Kids of Kabul (7 page)

In wealthy countries, people with mental illness have a rough time, even when they are supported with resources, pensions, medication and therapy. In poor countries, people with mental illness are often at the bottom of the pile.

War creates trauma, and trauma can lead to mental illness. In 2010, the Afghan government estimated that two-thirds of the Afghan people suffer from psychological problems such as depression, severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Treatment options are limited, with fewer than fifty psychologists and psychiatrists in the whole country.

Without good medical alternatives, people sometimes turn to tradition and superstition. These include dropping off their loved one at a shrine. There, patients are suspected of being possessed by demons, or djinns. The patients are fed only bread and water and are kept in chains in small cement rooms. They stay this way for forty days, which is supposed to drive away the demon. The World Health Organization has started a Chain Free Initiative to try to provide medications that might be more beneficial than superstition.

Fareeba is twelve years old — maybe. She comes from Mazar-e-Sharif — maybe. She was found wandering in the streets and was brought to the mental hospital by strangers — also maybe.

Fareeba lives behind the high stone walls of the women’s mental hospital. She was dropped off at the metal gate by two people who may have been her parents but denied kinship. There is a huge stigma against people with mental illness in Afghanistan, as there is everywhere else.

Behind the walls of the women’s mental hospital, there is sunshine. The women patients are allowed to roam the grounds freely during the day. The walls keep them safe from outsiders who might want to hurt them.

Recently a volunteer from another country helped the patients plant gardens and taught them to care for the plants. Even though it is winter now and nothing is growing, two women are digging in the dirt because that is an activity they enjoy. Others sit and enjoy the sun on their faces. Others follow me around and stare in curiosity at such a funny-looking visitor.

Fareeba cannot speak. She might be able to if she had a therapist to work with her, but there is no one. Judging from her hand gestures and the way she behaves, Fareeba may have autism, but there is no way to have her properly diagnosed, and no one is trained to give her the specialized therapy she requires. There is no next step for her, no place for her to progress to. She is just here, perhaps for the rest of her life.

In many ways, Fareeba is lucky. She is in a place where she and the other patients — all adult women — are kept clean. She has a bed to sleep in with a blanket (unless she makes too much noise at night; then she is put into the room with the big cages, locked away from the others). She is fed every day, and she can go out into the yard at her own whim. The staff are compassionate and competent. No one is being mean to her.

But she has never been to school, never seen a speech therapist, never been given toys and tasks that might help her move forward. Her future is more of the present. This is her life.

Shyah, 14

As different Afghan governments persecuted people with education, trained professionals like doctors and nurses fled the country to save their lives. Under the Taliban, women could not be treated by male doctors, and female doctors were not allowed to work. People who became injured often stayed injured.

A broken leg that is not repaired does not mend on its own. Physical injuries that are not properly treated can lead to long-term difficulties.

SOLA is an organization that tries to repair some of the damage that war and the resulting poverty have caused. It arranges rehabilitative surgery in the United States for kids like Shyah, who are given a home and an education so that when their bodies are repaired, they are better equipped to make something of their lives.

I am from Shamoli, in Parwan Province. I have been at this school for two years, without my family. My mother is dead. She died soon after I was born. My father remarried, and his new wife did not take care of me very well. I can’t say she didn’t like me. I was a baby. I had no personality to like or dislike. Maybe she didn’t like babies. Whatever it was, she didn’t take good care of me.

I was six months old when my legs went all wrong. Someone in my family put me up on a high stack of mattresses and pillows. It was very high and I fell off. My legs got broken and twisted, but there was no treatment, no hospitals or clinics, so they did not heal.

With my legs in bad shape, I guess I was even harder to care for and even more of a problem for my stepmother, so my father did the best thing he knew what to do for me. He put me in an orphanage. That’s where I grew up.

It was okay there. It wasn’t a huge orphanage, just a medium one, and I think that’s better than a really big one. You could get lost in too many kids. When I got old enough I went to school for two hours in the morning, then had lunch, then I went to the mosque in the afternoon for religious studies. It was my life. It was what I knew.

Two years ago some people came to the orphanage looking for kids like me who needed help, and so I came to this school.

This is part home, where I live, part school and part waiting room. All the kids here are waiting to go to other countries for medical treatment, or they have been accepted into foreign universities and they are waiting for their visas to come through.

I have been to the United States once for surgery, and I’m waiting to go again for another operation on my legs. I was sent to Charlotte, North Carolina. I was very happy there. The people in the hospital were very kind to me — so kind that I wasn’t even afraid.

When I came out of the hospital I stayed with an American family to get my strength back. They were great. They had two sons and we all played together. It didn’t matter that they were American and I was Afghan. We played board games, computer games, video games, we went into the city to swim or see a movie. I liked it a lot.

When I was younger I was not interested in studying. My mother was dead and when my father came to see me, he didn’t encourage me. He never went to school. I don’t think he thought I could ever do anything, that my legs were bad and that would be my whole life. I would grow up to be the man with bad legs.

But since coming to SOLA, all that has changed for me. Studying is a very important activity here. All the kids are expected to take it seriously. I am the youngest student here. All the other kids think they can check up on me. “Have you done your homework?” “Don’t you have a test to study for?” There is no chance not to study! So now I am a very good student. My favorite things to study are English and the Qur’an.

There are two kinds of students who live here. Some are like me, waiting to go for medical treatment.

Najib is my friend. He is from Helmand Province. He is a little older than me. On election day two years ago he took his little brother into town on a bicycle. A rocket came. There was an explosion and a tiny piece of shrapnel went into his eye. The rocket killed his little brother.

Najib had one operation but he needs another. It is all arranged for him to go to the United States but now he is waiting for the visa.

When he was in Helmand, he worked for a mechanic and thought he would always work for a mechanic. Now, after meeting more people and learning more things, he wants to be an eye doctor. He gets great grades in sciences like biology and chemistry.

The other students have been granted scholarships to foreign universities. They are waiting for visas, too. The visa officers who work at the embassy are sometimes not helpful. One girl was all set to go away to college, but during her visa interview the officer told her, “How can you go to college when you haven’t been to high school?” But in Afghanistan, school is not regular. She has been tutored and passed the university entrance exam. But the visa officer did not understand that and denied her visa. Another girl was told, “You already have a high school education, you don’t need more than that.” And her visa was denied.

But maybe everyone’s visas will come through soon, and then we’ll go on to the next step for our futures. We are not really family in this school but we feel like family. We are from all over Afghanistan, but it’s like we are all brothers and sisters. Family.

Zuhal, 13

The Kabul Women’s Garden is a special place. In a society where women are not allowed to wander freely, to go outside to stretch their legs when they feel like some fresh air — because either the laws prevent it or customs make it very difficult — the garden gives them a place to walk, unharassed by men.

The eight acres were donated by King Zahir Shah in the 1940s. Not surprisingly, the Taliban closed the garden when they took over. They filled it with garbage and changed its name from Women’s Garden to Spring Garden. Only men went there, to attend the rooster fights that took place in the middle of the rubble.

After the fall of the Taliban, Afghan women, supported by international donations, reclaimed the garden, even doing much of the manual labor required to make it beautiful again — a rare thing in Afghanistan, where the idea of women working in the trades has not really taken hold. Forty-five truckloads of trash were carried away, five thousand rose bushes were planted and all sorts of trees were added.

The Women’s Garden reopened on November 3, 2010. It is a little spot of paradise in the middle of a noisy, busy city. There are pathways, fountains, gazebos and children’s playgrounds. Women can exercise in the fitness center and on the basketball court, enjoy lunch at the restaurant and study at the computer lab or take job training. They can take a tae kwon do class, shop at the small boutiques, or just sit and have quiet for a few minutes.

The garden also has a mosque, built and maintained by women, where women can receive religious instruction from other women.

It is a safe place. The garden has high walls around it and one gate guarded by a male armed guard. After visitors pass through the gate, one of the female intelligence officers checks in bags and under burqas to make sure a suicide bomber or assassin hasn’t slipped through.

Zuhal and her friend have come to the garden to play.

My mother works at home, taking care of us. My father has a job with the government.

I am very good at school. I’m in grade eight and I get lots of praise from my teachers because I work hard and learn fast. My favorite subject to study is English because if you know English, you can get a good job.

But today is a day when there are no classes. I have come here with my friend to the Women’s Garden. My mother came with us, but she has gone inside to a literacy class and we have stayed outside to play. I like it here because only girls are allowed. It’s a place where I can relax.

The garden has a high wall around it that keeps out the noise and dirt of the city. When I am on this side of the wall, I can pretend the whole world is pretty and safe.

The security here is very good. There is a guard out front and you have to be a woman or a girl to get past him. Then there are other guards, women, inside the gate who search everyone’s bag to make sure no one is bringing a bomb into the garden. I don’t know why anyone would want to blow up a garden, but people do strange things. Once that’s over, you can just come into the garden and feel free.

Outside the walls there is a lot of noise from all the cars and trucks on the road. There is a lot of dust and dirt and it is hard to breathe.

Here in the garden, things are different. The walls block out the noise. I know that dust and noise travel, but they don’t seem to come in here. The garden is clean. The air is easier to breathe.