30 Days in Afghanistan - The Curse of the Poor

There's always two of them with me, a driver, and a security guy, who's usually just referred to as "shooter", for the Kalashnikov he carries with him. We're driving to Panjsher, shooter drinks and empties a bottle of water. He lowers his passenger side window, and tosses the bottle out, it bounces across the shoulder of the highway, and comes to rest in a heap of other refuse.

Since I've been here, I've observed this behavior many times. People just toss out their garbage from their cars, or in front of a street vendor where they're eating something. Outside houses, are piles of garbage, in front of offices, everywhere in the city, empty plastic bottles, overflowing open sewer trenches, the Kabul River, now just a stream from the drought, is filled with tons and tons of raw sewage and garbage.

This isn't an Afghan phenomenon, I've seen it in Pakistan, it happens in India, and China, and most other developing countries. I'm not sure if it's ignorance, lack of education or laziness. I know it's not because people don't care about their country, Afghans display their patriotism just as proudly as Americans, most cars, shops and homes carry a picture of Ahmad Shah Massoud, an Afghanistan flag, or other national symbols. Maybe its priorities, most people are busy trying to survive - cleanliness is not at the top of their mind, but Islam says "cleanliness is next to holiness", so I doubt if that's the case.

Mr. Edhi Sattar, the famous Pakistani humanitarian was once asked to visit a remote village, to help the local villagers. They villagers wrote to him, explaining that they had been ignored by everyone, the government and any NGO's. He finally made the trip to see them, after driving many hours to get there, he arrived, and started walking to the village. Upon arrival, he noticed the garbage piled high throughout the village, the polluted lake nearby, and when he came across the villagers, he lost his composure, and told them they had no right to expect any help, if they weren't willing to do anything for themselves. He told them that they had no right to expect anything from anyone, if they couldn't even keep the front of their houses clean. He promised he'd return once they did the bare minimum. He returned a few months later, to find a clean village, a lake that was filtered, and now had clean water, no refuse littering the roads or houses. They had done enough to move above the squalor, and were ready for the next step of building their village.

Development doesn't necessarily start with millions of dollars being pumped into a new construction project, it can start with picking up a piece of trash. Afghanistan has been through almost 30 years of war, it would be interesting to come back after 10 years to see where the countries goes from here. There are some great NGO's teaching exactly these types of basic standards, unfortunately they are in the minorities, but still, they could have more impact here, than the giants walking around throwing money at empty buildings that may never be filled.