The children of Shamshatoo

UN Chronicle, March-May, 2002 by Hasan Ferdous

It seemed almost pre-historic, carved out of a deserted landscape that could have been the perfect prop for a Steven Spielberg movie, except that it was no prop and it was not pre-historic. It was Shamshatoo, a campsite set up outside Peshawar--the capital of Pakistan's rugged North West Frontier Province--for newly arrived Afghan refugees.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has set up four separate camps, now collectively called Shamshatoo, that provide shelter and basic services to some 50,000 Afghan refugees. Most of the people who have found shelter here are newly arrived, some as early as a year ago, others as recently as a few weeks. Several of them have been shifted from the much larger Jallozai refugee camp, also on the outskirts of Peshawar. Overall, some 3.5 million Afghans have sought refuge--about 2 million of them in Pakistan and the remaining 1.5 million in Iran. Afghan refugees have also found shelter in several other countries neighbouring Afghanistan.

We visited Shamshatoo on 12 November 2001, our destination being the last of the four camps. Everyone here has a story to tell and a tragedy to share. Once the individual details are sorted out, they all sound the same. Running away from a brutal war and an oppressive regime, they are here to seek shelter, food and hope. And this hope, at least for those in Shamshatoo, has come in the form of an opportunity for both Afghan boys and girls to go to school.

Abdul Haq, the father of five (one boy and four girls), came to Pakistan about a year ago from war-ravaged Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. He first found shelter in Jallozai; only three weeks ago he was transferred to Shamshatoo. He was a taxi driver and his wife a school teacher. After the Taliban seized control of Mazar, girls were prevented from going to school. His wife lost her job and he lost an eye in a mine explosion. He would have persevered longer in his home town because he knew quite well how perilous a refugee's life is.

But after several girls were abducted and the law and order situation broke down, he decided it was time to get out of harm's way. "My biggest fear was for my girls. I had to take them somewhere where they would be safe, even if it meant running away from home", Haq said. For him and for several hundred newly arrived Afghan refugees, home at Shamshatoo is limited to a tent that often has no plastic sheet to shield it from the bitter cold and no hard cover on the floor either. Water is scarce and a water van arrives twice daily to deliver "water rations". You have to walk several blocks outside the camp to collect the weekly "food ration" provided by the United Nations. There is no doctor inside the camp. There is no electricity and when darkness falls over the valley, only stars are here to gaze at. It is pitch dark and you have to listen to your heartbeat to believe life is still flowing.

"But I can go to school", quipped eleven-year-old Asma when asked if she missed home. Less than a week before, it was only a tent. Afghan children, desperate to cling to the tiniest bit of hope, would still come. They would leave their tattered sandals at the entrance, sit on the cold mat and listen attentively to every word of the "mualim"--the teacher. Now, a blue and white billboard stands outside a one-story building, still smelling of the fresh white paint, proudly proclaiming. "Baihaque Primary School for Girls". "This is our new school", says nine-year-old Mumtaz, acting as our local guide. Her eyes light up as we step inside a classroom.

Inside, about 30 girls aged eight to fifteen sit on a mat with textbooks, notebooks and pencils in hand. Two or three girls keep their veils on; others, wearing old but clean dresses, look straight into our eyes and welcome us with the traditional "salaam". I felt there was an ocean between the squalor of the refugee tents we had just visited and this classroom. Most of the girls are reluctant to talk about the past. Too much bitterness, too much disappointment. They would rather talk about the future. The past has been so bleak that the future for them can only be better. All of them, without exception, seemed to be happy. For three hours at school, they can forget about the dirt, the hunger and the darkness at their tents and dream about a better tomorrow.

"I want to be a doctor when I grow up", says a little girl, too bashful to repeat her name. Another, half an inch taller, says she wants to be a teacher. A third one, perhaps the oldest, says she wants to be a nurse.

It is not difficult to understand why most girls have their aim set on these three professions. Under the Taliban regime, girls were barred from going to school.

Tahira, who comes from the eastern city of Jalalabad, said it was the blackest day in her life when she learned she could no longer go to school. "I felt I was inferior even to animals. Dogs and cats can go out and run around free. I could go nowhere. I felt I was a burden to my family. If I could, I would open schools for girls everywhere in Afghanistan. I would teach girls everything I would learn', she says, her eyes shinning with hope.