Diwa

I was anxious to reach our village, Diwa, literally meaning torch, situated in Laghman province.  Given that I had been away from it for 20 years, I was interested in observing the changes and in seeing how the villagers would receive one of their own from the States.  

Made-up of a couple hundred mostly mud houses attached to each other and surrounded by lush green fields and river, Diwa is situated about half an hour drive away from the center of Laghman.  My cousin and I reached Laghman late in the afternoon at which time there was no direct bus service to our village.  So we boarded a Toyota van with 15 others to reach Alishang, a larger village across a river from our village.. The half an hour drive to Alishang cost us 7,000 Afghanis (aprox. 13 cents) per person, making the grand total of the journey for the driver and his conductors $2.21.  We walked then for another half an hour through green fields and tiny village lanes and crossed a river to reach the outskirts of Diwa. 

As my first sights lay on it, I was surprised to see that Diwa looked the same as 20 years ago; the only change was the addition of a few houses in the center.  The rest, including the narrow wooden bridge leading to the village center and the half-finished mosque wall remained the same.  I had expected at least some major changes. 

People’s lives seemed to have stood still for 20 years as well.  The villagers wake up before the sunrise to the same alarm clock as they did 20 years ago: “Da Chergai Azaan tah” or “Bah Azaan Murgh.”  And most field work is done between the early hours of 6 and 9 during the summer, as it becomes unbearably hot later.  All men work in the field, women work in homes and children play in dirt outside.  

Eyes however could not catch all changes.  I learned about them after talking to my villagers.  For instance, discussions often revolved around people who had died or had been killed during the last two decades and about how almost everyone was struggling to survive.  Fewer resources and few constructions made sense.     

During my first breakfast at six in the morning, I asked my cousin to make a list of all of the households that had lost a loved one during the past two decades so I could go for a “Fateha.”  The list was unsurprisingly long.  So I went almost from one clay house to another offering “Fatehas” on my first day.  

Paying my respects to the dead also gave me the opportunity to see the living and learn about their lives.  Room furnishings meant “towshak wa charpaee.”   Food is usually locally cultivated and produced.  “Luxuries” such as new clothing, medicine, notebooks, and other household item, however, are bought from the city.  Several males worked in offices in the city, the remaining 95% or so were farmers.  The several families with no male bread-winner survive on the generosity of the villagers who send them food and a portion of their wheat.  I felt very sad especially for one woman, who’s young son and husband were killed by the Soviets and who’s two teenage daughters had died due to diseases, the last one had become “falj,” dying twenty days before I saw her.  With “ashk pur” eyes she said, “I did not have money to take my lovely daughter to doctors in the city and no one helped me.  My young daughter died in my arms.  You could have saved her had you come earlier.”  How could she be consoled, I wondered. 

 The across the board poverty had not curbed the hospitality of the villagers though.  I was invited to someone’s house for almost every meal.  And the best thing that I ate was the fresh “koorania kuch,” or “maska yah khanagee.”  I will deal with the cholestrol back in America, I told myself, as I cleaned a big plate of home made butter.  I also visited the only all boys school in the village. As apparent from the pictures, the school has bare classes, few basic books and notebooks.  The 10 teachers were not paid for four months.  Yet they showed up to teach the several hundred students from grade 1 to 6.   

The most formal welcome that I received was at the village main mosque for “Juma Prayers.”  The mosque is the power-base in the village.  There was always a circle of villagers sitting in the mosque yard and the mosque loud-speaker was the only mouth-piece to reach all corners of the village.  I spoke through that mouth-piece before the Friday prayers and thanked all for their warm welcome, which I said “had me feel as if I had never left our village.”  I also expressed support for our school and mosque as “they are the two tested pillars of our society, the harmony which can better our lives.” 

 I left Diwa after five jolly days and was content that after 20 tumultuous years the gap between an Afghan educated in the West and those who has never left the village is not unbridgeable.  EVERYONE was welcoming.  I was prepared to meet at least a few “extremists” or “militants,” but I was delighted to find all to be “moderates.”  The villagers want to improve their lives and naturally see those of us in the West as partners for a better future and to us they are closest to our roots and to the basic Afghani values.  Our needs are mutual, which can be met with understanding and sensitivity.