BillWright

Preface

This spring (2006), I received an unexpected email from the United States Embassy in Kabul,

Afghanistan. The Public Affairs Officer there, J.B.

Leedy, wanted to know if I was planning a trip

to the area in the near future. She continued by saying that the embassy could not invite anyone

Afghanistan as it was still in a war zone, but that should I be interested incoming anyway, she

wondered if I would volunteer to teach some Afghan

“street working children” digital photography.

The possibility of visiting a country that had always been on my list of interesting places to visit

and

the chance to do a public service photography

project made the decision an easy one. I

contacted

ASCHIANA, the Afghan organization that wanted to execute the program and with the

help of an

Australian volunteer, we devised a program that would give the students a working

knowledge of

digital photography. [check the website:

www.

aschiana.com

]

In late July I packed my bags with 13 digital point and shoot cameras and other supplies donated

by friends in Abilene and across the country. I boarded an American Eagle flight to Dallas,

beginning a series of connected flights for the long 26 hour trip to Kabul. I knew that Kabul was

relatively safe at the moment and while friends and relatives urged me not to go, the opportunity

to visit this incredible country with their ancient tribal customs and provide a service to the

children, was irresistible.

Sunday, the day of my arrival, an improvised explosive device [IED] exploded near the U.S.

Embassy and several that did not explode were discovered on the road leading in from the

airport. I was beginning to think my friends had given me good advice. Fortunately, it was the last

disturbance to take place during my week-long visit.

The ASCHIANA organization maintains 7 campuses around the Kabul area and works with 3000

students who formerly sold gum and washed auto windshields on the streets of Kabul. Preparing

for my arrival, the organization established a small digital lab for the class with the help of the U.S.

Embassy who donated the necessary computers and digital printers.

13 students were waiting for me the morning after my arrival, eager and ready to learn. The ability

to shoot digital pictures and process them in the ASCHIANA lab would open opportunities to

increase their earning power by photographing weddings and other events for pay. Their ages

ranged from 12 to 26---the three oldest were in college. Already the students had received copies

of the National Geographic Society’s newest book on digital photography through the assistance

of Sue McKeon, the new director of Abilene’s National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature.

The week passed quickly. The warm temperatures of west Texas had certainly prepared me for

the hot Afghanistan climate but only my hotel had air conditioning. I slept well at night. The

students were quick to learn and by the end of the week, had amassed over a thousand

photographs that ranged upward from basic to excellent as the days progressed. While the

students certainly profited from the project, I was the real winner. I came away inspired by the

contact with the students, our embassy staff, the other volunteers working in Kabul such as

Abilene’s hospital administrator, Rick DeFoore. I was awed by the task ahead for the country.

The student photographs will become part of a traveling exhibition scheduled to open at Texas

Tech University sometime next year and then travel to venues across America

To begin with, Kabul is a long way from Abilene, Texas. After changing planes

three times and

traveling for the better part of three days, I felt like a certified

“road warrior”.

On the last travel day with no sleep and a bit of nervousness, I found the aisle

seat on Arab Air

flight G90283 to Kabul from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates

global hot spot. My seat mate, a

Pashtun from the south of Afghanistan and the

ancestral home of the Taliban, immediately began

silent prayer after we squeezed

into the tourist class Airbus seats. That was understandable

considering he didn’t

know how to adjust his seat belt.

I had another reason to be worried. Inflight, the attendant offered a sharma bun for

$4.00 US, and

having had scant fare the preceeding days, I jumped at the chance.

The man seated across the

aisle who worked for the UN World Food Project

bought one also. In my haste to satisfy my hunger

I had eaten the entire thing when

I realized that the food man took one bite of his and folded the rest

up. “A diet?”,

I enquired

"No, tasted bad,” the expert on food said.

As we began our approach into Kabul, a moderate dust storm was blowing and

the plane was

being

buffeted from gusts coming from all directions. I leaned

across the Pastun and caught a

glimpse of

the dark-crested Afghan desert

mountains stenciled on a light tan desert background as

the plane

came in with

one wing dipped and in a slight crab to windward. Before the plane skidded

and

lurched

to moderate taxi speed, I found myself checking out the emergency exits.

In retrospect, it was a very skillful crosswind landing and I watched the panorama

of ancient and

modern aircraft parked on the ramp as we taxied by. There was a

heavy preponderance of

helicopters with tarps over windshields and rotor hubs

to protect from the wind. The buildings

seemed ancient adobe with metal

sheeting in places. It was not inspiring compared with the ultra

modern terminal I

had experienced in Dubai.

We deplaned and passed through customs after filling out an entry card and

were passed to the

luggage area. The ancient conveyor belt was heavy laden

with all sorts of packages wrapped in

plastic and tied with ropes, bags of every

vintage and description. Much more colorful than the

nowadays “all alike” roller

bag I see at domestic airports. Everyone had a make your own! The

creaking and

lurching of the belt suddenly stopped and everyone groaned. A ten minute delay

while

some repair was being made or the electricity restored.

I had a tap on my shoulder. “Are you Bill Wright?” the bouncy Australian young

lady asked. Looking

around I was immediately captivated by an infectious smile

and responded with a grateful “yes!” I

was not looking forward to searching out

my contact in the swarm of passengers.

Sarah was the contact person for Aschiana, the NGO [non-governmental

organization] that I had

volunteered to work with. Beside her was Faideen, my

driver/interpreter for the week. He was a

youngish-looking and trim local man

who had been recommended by the U.S, Embassy as a

dependable and

knowledgeable “fixer” who would be able to cart me around to the places I

wanted

to go.

It turned out that Faideen was a good choice. Earlier that morning as he picked

Sarah up and

started to the airport the alarms went off and the road to the airport

and several major traffic circles

were sealed off because of a bomb threat.

Faideen skillfully re-routed the van using back roads and

delivered himself and

Sarah right on time. A live bomb was later found in a trash can along the route

and not in the U.S. Embassy as a circulating rumor suggested.

We loaded the bags and headed toward my hotel, stopping only to offload the

cameras and other

equipment at the Aschiana headquarters where embassy staff

had already delivered the needed

computers and a HP printer.

I met several of the future students and some of the Aschiana staff and we

continued to the Serena

Hotel where I had reservations.

It was heavily fortified. The entrance to the hotel led through a car trap

where

security personnel

raised and lowered steel beams to prohibit either entry or

escape while they moved a tilted mirror

around the bottom of the car inspecting

for bombs or prohibited items.

We passed the test and were passed into an interior motor court and unloaded.

The reception was

routine with the exception that I was taken immediately to the

cashier for payment in advance for the

room. Only cash accepted. Exchange was

1 to 49. The room was excellent and the shower head

worked beautifully as soon

as the door to the room was closed.

Sarah made plans for dinner at the hotel that evening. Her husband, Mark

Johnston would be a bit

late but would join us in time for ordering. Mark was a

policy consultant with an independent

contractor dealing with the Afghan drug

problem. Australian natives, Mark and Sarah re-invented

themselves several

years before and moved from the commercial sector to the public service sector.

Mark spent two years at Harvard’s Kennedy School and was awarded a Ph.D. in

Economics and

Public Policy. Their current “permanent” home was in Bangkok

but they saw little of that with their

journeys from one assignment to another. The

next would take them to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. What

a life!

J.B. Leedy, the assistant Public Affairs officer at the U.S, Embassy would also

join us. She was the

person who had initially contacted me about the coming to

Kabul. Her invitation had been carefully

stated. She said that under present

regulations, it was not possible to invite persons to Afghanistan

because of the

perceived security risks but should I decide to come on my own, she would like

for

me to be involved with Aschiana to teach digital photography to “street

working” kids.

I soon found that the “J” in J.B, stood for Jean and that she was a woman. When

she appeared that

night she turned out to be a young and attractive person who

was enthusiastic about her job but

frustrated by the fact that all of the personnel

at the embassy were prohibited from circulating freely

in town which made the

cultural affairs component of her responsibility much more difficult. J.B.’s

husband, a military officer, was back at the Pentagon in Washington where he

was assigned. As a

Department of State employee, J.B. had the option of one

year of solo duty in Afghanistan without

her husband or two years solo at

another more friendly and enjoyable location. She chose the one

year.

I met Sarah and J.B. in the lobby at 7 pm and we went to the hotel restaurant to

wait for Mark. There

were no cocktails before dinner as Afghanistan is a Moslem

country so J.B. and I enjoyed a diet

coke and Sarah chose a local melon drink. I

thought I might try the melon drink but she advised me

against it to ensure I

would continue to be “fit” for the remainder of the week and not cut down by

“the

Taliban’s Revenge”.

Mark arrived a short while later and pulled up a chair next to me. He had the

typical Aussie’s friendly

and engaging personality, and I appreciated his candid

and informed remarks regarding

Afghanistan.

We had a delightful dinner of Australian lamb in the hotel restaurant and I, as

promised, passed on

the beautiful desert.

It was a good first day in Afghanistan.

What a day.

Not able to sleep but two or three hours

during the night made me ready to get

early and

get

started. I went to the lobby about 6:00 am to get an ethernet cable to

connect with the

internet

and stayed for a short breakfast.

Faideen, my driver and interpreter, was scheduled to meet me at 7:45 am for the trip

ASCHIANA.

I wanted to get the computers set up and ready for action after lunch.

downloaded over 200 emails,

many of which were from friends wishing me the best

of luck

on the journey.

This was to be the big day---getting the cameras and making the first photographs.

I was

worried

about being able to communicate adequately and hold the students

interest. I need

not

have worried.

Faideen was right on time and I had my first real experience of driving in Kabul traffic.

Cairo

was a

snap compared to Afghan drivers. Our trip to the school was mercifully

short but in

the space of only

a few miles I thought I would be involved in at least a

dozen collisions and

witness numerous

impalements of bicycle riders and pedestri

ans.

It was a cacophony of

color and motion---horns

blaring---scowls passed between

vehicles and

seemingly non-

existent rules of the road. No traffic

lights were working

since the end of the war.

Faideen was nonchalant. He carried on an easy conversation inquiring about my family

and

the

state of the world. He was born in Afghanistan, but he left for Pakistan when

the Taliban

took over.

After the war

he returned and hoped that they would never come back. We discussed the problems

faced by his country and he said they were surrounded by enemies. Chief among them Iran whom

he said infiltrated fighters constantly and who, it was commonly known, was responsible for the

destabilization of Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan and other Moslem countries. He was also worried about

Pakistan because he felt that only the capital, like Afghanistan, was secured, with radicals controlling

the countryside in spite of the army’s efforts.

We arrived whole at the school and shortly Sarah arrived. One small problem. The

room

containing

the computers and cameras was locked and no one could

immediately locate the

key. The efficient

problem-solving Sarah went to work

immediately and rousted the office

manager from his sick bed

[so he said] and

the key was dispatched. Remarkable compliance

for the demands from a non-

staff

foreigner.

The class began filtering in at 9:00 am, the appointed time, but some were late.

When they

arrived,

Sarah laid down the law. No more late showups. No certificate

of completion if

everyone is not here

and accounted for. No one whimpered that I

could hear.

We started with introductions and soon transitioned to explaining the functions

of the new

cameras. I

was worried because the age of participants ranged from

12 to one university

student who was 26. It

was not a problem, it was an

advantage as the older students

assumed some responsibility for the

younger

ones.

We broke for lunch that I declined. The school served all the students a healthy

lunch of rice

and

vegetables. There was a lot of chatter about the cameras and

the pictures they had

already taken

around the campus.

After lunch, the students went out shooting and came back to download into the

computers.

They

were instructed in making folders and protecting their files.

Talk about excitement! Seeing their computer images on the big screen made

them giddy.

Even the

older ones. We printed some of them off on plain paper and

taped them to the wall.

Proud didn’t

nearly cover it.

By the time 4:30 pm rolled around, I was also giddy. Fatigue had overpowered

enthusiasm

and I

was ready to get back to the room and get cool. [Of course, the

school did not have air

conditioning.] Faideen did a wonderful job assisting in the

computer work and explaining

how it all

went together. Later he told me the day

was a great success.

Back at the hotel, I slumped down in the room’s only stuffed chair and sucked

down a liter of

water.

It had been another good day.

Today confirmed that I am a slow learner.

It has taken three days to understand that

my room, 284, is

not on the second floor.

The lobby area is floor zero which I

understand. When press 2 on the

elevator I

get off at the floor where all

the rooms begin with “3”. So the 2nd

floor is really the first

floor. I think I

have

it down now. I get on the elevator and

press

“1” for the floor containing my room, 284.

Live

and learn,

if slowly.

I woke up this morning thinking about the news item in the morning paper: Taliban attacking

Afghanistan

schools. To date over 200 schools have been burned or abandoned because of

Taliban actions to

discourage the education of Afghanistan’s young people. Their theory is that an

uneducated person is

more likely to join their ranks than a person who has attended school and

knows more about the world. Of

course, it is a good but immoral strategy. I can almost assure you

that the young women in our class would

go down struggling if they were sent home to bake bread

and be the third wife of some ancient tribal

leader

Another disturbing bit of news is that the Karzai administration is considering

re-establishing the

religious police. This would be a giant step backward in the

modernization of the country. I am not

sure this has been reported in the world press

but local news organizations carried the story which

I will try and send in detail later. I

mentioned the concern to Faideen but he felt that is was not as big

a deal as some of

the foreign press might think. All Muslem countries have the religious police he

said

but their actions were exaggerated under Taliban rule.

“I don’t think we will ever see that again,”

he told me. Faideen, of course, is a devout

Muslim and leaves the class periodically for his prayers.

He is gone for about 20

minutes and then is back.

There were rapid local actions taken with regard to the bomb blast near the U.S.

Embassy last

Sunday. Several have been taken into custody and calm prevails. Life

goes on as usual for these

battered people.

Life for my students has been exciting. Their enthusiasm for learning elevates

my own spirits and

confirms that there is much good in the world in spite of all the

disasters that we hear about daily.

These young folks---I can’t call them kids because

they grow up quickly here---are intent on

learning. Yesterday two came to the class

uninvited and demanded to remain. I agreed and they

dove into the work immediately.

The tragic underlying reality is that progress requires both

education and opportunity.

The latter is dramatically lacking here in Afghanistan. The internet will

give these

young folks more of an opportunity that they have had before. Unfortunately,

ASCHIANA’s internet connection has been shut

down for lack of money. That will

change in time.

And, impatient me, I have to realize that progress occurs one step

at a time.

When installing the equipment donated by the U.S. Department of State, I realized

how much we

take for granted. Each computer was accompanied with a special power

supply to ensure the

computer would not shut off immediately if the generator for the

building should quit. Power shuts

off at night. Interruptions are frequent. Energy drives

our civilization and without it we would all be

subsistence farmers with only the sun to

provide our life.

I noticed the power strip we were using was being held together with a unburned

match jammed into

the on/off button. Potentially dangerous. I requested three new

ones so as not to put too much load

on one. Fortunately, the grant provided enough

money for re-chargeable batteries for the cameras.

They were going through AA

batteries at a ferocious clip.

Today we had classroom in the morning where I explained the best I could about the

differences

between dpi and ppi, jpg and tif, kilobytes and megabytes and many other

terms that they would

encounter. We went through the menu of options for the

operation of their cameras and talked

about histograms and exposure.

We had a portrait shooting session where we talked about the light and how important

it was to

focus on the eyes. I set up and took pictures of the students and they posed

and t

k turns being

the model. Before I knew it, time for lunch. Sarah and I had an

engagement with J.B. the Public

Affairs Officer at the embassy along with her financial

person at a traditional Afghan restaurant

named Safi. It was a long way from the school

which game me a chance to see more of Kabul. We

were accompanied from the school

by the Director, Eng, M. Yosef, and of course, driven by Faideen.

As we entered, Sarah was excited to see the well-known lady, Nancy Dupree, who had

written the

definitive guidebook for Afghanistan. Her husband, Louis Dupree, a

distinguished scholar, wrote

“Afghanistan”, a book that should be on every library

shelf for anyone interested in the country. In

his book, he observed that Afghanistan

is actually a nation of poets because poetry, essentially a

spoken language, enables

illiterate men and women to express themselves. Nancy looked to be well

over 80

years of age but sparky and interesting to visit with. I photographed her with the

Director

Yosef who was her great fan.

The meal was exceptional. They tried to stuff me with every traditional dish but I was

careful,

especially as Sarah had been forced to make an emergency stop enroute. My

favorite was the

vegetable soup with cilantro and pureed vegetables and the awshak,

a lentils and gdana concoction

with a yogurt sauce.

Driving back to the school we stopped

for a few shots along the way and

found

the students eagerly awaiting

their

assignment which was to find and

photograph the beautiful in Afghanistan.

It will be interesting to see what they

come up with.

We wondered why the lights didn’t

come on when we plugged in the

battery chargers. We fussed around

trying various plugs, taking out and

putting in the batteries, changing

chargers, and then realized the power

was out. The computer had been running

on battery back up. We left for the night

with the hope that in the morning we

would

have fully

charged power for the cameras.

Another lesson about life in Afghanistan.

I woke up to bad news this morning. There was

another bomb blast on the outskirts of Kabul

about 30 minutes ago and two were killed and

a taxi demolished. Four other persons injured.

This occurred on a road heavily traveled by the

U.S. Military as they travel between one of their

near-by bases and downtown Kabul. It will be

interesting to see what the reaction is when I head

for the school. J.B, Leedy, the Public Affairs Officer,

at the embassy wanted to come by this morning early

to meet some of the students but this latest incident

will probably restrict her to the embassy campus.

I am certainly grateful for the tight security here at the

Serena Hotel and my experienced “fixer”, Faideen.

At any rate, the day goes on. Everyone will be looking

over their shoulder, which is good. We will visit AINA,

a program founded by a National Geographic

Photographer,

Reza Deghati, who assisted my friend,

Sue, in securing the

books for the students here.

Before breakfast, I walked for a while in the garden of the hotel. The rose garden was in bloom and the

doves were flying about. What a strange contrast with the events of violence that are occurring in the

country. It was very peaceful and the sounds of the city coming to life were much the same as I would

expect to find in any American city. Of course the similarity ended as soon as

I exited the secured

gates of the hotel.

Faideen delivered me to the school and we began to gear up for the trip to Reza’s party that turned

out to be a party celebrating his 54th year.

Before we left, Jean Leedy, our State Department contact came by the school to see what was going

on and to take some pictures of the children working at the computers they had funded. She would

continue on to Aina and meet us there. She couldn’t ride with us because she had to ride in the

Department’s armored Land Cruiser that stood out like the red nose on a clown’s face. It is hard to

know what is the best approach. I am comfortable riding with Faideen in a nondescript van, one of a

thousand of like design, scuttling about the streets of Kabul.

The organization Reza founded, AINA,

is a school dedicated to developing

photojournalists and design specialists

and his photographs are hung about the

patio. After the French clowns entertained

the assembled guests including 150 or so

children including ours from the school,

he took our group on a personal tour and

explained each photograph, pointing out

the features that made it exceptional.

While I could not understand the language,

by his gestures, I could tell that he was

reinforcing many of the lessons I had

already communicated to the kids.

A lot of pixels were stimulated during

the morning.

We returned to the school with Faideen’s van stuffed full of wiggling kids. It reminded me of popcorn in

a heated can! Our van was certainly a heated can. Sweat was pouring over me even though the top

panel was also open. It was about 102 in Kabul and of course there is no air conditioning except at the

hotel. The kids didn’t mind.They were laughing and teasing each other and popping about like crazy.

I wondered what would happen if Faideen made a driving error. No seatbelts, of course, and

aggressive driver as Alice considers me to be, I was no match for Faideen. My abs will be in good

shape on my return because I do the tightening exercise every time he pulls if front of a oncoming bus

or speeding motorbike. I wouldn’t want to compete with him with a computer game. His reaction time is

measured in milliseconds.

I continued doing the formal portraits of the kids for the calendar project and designed the mats and

presentation for the school. The plan is to sell the calendars with the children’s photographs to State

Department workers as they go home for rotation and this posting will have about an 80 percent

turnover by the end of August. A real problem of continuity. Most people take about 6 months to settle

into their jobs and by the time they are in tune with the local situation it is t

ime for them to leave. Of

course, they are professionals and trained to operate with these kinds of restrictions. More on my

thoughts re: our State Dept. later.

We worked hard all afternoon, photographing and teaching computer skills of file management,

downloading and viewing images. I started reviewing various student’s work and using the crop tool on

photoshop elements, showed how they could tighten their images. In a way, it was like using the

“double L” cut outs that could be placed over a print to demonstrate different compositional

approaches.

A BBC reporter came by to see the project at 5 pm and several of the students were able to continue

working with their images beyond the normal closing time. They had discovered “filters” in photoshop

and were laughing as they prepared bizarre treatments of the photos they had taken earlier in the

day---pushing the saturation and contrast to extreme limits, adding blur and noise, and using other

techniques. It was learning by exploration and kids who weren’t afraid to make a mistake could really

soar.

By 6 pm I was back in my hotel room with the cold water of the shower running over me. I will admit to

being a little tired as I had not had much sleep the night before getting up early to organize the student

pictures I had downloaded into my laptop computer. Just after getting dressed, Sarah called from the

lobby and she was ready to take me to the Embassy for a dinner in Jean’s apartment.

It was a nice evening. We entered the compound where all the State Dept employees who were not

“nationals” lived under tight security. Contract security guards, loaded with weapons, checked and

secured our passports, assigned us to an escort officer which happened to be Tim who was to dine

with us that evening, and issued each of us a visitor's badge to hang around our neck.

Jean had a small but very nice balcony off of her tiny dining/livingroom/kitchen and we sat there talking

about business. The party consisted of Tim, who had just arrived on station from Lithuania, another

lady who worked for State and was in town for a conference from Jalablad, Sarah’s husband, Mark,

Jean and myself as “guest” of honor. I had an Australian beer, the first alcohol since leaving Abilene. It

was cold and really good.

I was ready for bed when we walked down the guarded street to meet Faideen and the van.

I slept soundly.

Fardeen was about fifteen minutes late today.

He was very apologetic. The traffic clotted all the

roads into a slow moving viscous stream and all

you could do was go with the flow, he said. This

day my plan was to interview all of the students

about their home and family and other issues

that might come to mind during the discussion.

While the students downloaded their files from

the previous day’s shooting, I scouted the

building with Sarah to find a quiet corner that

could be used for the interviews. I planned to

use Fardeen to translate my questions and the

answers so that there would be less chance for

misunderstanding. We finally settled on the big

gallery room and brought in three chairs to pull

to the small table in one corner of the room.

The system worked pretty well. My little Sony digital recorder picked up the voices pretty good and

Fardeen’s voice was strong and clear. I knew the spelling and unfamiliarity with the names would be a

problem for my assistant, Kimberly, when she began to transcribe the files in Abilene, but we would

just have to do the best we could.

I developed a short format for the questions beginning with the date and time and the name of the

respondent. Then I began asking questions about the family --- how many children, what the parents

did, where they lived--- etc. I found that the students had many similarities.

They all came from large families and all had at least one parent living with them. Often that parent

was not able to work. Many were disabled from gunshot wounds or illness. One from mental illness.

Income from other family members was all the kept them afloat. Most of my students were in school

now that they had been “rescued” by ASCHIANA and were progressing through the system. When

asked about their vocational plans, most wanted to be doctors or other higher income professionals,

one dreamed of being a pilot for an airl