible news from an orphanage in Kabul of which the manager was a man. He raped several children of different age, but the news never heard from media.
I heard this from a 12 years old girl who was allowed to enter and talk with some of the orphans. Many of them told her, "We were raped several times by our manager".

Who is hearing these voices? Who cares about Afghan children?

Last night i chatted with a friend of mine in the Netherlands. I was telling him the news from Kabul, that over the last year 1107 innocent people had been killed.
He said "when I am hearing such news i get sick".
But i told him that such news is very familiar to us, hearing about suicide attacks, that injure lots of people.

When is Afghanistan going to be healed?
That would be a dream i think, for each Afghan.


Link
Five Year old girl Raped in Kabul
Related Story from NewsMAX journalist in Afghanistan

Coming Tough winter

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It is only a few days after heavy rains in Kabul. Kabul city is surrounded of mountains these mountains covered of snow now. The weather is going freezing day by day to reach the sub-zero.

Last year it was 18,20 minus zero. More than 15 people died and frozen in passages and roads. The year before more than 200 people died but for the government it was only news to say we are sorry for people who die.

There was a story in news; a beggar who came early morning on the street to attract the runner’s attention to compassionately receive helps but frozen.
People from the vehicles were throwing money to him but he was not moving, while in the midday his son came to him to take him for launch. Calling his father “papa lets go to eat launch” but papa is not alive anymore.

This winter coming to freeze the poor people. Fuel, woods and gas are getting higher and higher price day by day. One kilogram gas costing 0.90 cents, 7kilo woods costs 0.90 cents and diesel costs 0.65 cents per liter.

Terrorist uses Graveyard

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Based on press release from Kabul police authorities a number of explosives things and some IDs found in an old graveyard in the central capital of Kabul.

The explosives and evidences were placed in a special pocket hidden in the cemetery. The documents were containing instructions on bomb-making and suicide attacks against internationals.

There were also some passports which were representing the identity of foreign citizens. Kabul police says most of the passports were belong to Pakistan citizens including some Arabic countries.

Nearly it is two months since the explosion in front of Interior ministry and a number of other explosions in the south. For the last two month people where living in a peaceful condition in Kabul and now this indicates the terrorists are active to their foreboding decisions.

Women Born Into 'Bad Luck' in Afghanistan...

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Here are two exclusive stories by Okke Ornstein an internationally acclaimed journalist working on assignment for NewsMax.com in Afghanistan. He reports from Kabul:

Women Born Into 'Bad Luck' in Afghanistan
Five-year-old Fawzia was lying in the sand and didn't move. She was bleeding heavily from what was left of her private parts. Mohammad could only stare at her, frozen in awe. Five minutes earlier, he had been at the back of his house chopping wood when a child came running up to him. "They've kidnapped her!" the child yelled. "The man with the white scarf has taken her!" That man with a white scarf had come to the playground where Fawzia frolicked, punched her in the face and taken her to a garden.
There, he raped her.

"These crimes are common in Afghanistan," says Sajeda of RAWA, an organization that fights
for women's rights. Read this story here

Also here another story by this pen in NewsMAX

Click on Taliban Threatens 'Grow Poppy or Die!'

Policemen in Afghanistan are not happy with their lives. The highest-ranking officer makes about $80 per month, and "the Taliban pay better," one policeman tells me.
Would he go fight with them? "They haven't asked me. But I have to survive. If they asked me I would," he replies. Read the whole story here

Poppy legalization banned in Afghanistan

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The committee of counter narcotics which was made by a group of parliament member rejected a part of the law on drugs that was legalizing poppy cultivation for research and medicines purposes.

Both officials of the narcotics ministry and committee rejected the legalization of growing poppy cultivation for healthy purposes in a meeting on Sunday. Mullah Taj Mohammad Mujahid, head of the parliamentary committee on narcotics, said to media, allowing growing of poppies for whatever purposes was against the country's constitution.

A few weeks ago, the Senlis Council also stopped to run there policy on narcotics. The Senlis council was working for licensing opium in Afghanistan but interior minister asked them to stop and close their office.

Abdul Khalil Shirzai, head of the law enforcement section of the ministry of counter narcotics, told, they were supporting decision of the lower house committee.

Earlier, he said they wanted to have some poppies in the country to be used in painkiller medicines and research purposes. Shirazi said: "Now we are agreed to ban poppy cultivation as it is against constitution and the law enforcement agencies are too weak to control its growing for the specific purpose."

The draft banning poppy cultivation has been prepared by ministries of counter narcotics, justice and interior as well as the Supreme Court and Office of the Attorney General. Mujahid said he was discussing the draft law with representatives of the counter narcotics to have a well-prepared version of the law presented to the parliament soon.

One ISAF soldier killed and 2 injured

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On Tuesday one ISAF soldier killed and two others injured when their vehicle hit a roadside explosive device in Panjwayee district of the southern Kandahar province.

A press release issued on Tuesday said the soldiers were conducting patrol as part of the countrywide joint ANA- ISAF Eagle Operation.

The wounded troops were evacuated to the ISAF hospital at Kandahar for treatment. The release did not mention health condition of the injured soldiers.

Accordance to NATO policy, ISAF does not release nationalities of casualties prior to the relevant national authority.

Tired small shepherd in central Afghanistan

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Afghan Leader Warns of Another 9/11

Okke Ornstein is an internationally acclaimed journalist working on assignment for NewsMax.com in Afghanistan. He reports from Kabul.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- One of Afghanistan's leading members of parliament, Mrs. Malalai Joya, warns that the current U.S. policy in Afghanistan is virtually certain to lead to another 9/11. Read this exclusive story here...

Two U.S soldier killed and 3 injured

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According to the news, Two US soldiers were killed and three more wounded following a clash with militants in the remote district of the eastern Kunar province Yesterday evening. One soldier of the Afghan National Army (ANA) was also killed in the clash.

The US military stationed at Bagram, announced the soldiers were operating as part of a combat patrol that made contact with enemy extremists. The unit engaged the insurgents with small arms and artillery fire.

Based on the news from U.S military station at Bagram, All the wounded US and Afghan soldiers were medically took to a US treatment facility in Asadabad, capital of Kunar, where their condition is stated to be stable.

Over 7,000 Afghan and US troops are operating in eastern Afghanistan as part of the Operation Mountain Fury. Kunar is the mountainous province situated in east of the country. The province is abutting Pakistan's Bajaur tribal agency, which was once considered the safe haven for al-Qaeda and fugitive Taliban leaders.

Pope under pressure to apologize

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Following to massive reaction from Muslim around the world against Pope Benedict XVI about Islam being as a violent religion, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said comments of Pope Benedict regarding Islam are regrettable and affront to our Holy Prophet Mohammad and Islam.

A press statement issued in Kabul said the remarks showed an inadequate understanding of Islam and warrants for an apology to Muslims, the followers of a religion of peace and reconciliation.

In these circumstances, where there is a demanding need for measures towards reconciliation of different beliefs, such expressions increase tension among the followers of different religions.

a link to Vatican website "The Holy see"

Afghanistan & five years after September 11

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Five years ago at the same day the world witnessed an event which didn’t happen in the history. At this day more than three thousand lost their live. At this day lots of others became sad and wept but here in Afghanistan this was a day that after, each Afghan was dreaming to his freedom for his country and his life. A alike releasing from jail indeed. A day which came up to give live to Afghans.

After September 11th one of the most urgent action and indication from U.S was attacking against Taliban regime which also received help from northern alliance and people of Afghanistan. It was expecting that the U.S will stand beside Afghanistan to the end for removal of terror from this land.
The president of the United States George W. Bush has promised for developing and building Afghanistan as a model in the region and among Muslim countries but regretfully contrary to Afghan expectations from the United States there is no news from making Afghanistan as a model or development.

When U.S started war against Sadam hosein regime, the world and U.S attention diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq, in some point they left their serious tasks uncompleted in order to get success in Iraq.

In the five years not only the terrorism eradicated but increased not only in Afghanistan but other Muslim countries. Unfortunately the security situation in both country Afghanistan and Iraq is getting worse. Suicide attacks increased in the capital, the continuing of this situation people think that they lost their dreams for peace and prosperity of their country.

The world and U.S made a mistake which thought Taliban after their fall has finished. Whereas they returned back to their religious schools. The United States underestimated the Taliban which recently the Coalition Forces accepted that they made a mistake. The United States and the world community never tried to talk and put pressure the Pakistan government that supporting the Taliban.

Small Shepherd in northern Afghanistan

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6 Canadian soldiers wounded

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On Wednesday 16th of august, rocket attacks on a base of Canadian troops in the Jalai district of Kandahar province left six Canadian soldiers wounding.

The wounded soldiers had been taken to military hospital at Kandahar airport. There were also another two attacks on Canadian troops in Kandahar which left four Canadian soldiers dead and wounded three others nearly two weeks ago.

NATO and Important mission in Afghanistan

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Recently Insecurity and suicide attacks against coalition forces and Afghan forces are not stopped but increasing in southern Afghanistan. Last week on 31st of July U.S forces handed over the peace keeping responsibility in southern Afghanistan to NATO forces.
NATO authorities have mentioned that this mission would be the most difficult one in 57 years of this organization.

The most important thing which nowadays people expecting from NATO forces is to avoid killing civilian as U.S forces had killed and destroyed many villages by air strike.
They say; how long this land should burn in fire and how long we should hear war and war. More than two decades of war, everything demolished.

Although I believe that no differ between U.S and forces and NATO being in Afghanistan but the most important things are to not experience the mistakes from previous. For the last years of American troops in southern Afghanistan nothing has changed rather than strengthening the Taliban and terrorists.

- NATO should pay attention in the following facts which are mostly sensitive for Afghanistan and its people.

- Training the Afghan National Army and Police which are mostly involved in smuggling and Mafia.

- Involving in helping and reconstruction and helping the repatriated refugees from neighboring countries.

Respecting the people’s religious believes and traditions which are very sensitive.

I believe if they pay attention in the above sentences and receive the experiences from American forces they will succeed if not, their destiny would be the same as coalition forces has experience in the past years.

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