Drips and Drabs from the last few days

We visited a school for the blind and disabled. Click this

We rode on the roof of a truck returning 27 refugees to a land some of them had never seen but still claimed as their own. They left Pakistan because there were no jobs, and they had no land. They thought that they would find better conditions in Afghanistan. Their optimism was heartbreaking as the day before we had seen the situation they could hope for at best.

We had driven in a UNHCR convoy to a township near Jalalabad. A township is a number of houses built by the returnees on land the government gives them. Here refugees had what they all clamour for: A piece of the country they haven't seen in 25 years. This plot of land was sandwiched between a dried river bed and a minefield. The nearest village, and school, refuses to have a connecting road built. There are few jobs if any. There is a culture of asking the relief agencies for more, but surprisingly little desire to help each other or help themselves. An ex-teacher moans about the lack of a school. I suggest he teach. He laughs.

Despite these difficulties, I was surprised by how developed the site was. I had expected ramshackle huts and tents; but here, using local techniques and the few things their land has a bounty of, stone and dirt, the families had within a year, constructed their 2 bedroom houses and many had erected walls demarcating their plots. The more senior residents had even added refinements to the design like guttering and decorative patterns.

The border with Pakistan is a bustle of migrant hustle and police hassle. And dust. And flies. And deep red glasses of pomegranate juice. Women in blue burkas march out, women in blue burkas stride in. Children in Guantanamo-orange sharwal camises flood back from Pakistan. Their closest school is on the other side of the border. As they flow past they run their hands across the bars of the fence, their fingers easing off layers of dust and the black fence beneath is revealed.

16 wheeler trucks carrying mundane containers are elaborately decorated. Each Panel along the side is framed with flowers and bright coloured paintings of idyllic homes by rivers. Inside each frame fit three florid letters. MER.CED.ESB.ENZ.GER.MAN.YSU.PER.DEL.UXE.MDL.2004

We are waiting for a truck of refugees to come by so we can ride with them. We sit in an office dodging flies and nodding in agreement to the incoherent Pashto declarations of an Ex- Afghan Army soldier. He did the compulsory three years and got out. Or maybe, they let him go. His iris doesn't touch the sides of his eyes and his hands are possessed.

Our translator waits until he's comfortable with us to express his discomfort at certain traditions. He looks embarrassed when he admits his wife wears a burka. When I ask if he talks about it with her he is restored and says he does. Apparently. Its pretty hot underneath a head to toe sheet.

Drivers: You take your life in your own hands when you cross the road. You put your life in the driver's when you get in a car. You need an expression like Inshallah (if god wills) to keep you at ease.

Akmal, our driver, has a Pakistani made car, so the steering wheel is on the wrong side. To see if it is safe to overtake he has to swing the car fully into the oncoming lane. Eventually I scavenge enough Dari from the dictionary to devise a message relaying system. Apparently. Shouting woooah, is not a universal sign of danger get back in your lane. Now.