NOWABAD—Even under the best circumstances, refugee camps don’t replace homes. Camps can serve to provide emergency housing and even help people to survive, but they’re not intended to be permanent. Still, refugee camps present very strong images to potential donors; they touch people’s heartstrings because the needs seem so staggeringly apparent. Refugee camps offer great “photo ops.” But the best day at a refugee camp isn’t the day the big-name film crew arrives or even the day the trucks of wheat rumble through the gates. The best day of all is when the camp closes, because no one is left inside. Everyone has gone home.
I’ve had to learn some painful lessons about where real needs are during my last two years in Central Asia. Needs aren’t always obvious, nor are they always found where you might expect. The conditions inside a barbed-wire enclosure of blue plastic survival tents may actually be better than those in a dusty village of mud huts nearby.
Why? A managed camp will probably have a primitive-but-effective hygiene system. Many villages in Afghanistan don’t have even a single latrine for hundreds of people. Relief agencies may haul in truckloads of safe water, or they may even sink a shallow well, while a few miles down the road, people in their homes are drinking polluted river water. A local farmer may pass people from the camp carrying free sacks of wheat as he slowly trudges to his fields where he has to watch his precious crops wither in the glaring sun.
THE HIDDEN CRISIS
When the large camp formed outside of Nowabad, we supplied wheat and other emergency relief to the displaced people. We were certainly a more dependable source than they expected, given the problems created by the war and the drought. But the living situations in the village of Nowabad itself were as desperate as the conditions in the camp. People had homes, but they didn’t have food. Many families had taken in relatives who were IDPs, causing even more hardship. Village systems that could barely handle the basics of ordinary life suddenly experienced the pressure of a highly increased population. The absence of any plumbing or latrines in Nowabad meant that hygiene quickly became a major problem.
Human waste, which normally was left on the ground for dogs, began to accumulate to hazardous levels. The few wells in town couldn’t begin to keep up with the demand for water by a doubled population.
Persistent drought made it hard for the local farmers to survive. The war made many products scarce, even for those who did have money. War causes chaos in a country, even miles from the front lines.Those who provide effective relief and development in a crisis are not just those who move swiftly. Wisdom sees the real needs and finds a way to meet them.
When I walked into the bakery in Dasht-e Qaleh with money and arranged for the delivery of sixteen hundred loaves of daily bread, I cornered the local market, in order to meet the needs of the IDPs that had just fled Takhar and Kondoz. I unwittingly pushed the baker into a conflict of interests. Should he try to meet his new largest-paying customer’s (me) demands, or should he continue to serve his long-time customers, who would still be buying their bread from him long after the camp was just a bad memory? My attempt to meet one real need created another potential problem.
This bread predicament is just one example of unintended issues that spring up when the need is greater than the supply. By providing bread to the displaced families in the camp, I unintentionally and unknowingly created a bread shortage for the citizens of Dasht-e Qaleh. Fortunately, this was resolved in a few days by setting up the bakery in the camp with a displaced baker. That turned out to be a practical and providential solution. Other challenges were not so easy to meet, though. The very existence of the IDP camps tortured me every day.
As we at Shelter for Life discussed what we were learning about responding to various kinds of crises, we realized we had made some significant discoveries. The situation inside Afghanistan was a unique and painful classroom, because it combined some of the worst possible scenarios of disaster. War, earthquakes, floods, and drought were all occurring at the same time. One catastrophe had piled onto another. If an entire nation today could identify with the experience of desolation and loss described in the Book of Job in the Bible, that nation would be Afghanistan.
THE HOST FAMILY PROJECT
We were convinced that we could develop other ways to approach this huge humanitarian need than simply establishing and servicing refugee camps. In conditions like these, families suffer. They die of hunger, cold, sickness, or just plain hopelessness. In the first few months I was there, we devised a plan to respond to the general needs that were larger than the camp. In fact, we did everything we could to empty the camp.
We channeled our energy, expertise, and efforts toward eliminating a potential open-air graveyard of displaced victims. Even while the war and the drought continued, we reduced the camp at Nowabad from an all-time high of three thousand families (fifteen thousand people) to about three hundred families. That amazing result allowed us to say that, while there were still pressing humanitarian needs, there was no longer a humanitarian crisis for the IDP or local community of the Dasht-e Qaleh area.
Afghan/Muslim culture provided one of the key insights to the plan that we called the Host Family Project. Our approach also developed as we prayed and thought about the differences implied by our dual name—Shelter Now and Shelter for Life. We wanted to be effective in our relief efforts, as well as constructive in our development work. We wanted to provide immediate help in times of crisis while operating with an awareness of long-term needs. In a sense, we tried to answer this question: If the world community is willing to contribute a certain amount of money and supplies to respond to a crisis in a particular area, are there better ways to use those funds and provisions than by creating and maintaining refugee camps? Our answer to that question was the Host Family Project.
The people in Nowabad, as part of their culture, religious belief, and sense of duty to extended family, were already taking in displaced relatives or family friends when the camp sprang up on the edge of town.The village population swelled too. At one point, there were as many IDPs staying in homes in the village as in the huge makeshift camp. Our move to Nowabad was very difficult, because we didn’t want to displace people again. The local systems were stretched to the breaking point. The “hidden” crisis in the village was partially created because the resources coming into the area were going almost exclusively to the people in the camp.
Camps present relief workers with a captive audience. That population doesn’t require the effort that goes into extensive community surveys or the time involved in all the preparatory work. Camps level the playing field to misery’s lowest common denominator.
In contrast, small towns form complex social systems. Surveying the displaced that are dispersed in village housing presents relief agencies with logistical nightmares. Family problems are not as noticeable and people are less accessible than those who live in organized tents. Needs vary greatly. Sometimes the complicated survey process is traded in for rough estimates and ineffective use of resources.
But what would happen, we wondered, if we empowered the people in the village to take in and provide shelter for people in the camps? What if, instead of paying for flimsy tents and tarps out in the open, we used the same money to help people in the village construct added rooms to their homes, build permanent latrines in their family compounds, and provide food for all of them? In exchange, these families would shelter the IDPs until they could return to their own homes. What would happen if, instead of maintaining a camp, we spent the same money to vastly improve the infrastructure of an entire community?
The Host Family Project was the kind of success that still brings me to tears. Our approach and hard work paid off. The incentives we gave to the local community indeed encouraged and enabled them to provide sustained assistance to their displaced countrymen. This combined effort impacted almost everyone in DQ. It did much more lasting good than the camp.
I’ll never forget the day I looked over what had been the sprawling camp at Nowabad and realized that it was almost empty. I wept for joy. By then, we had helped families in the village build over a thousand additional shelters and eight hundred latrines in their compounds. In all, we had helped make thousands of mud houses livable by repairing or completely rebuilding them.
These were lasting investments by the global community to help provide effective crisis response with long-term benefits. People had their dignity restored, and they regained their respect as they worked, served, and shared with others. We are thankful to donors like WFP, USAID, and OFDA for the food and funds they so generously provided.We also thank God for the wisdom and common sense he gave us to know how to use these resources in a most effective way.
This approach united the entire extended community of DQ. The thirteen villages that participated in our Host Family Project rallied around our desire to reduce the population of the open-air IDP camp. The project required significant local contributions and involvement; for every shelter we built or roof we repaired, we needed five woven bamboo mats and fifteen wooden beams. The village elders pulled together to provide these materials. Soon we had a caravan of camels, donkeys, horses, tractors, and small trucks delivering shelter supplies to our Nowabad office. Our two-basketball-court-sized yard overflowed with timber to be used for construction.
HEATING UP FOR WINTER
Winter’s chilly arrival emphasized all the more the crucial need for hard shelter. The community worked feverishly to address this serious need. Once they realized they could directly impact their own future and help their neighbors, they molded themselves into an effective task force. The entire village resembled an anthill in high gear preparing for the cold months ahead.
The obvious need for heat offered other opportunities for us to mobilize the community. We transported tons of tin sheets from Tajikistan in order to manufacture wood-burning stoves. We hired local tinsmiths to train both IDP and local men to construct their own heaters. Our compound became a workstation. Every day men came to precisely measure and carefully cut tin and frame piping. Then they folded the trimmed sheets and attached them to the pipe frames, creating small-but-effective radiant, wood-burning heaters. During the frigid winter of 2000, we installed over two thousand wood stoves in Afghan homes.
Afghans also have a traditional heater called a sandalee. It resembles a tall coffee table made out of two-by-fours and a plywood top.The Afghan people have been constructing and using these safe, cost-effective heaters for centuries. They place a glowing pot of coals under the sandalee; then they cover the entire contraption with a large blanket (an afghan), thus containing most of the heat. This arrangement looks like the play tents children create by throwing blankets over tables and chairs. On cold nights, members of a household sit around the sandalee, facing the heater. Each person slides his or her feet under the blanket, then pulls it around himself or herself. The heat circulates under the material, warming the entire family. We hired experienced local carpenters, and thus invested in the local economy, to make around two thousand sandalees.
LOSING FACE
I’ve learned many hard lessons while in Afghanistan. Some of them have even been humiliating. The following one is particularly unforgettable. Like most lasting lessons, this one began with a mistake . . . mine.
We were about to do another major wheat distribution for WFP. This time we had over four thousand families on our registration lists. The plan called for us to give two fifty-kilogram bags of wheat to each IDP family.This may sound like a huge project, but we had been doing distributions this size for some time and had a system in place. I thought I was becoming quite good at them and was probably a little overconfident about our continued success.
As it often is in Afghanistan, the main question was, “Would the thirty-five 18-wheel trucks make it to Nowabad?” Logistical issues are one of the main difficulties in carrying out relief work. I had to constantly remind myself that this is Central Asia, which means things can and will change. It is not a matter of if but when. So, flexibility is the name of the game.
WFP sent us the beneficiary cards/coupons and we prepared some for distribution. Our goal was to start the distribution with the families who lived the farthest from us, because they would be the closest to the front line. We decided to give them priority. This was also helpful because it allowed us to divide the distribution in half. We doubted that all thirty-five trucks would arrive at the same time anyway. Gas shortages, snow, and muddy roads always brought a fresh conspiracy to thwart our carefully made plans.
We targeted the little villages closest to Dasht-e Qaleh itself. All these families were within range of the Taliban shelling. We would serve them first, because the front line could break any moment. This was a typical strategy for distribution, and our staff and the local authorities accepted our approach.
We prepared the coupons and distributed them to each family at the local mosque. Since I participated in our original surveys of this area and had frequent previous contacts with these families, I considered the procedure enjoyable and relatively easy. Many of these families had become my friends.When we got word via radio that the wheat was nearing, we selected a distribution site and informed the families from the designated villages. Because of muddy roads, possible Taliban jets, and the magnitude of this distribution, we actually had selected three alternate sites for daily distributions.
I love this part of our work. I’ve made it a point to be at almost every distribution, especially for food. By now, I even felt somewhat prepared and experienced. Uncharacteristically, this distribution went off almost without a hitch. Roughly half the trucks arrived, the people gathered, and we handed out the wheat.
After finishing the first round of distributions that involved about two thousand families, we got ready for the next round. We started with the same procedure as usual, preparing the coupons. I divided our staff of twelve into four teams to write the remaining two thousand coupons.
Handling the surveys, selecting beneficiaries, writing coupons, and distributing food involved a lot of work. I had to admit later that dropping food from an airplane is faster and easier. But the downside is that donors of the food never know who receives their assistance. Those who need help the most may not be able to get to the drop site, and if they do, they may simply be pushed aside by those who are bigger and stronger. We invested hours, days, and sometimes weeks in this life-saving work because we wanted to be sure that little orphan boys like Amonulah (a boy featured in an ABC television interview with me) got the food they needed. In order for “the least of these” to receive, someone on the ground had to supervise.
That’s where groups like Shelter for Life become important. We put a face and a life with a gift. Our presence denies false reports, like the ones circulated in some Arab newspapers that the U.S. was lacing their air-dropped food with poison. We do our best to see to it that help gets to the people who need it most. We’re here for all the people. We serve even the poorest of the poor. However, our work is not perfect, and I have learned so much from the experiences . . . and the mistakes.
I gathered my teams to process the remaining two thousand coupons.Those coupons would allow over ten thousand people to receive some hot bread. I unlocked my little tin safe to divvy out the two thousand cards to my staff but, to my shock, found the box empty. I couldn’t find the cards. They were gone. My first thought was, Some crooked Afghan stole our wheat cards. I’m glad I didn’t open my mouth and say that.
When I told our staff about the missing cards, they responded with shame, disappointment, and fear. They were sure that someone had stolen them.
“Who would do such a thing?” they kept asking one another. I threw in my two cents’ worth.“One of us had to have done it, and it wasn’t me. I don’t need the wheat or the coupons. I have money to buy my own bread.”
Looking back, those words seem even more arrogant and prideful than they probably sounded that day. I even made other foolish comments: “Someone took them.They didn’t just fly away.”
We sat in a state of shock, overwhelmed by the tragedy. We had just lost over two hundred thousand pounds of wheat.
I informed our other two offices about the unfortunate situation.
Our staff in Rostaq said, “Mr. John, you took all the coupons to Nowabad, and since you guys already gave out half, they must have been lost, misplaced, or stolen in Nowabad.”
My staff remained horrified. I hadn’t actually accused any individuals, but they all felt as if I might point the finger at one of them or one of their relatives at any moment. Some were thinking, I did tell others about the coupons and the upcoming wheat delivery. They wondered if they had given out information that someone had used to carry out the theft. Each of them was afraid that somehow they would be implicated in this terrible act.
Shame spread throughout the community as the word of “Mr. John’s missing WFP coupons” became the hot topic. In this part of the world and within Islamic society, you could be killed for such actions. I could almost hear the thief ’s accusers shouting, “You shamed our guest, the man who has been serving us, the American on the front line risking his life. You stole, and now we will all be cursed.” They would have stoned, hanged, or beaten that thief to death for all to see. They would have probably also performed special rituals to rid the land and their lives of the curse this evil might bring upon them.
Uncertain about what to do next, I drove up the mountain to our Rostaq office to monitor our work there. I really needed to get away because this was eating at me.When I arrived at the office, the staff was preparing 110 coupons for our WFP wheat distribution in nearby Chah Ab. Another dagger pierced my heart when I saw those cards. I reviewed my days in Rostaq before taking the cards to Nowabad. I talked it through with the guys and retraced my steps to no avail.
What should I do? Should I report the theft to my good friend, the governor of Dasht-e Qaleh, and/or to the main commander? I hesitated to do that, because in an attempt to save my reputation (which would save their own, since they are in charge), they might take drastic actions to find the culprit. They would probably send soldiers to check every IDP family. I could not imagine five thousand families, who had been forced by the Taliban to leave their villages, now facing gun-toting soldiers whose instructions were to search them for the missing coupons.
I did report to the WFP in Feyzabad, because the cards and the wheat came from their office. Something had to be done. The remaining seventeen trucks were on the way and would arrive shortly. They understood and said they would reprint some cards and take them to our office in Feyzabad for us to deliver the next day to our office in Nowabad. I felt a little bit better. Perhaps this would all turn out fine.
Relieved, I pulled open one of my desk drawers for a worship tape to soothe my nerves. There in plain sight sat the packet of missing cards. I stared at them in disbelief. I wanted so much to just close the drawer, whistle, and say to myself, “John, don’t ever tell anyone your foolish mistake. WFP is sending more cards; you can just get rid of this packet, and no one will ever know.” But Someone would know. God knows and sees everything. Did I really want to be robbed of his peace? Even more to the point, I knew that my staff was under a huge cloud of fear, guilt, suspicion, and shame. I dared not keep this from them. This truth would set them . . . and me, free. If I hid the truth, I would be guilty of a conscious sin, rather than just an honest mistake.
First, I did what any good Central Asian would do: I talked with the old gray-bearded guys who worked for me. Gray hair and age are highly respected in Islamic and Asian cultures. I wanted their support, their wisdom, and their involvement. I also wanted their forgiveness.
Of course, they were relieved. However, they were deeply disappointed with me.
They quietly asked, “John, how could you do this? How could you be so irresponsible? You are not only the ex-pat in charge, but you’re an expert in the eyes of others. Everyone admires you, respects you, and thinks you are next to God. Why John, why?”
The shame they had all been feeling came flying back to land like a huge weight on my shoulders. I instantly apologized with tears. I had no excuse, particularly for my readiness to accuse others for what I had done.
At first they didn’t want me to tell anyone else.They were afraid that I would “lose face,” which is a huge issue in Afghanistan and many Eastern countries. Since I was put in such a high position as a foreigner, an American, an aid worker in charge of a major project, they were concerned that others would lose respect for me if they knew of my carelessness and foolishness. They were concerned for my reputation and theirs as well. They might lose face, too, because they worked for me. They were afraid others would say, “Did you hear what Mr. John did? He lost the coupons and then accused his staff of being a bunch of dishonest thieves.”
Well, we talked it through, and I was able to persuade them that I needed to publicly own up to my mistake. I planned to apologize to our whole staff, since my mistake reflected poorly on all of them. I was convinced that I must tell them the truth so they would be free from their own shame and fear. So I immediately called in all ten members of the staff, including the cook. I even wanted to include our watchdog Gurk, which means “wolf,” but I knew that might be taking it a little too far.
I actually wanted everyone to know. I knew how liberating it would be for all of us. Everyone should know what had come from my carelessness. So I confessed to our staff and said I was sorry for this mistake. I apologized for thinking one of them might have stolen the cards. I asked them to forgive me for causing great fear and suspicion among us.
I sensed both their relief and their disappointment. I realized they were let down that I, their leader, made such a grave error. Over and over I apologized and reassured them that we were a team working together. I went through the painful process of going around the circle, eyeball-to-eyeball, with each staff person, saying, “Engineer Atiq, I am sorry. Will you please forgive me?” I actually wanted them to hear me say this, and I wanted to hear them say, “Yes, I forgive you.” In this culture it is common to hold grudges and seek revenge, which is one of the reasons behind a lot of the tribal fighting. I wanted this unfortunate case closed, with no grudges left to hold.
My journal entry reads, “November 9, 2000, an utterly humiliating Thursday.” But it was also freeing, healing, and relieving for all of us. Confession is good for the soul. I was so thankful that the cloud of doubt, rumor, suspicion, fear, and shame had blown away. The truth did set us all free. We were free to forgive, free to clear our consciences, and free to get on with life. I felt like shouting with Martin Luther King Jr.: “Free at last; free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!”
Thankfully, my friends were able to show mercy to me in this situation, which is uncommon in the Central Asian culture. God’s grace came to me through them. My mistake allowed them to experience what it’s like to be a channel of God’s kindness as I received forgiveness from them and God.
In Afghan society, people don’t easily forget the past; it is usually bottled up until an opportune time to turn it into revenge. Gratefully, my act of carelessness actually turned into a wonderful experience and an opportunity to humbly emphasize for my Afghan friends that we are all sinners in need of a Savior.