Helping The People Of Afghanistan…….A Journey of Experience

Kabul, Afghanistan of the 1970’s was a modern city, with electric buses and girls in mini-skirts, a tourist stop for conveyances carrying adventurous Westerners craving a taste of the exotic. All of this changed dramatically and suddenly. Following the Communist coup in the late 70’s and the subsequent invasion by the Soviet Union, many Afghans who could flee the country did so. The ensuing war left the country a shambles, with most of the cultured and educated population leaving and finding lives in other countries. While the Soviets did much to help reconstruct the country, continuing opposition from underground factions undermined their ability to hold on to the country. Eventually the Mujahadeen, using weapons provided by the United States, were able to defeat the Soviets and drive them out of Afghanistan. Particularly effective were the surface-to-air “Stinger” missiles against the Soviet helicopters providing air support for ground troops. Without this protective support, forces on the ground were easily overcome by the Mujahadeen. Faced with their imminent defeat, the Soviet Union destroyed many of the projects that they had created, and withdrew to ignominy and the imminent collapse of the Soviet Empire. Afghans rejoiced and America withdrew, leaving Tajiks, Uzbeks, Pashtoons, and Hazaras to fight over the scraps of their culture and society.

During the ensuing Civil War, no place was safe. The absence of any central authority pitted neighbor against neighbor. Rocket and bomb attacks came at any moment. Half of the city was destroyed, and three million orphans were left to forage for their existence. Eventually, the Taliban was able to seize control of the government, enforcing a strict interpretation of Islamic law that severely limited individual choices, particularly with women’s rights and cultural expression such as education, art, and music. Anti-Western sentiment led to the establishment of militant training camps within Afghanistan, and the eventual Trade Center Attack in 2001. Being attacked on its own soil, the United States responded with an offensive that drove the Taliban out of Afghanistan. By replacing the Taliban government with a government more conducive to democratic process, America hoped to end sectarian divisiveness, and to unify that diverse country. But decades of war and poverty had taken their toll on those Afghans who had no ability to escape, those who had been forced to endure thirty years of war. Accompanied by famine-induced drought and famine, poor people flooded Kabul, and the population grew to over four million people. Finding cheap land in Kabul, many educated and now-wealthy Afghans began returning to Kabul, investing in land and assuming powerful positions in the new government. Aid institutions flooded into post-war Afghanistan to ostensibly help the country get back on its feet. Still, poverty was everywhere, and with the influx of construction and aid money came the inevitable corruption that would strangle the recovery of Afghanistan.

This was the time when I first came to help Afghanistan. I had been following the events as documented by the media, and I could not see progress being made to help the poor. Many NGO humanitarian aid organizations were situated in Afghanistan and ostensibly doing work there, but no one was overseeing their programs, and little progress could be seen in many areas. Learning of an orphanage in remote Wardak Province, I assembled portable equipment weighing nearly 500 pounds and flew it to Afghanistan, giving care to the orphans for the first time in their lives. Because I had no one to assist me, I enlisted each orphan after he was treated, and he became my assistant. I found them very intelligent and eager to learn. As time went on, local village people learned about my clinic, and came to receive treatment themselves. When I first examined their mouths for problems, I was shocked to find many abscessed teeth in each individual, a condition I had never encountered in America. I learned that the entire population of Wardak Province had no access to dental care at all, and at the same time I knew that the orphan population had no future without education, I decided to try to put together a program wherein the orphans could learn dental technology in a clinical setting that would also provide free basic dental care for anyone. I went back to America, and returned a few months later to provide dental care in a women’s medical clinic. During this time, I found women to be underserved as well, and learned that they were not empowered to seek treatment on their own. I decided to orient my training program in dental technology to reach out to women as well as the orphans, handicapped, socially disadvantaged, and the poor.

In my hometown of Santa Barbara, California, an art project involving converting shipping containers into living units came to my attention. It gave me an idea of creating a dental clinic inside a shipping container that could be shipped to Afghanistan as a working, pre-fabricated clinic. Purchasing a used container, I designed a three-operatory clinic with a roomy sterilizing area and an efficient dental laboratory, with its own diesel generator and self-contained water system. I imagined that many people were like me, and that they would support the building of the container/clinic, so that it would take little time to construct. I was, unfortunately, mistaken in my assumption. While I anticipated that the construction would require about four months, in reality it took 18 months to complete. While many people were interested in the project, few actually helped with the process of construction or made any financial contributions. Instead, people seemed to feel that just talking with me about the project was sufficient, and the most common aid offered was ideas, such as, “You know what you should do is…….”, and that would be as far as it would go. Some people actually thought that the clinic was a bad idea, feeling that I should be helping the poor people of America with their dental problems. This perspective made me look hard at what I was doing. I concluded that there was no equating the poverty of the Afghan people with the poor of America. Afghans had undergone thirty years of war in their country, which was a poor country initially. Their society, technology, and infrastructure had been crushed and they had been abandoned by the world. Everyone had lost family members, dealt with extreme poverty, and essentially had no future unless something improved their chances. Americans commonly claim poverty even though they own a car and many other amenities and never go hungry. One of the difficulties was that few Americans have experienced the hardships of war, and that this condition has not manifested on American soil in anyone’s lifetime. So the average American cannot really identify with the situation that Afghans face on a daily basis.

Many aid organizations have come to Afghanistan to help the people in their plight. Unfortunately, the majority of these organizations have existed to serve themselves, or have been staffed by people who were more interested in their own welfare than that of the poor Afghan people. The majority of aid organizations working in early post-war Afghanistan were found to be fraudulent, and over 70% of the organizations were prohibited from functioning inside of the country. Aid money would be appropriated for relief work in Afghanistan, and the money would never reach the intended objective. Grants would go to organizations that were self-serving, and when a significant portion of the grant had been spent in “administrative costs”, the grant would be sold to another aid organization. This process would be repeated until the original purpose of the grant was not recognizable and the funds were gone, still not benefiting the intended focus in any way.

The typical worker in this field is interested in where the money is coming from, and subsequently positions himself in between it and its intended target, using his position of power to control the assets and influence, often for his own advantage. At the same time, he elaborately builds barriers around access to his project, entrenching himself around the targeted needy, so that any attempt to benefit the needy has to go through his hands. When anyone tries to approach the needy under his control, they have to acknowledge this person and provide some kind of benefit, otherwise they not only are denied access to the needy, but also are degraded to people of influence who are associated with the project, and even may have their integrity attacked publicly. Meanwhile, the intended recipients of the aid continue to struggle with their adversity without benefiting from the programs intended for them. This causes the unknowing public, many of whom contribute to these organizations, to question why things are not improving.

Afghanistan was never a rich country. Lacking natural resources and facing an extreme environment, evolution produced a tough, adaptable, very intelligent person, capable of survival under very austere conditions. I’m sure that Afghans have been benefiting from foreigners ever since the first caravan came from the silk and spice regions of the Far East along the Silk Road. This perspective, where each Afghan is thinking, “How can I get mine?” is evident more than ever in modern-day post-war Afghanistan. Chronic droughts for a decade have destroyed the farming industry in the countryside, and millions of Afghans have migrated to Kabul. This city of over four million was formerly only half a million people. With half of the city destroyed, people live in the most squalid settings. Since most of the city is without electricity and water, residents have to carry their water from the nearest public well and must be able to afford the cost of a generator and fuel to have these amenities. Many residents access their water from shallow wells, which approximate septic tanks and surface water contamination, and essentially chronically infect themselves with such waterborne diseases as cholera, typhoid fever, and hepatitis A.

The Morning Doves are everywhere. Their sweet songs and peaceful demeanor contrast with the harshness of Afghan daily survival. The most numerous of all the birds, their calmness and serenity allow one to focus inwardly on a different world, a different reality. My arrival in Kabul prompted me to seek out transportation into the city. Having struggled through the baggage area of the Kabul International Airport, and the literal mountain of baggage, the result of twenty feet of conveyor and three planes unloading simultaneously, I forewent the hordes of baggage-handling, baksheesh-demanding Afghan men, and headed for the taxi area. About to enter the gate, my name was called by a suit-wearing young Afghan man, who spoke very good English. He said that he had been sent to pick me up. I knew that some people were aware of my arrival time, so I accompanied him in his car, which had a driver. Once we were on the road, I explained to him that I was a dentist and had come to Kabul to start a dental clinic and school for dental technology. We eventually arrived at his destination for me, the Park Palace, a larger guesthouse in an older residential area of Kabul west of the city center in Shar-e-naw. He said that his organization had been expecting me, and that they would be paying for my room. I thought that this was too good to be true, and paid a deposit on the room myself. He said that he would return shortly and take me to the headquarters, so that I could meet everyone. In a short time, he returned, and we journeyed a few blocks to a high-security building. I was ushered inside and introduced to the director, who began talking about rebuilding the Kabul Zoo. Sipping my requisite tea and listening to his concern for his project, I became more convinced that he had the wrong man. Sure enough, the phone rang, and it was the other Jim, wondering where his ride was. So they returned me to the guesthouse and apologized for the mistake. And this is the story of how I was kidnapped at the airport in Kabul.

The next day, I set off walking to find the permanent site of the dental treatment center that was to be started next spring. For over a year, I had negotiated with the Afghan Minister of Urban Affairs and Housing Pashtun for land for our shippable clinic, as well as a larger piece of land for our permanent twelve-operatory clinic and school. The Minister had told me that the land would be temporarily deeded over to our organization when I arrived, so I was eager to look at it. Water bottle in hand, I walked across Kabul a distance of about eight kilometers to the site in Kartahe Seeh, near the old Darulaman Palace. The intense heat, dry air, and the exercise of walking across the hilly and rough terrain made me very thirsty, and the direct sun brought a blush to my fair skin. Eventually, I arrived at the site, a vast open area with a thick layer of dust and little else. Where the map had showed roads, there were none. The “park” on the drawings that had been sent by the Minister was the bombed-out ruins of former government buildings. In an area of sparse development aside from a few simple mud houses, I could not imagine how my shippable clinic could function in this raw, dusty setting. Disappointed, I walked back to the guesthouse, determined to spend the next day exploring the alternative site, a small plot in the Macroroyan #4 housing project.

The Macroroyan #4 was built by the Soviets following their occupation of Afghanistan. During the 1980’s and early 1990’s, the six-story concrete blocks were constructed one after another in the southeast part of Kabul. They were occupied by middle-class Afghan families who either owned an apartment unit or rented it for from $300 to $500 a month, a considerable amount for an Afghan to pay for housing. Each block housed up to 1,000 people, and had an elected representative who would deal with concerns of the residents. Many of these block managers were deposed officials who had held government positions during Soviet occupation.

Early the next morning, I set out walking again. The typical transportation in Kabul is by cab. Most cabs are Toyota Corollas of varying vintages and mechanical conditions. Communicating with cab drivers in English is challenging, especially having no knowledge of the city. Coincidentally, I found myself in front of a Honda motorcycle store. Spontaneously, I found myself buying a 125-cc Honda motorcycle, which became a liberating experience eventually, after a week of getting lost in the streets of Kabul and finding my way back again. Over the next six weeks, I was to put nearly 1,300 kilometers on the bike, learning Kabul like my hometown. At no time did I feel threatened or in danger, although quick thinking and reacting was always a necessity.

The second morning, I went to the site of the alternative piece of land. A fence surrounded it, with a locked gate. Using a 100-foot tape measure, I measured the land and converted the measurements to meters. While I was drawing the land plot, a young man came to me and asked what I was doing. I explained that the land had been given by the Minister Pashtun for a dental clinic and training center. He asked me to write it down, and then disappeared with the note. In a few minutes, an older man appeared, who began to argue with me in Dari about the land. It became apparent that the older man would not accept the presence of the project on that land. As time passed, even more people came and expressed their disapproval of my using the land, which had recently been improved with a simple garden: a few small trees, sunflowers, and some small rose bushes. Returning to the Minister’s office and speaking with his secretary, I was told that the land was mine to use for the project, and to go ahead and start construction.

For over a year, I had been communicating with Minister Pashtun regarding occupying this piece of land with our project. I needed assurance that my investment of over 3,000 hours of my working time, as well as over $200,000 of my own money, would be respected and preserved so that the poor Afghan people could benefit from it. Our organization’s attorney had drafted an agreement, which gave us this land to occupy for ten years, with an option to renew for ten additional years. During the previous year, the Minister had continued to insist that we would ship our project immediately, but he would not sign the contract. Fearing the project would not be secure, I withheld shipment until the document was returned, signed by the Minister himself. In signing the contract, he agreed to communicate about the project to the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Higher Education, and to take documents that I provided to him to these ministries so that I would just have to sign them when I arrived. I was also to be able to occupy the smaller piece of land for ten years, with an option of ten additional years, and to sign a contract on my arrival for the larger land for the permanent building for temporary ownership, with permanent ownership given following construction. In addition, he volunteered to take responsibility for importing the project from Pakistan, and clearing customs with taxes being charged. The longer I was in Kabul, the more distant these promises became.

I had arranged for a cell phone in advance of my arrival, and I called a young Afghan contractor to go to the clinic site with me the next day. We were met by even more people, even more intent that the clinic was not going to be put there. The next day, we came back again with engineers from the Minister’s staff, and even greater opposition was present. We returned a fourth time with a sign written in Dari, explaining how beneficial the project would be for the people there. The sign disappeared, and the opposition crowd continued to grow in size and ferocity.

We could not understand how the few plants in this area could be so important. Anticipating a showdown, I invited about 30 local dentists and other people interested in our project, to a ribbon-cutting ceremony that would also involve removal of the fence, as a symbolic occupation of the land. Our group was met by such a mass of people that we were unable to even approach the gate.

At this point, I was led through the Ministry itself, given a piece of signed paper that gave us the land legally, but only for 12 months. Given a police escort, we went to the site again, showing the deed to the land. The response was that they would tear down anything that we built there. The police saw that the people were serious, and, rather than force the occupation of the land, they refused to act. We went again to the Minister’s office. The Minister told the department managers that they would lose their jobs if we were not able to occupy the land. So we went again, this time with the Afghan Police Swat Team. The huge crowd of local residents had been active as well. They had interested a local television station in the confrontation, and their crew was at the site. As a result, the police again refused to act, and we were referred to the District #9 Police Chief, who referred us to the Kabul City Central Police Office, who referred us to the Ministry of the Interior. Obviously, we were not making much progress. By this time, the people were threatening to kill us as well, including ten-year-old boys who actually told me that they were going to kill me. They were even carrying sticks and rubber hoses with which to beat me.

At this point, it was overwhelmingly obvious that we would never be able to install the project on that land. Having seen the impossibility of doing so after three weeks of trying, I began an intensive effort to locate another site. I told everyone I met about the difficulty we had encountered, and people began to volunteer ideas and actual offers of land. But available land in Kabul itself was elusive. High property values made the cost of purchasing land out of the question. I contacted the Kabul Municipality, who allocates land to worthy causes, but our organization was not eligible. I went to Kabul University to inquire about putting the project on University land, but they did not feel that it was appropriate. Then a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of the Chancellor of the Kabul Medical University, who had me translate all of my documents into Farsi, and presented the project to the Medical School board members. I called him in a few days, and he invited me to the Medical School, and took me to the site adjacent to the Medical School on the campus, where land was available for our project. Thrilled at the thought of being associated with the Medical School, we went with the Chancellor to look at the land. At the extreme east end of the campus, we found a rocky cliff, which adjoined a graveyard. This was the land. When we asked what to do about the graves, we were told that it would be our responsibility to move them. Having just experienced a similar hopeless situation, we quickly realized that there was no chance of using this land, and our hopes were dashed again. Many other offers of land in remote locations outside of the city were also offered, but were not practical due to sparse populations and security concerns. So, it became apparent that we had no land for our hard-work project, after all our planning. Knowing that our project would require approval by the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Higher Education, I had sent packages of documents six months earlier to both ministries by way of Minister Pashtun. Although he told me that he had delivered the documents himself, and that he would have the agreements ready to sign when I arrived, they were never delivered, and no documents were available for me to sign when I arrived. Instead of informing the other ministries as he had told me, the documents had disappeared, and no one at either ministry had even heard of my project when I went there. In fact, no referral was even made, and I had to go to each ministry on my own and walk around the building trying to find the right person to talk to. Because no one had heard of what I was doing, they thought I was trying to get around them and work without their permission, which caused them to think that I was trying to deceive them. This made it next to impossible to make any progress with permission both to operate the clinic, as well as to implement the educational program. Despite contacting several key people over a period of four weeks, I made almost no progress toward giving the clinic and school official recognition. The unfortunate part of this is that I had made every effort in the previous year to see that all these things were anticipated and implemented, only to find out on my arrival that nothing had been done.

By the time four weeks had passed since my arrival, I realized that the Minister Pashtun had not filed the papers to import the shipment from Karachi. It became obvious that the project could not arrive in time in Kabul to set it up, before I was to leave Afghanistan. Besides, we still had no land or even permission to start the program there. The Minister had not even filed the papers to import the project through Pakistan, even though I had sent them to him two weeks earlier. So it became obvious that the shipment would arrive after I had left, with no land and no approval for the project, and winter temperatures below –20 degrees centigrade. There was not even a place to store the shipment in Karachi, and the charges had exceeded $3,000 for excessive storage during which Minister Pashtun failed to import the shipment. There was no alternative but to return the shipment to the U.S.A.

Doing this was extremely difficult. For several days after making this decision, I was mentally distraught and filled with anxiety. Despite this huge setback, I continued to work toward returning the project to Kabul the following April. People that I met while staying at the guesthouse became my friends, and some gave me leads that were very helpful. One Afghan man knew the brother-in-law of the Minister of Public Health, and through the brother-in-law, I was able to get a description of my program directly to the Minister. He was actually excited by the project, and ultimately gave it his full support. Contacting the President of the Orphanages, we were able to interest the Minister of Labor and Social Services in our project and in putting it on orphanage land. Even the Minister of Health offered two possible clinic sites. An international NGO organization, Hope Worldwide, took our organization under its wing, and led it through the final negotiations that ultimately will resolve all of the major problems.

Unfortunately, the shipment is coming back. But it was saved from being lost in Afghanistan, possibly being stolen, certainly freezing and who knows what else………disappearing to who knows where. So we will be going back next April to take it to the next level. Hopefully, you will be able to be a part of this great event. Please consider volunteering to go with us, and give this your full support. The Afghan people need your help desperately, and so do we.

ABOUT WORKING IN AFGHANISTAN…………..

Afghanistan has never been a rich country. Dry, mountainous, without many natural resources, its people have survived through the millennia by being adaptable. Those who could not adapt did not survive. As a result, the present-day Afghan is able to endure hardship and deprivation better than most other people. Extreme temperature and climate variations, drought, famine, a variety of endemic diseases, all create a tough, resilient individual capable of adjusting to circumstances that would challenge others beyond their abilities. Still, these forces take their toll. Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality in the world. Average life span is only 42 years. Only 30% of its citizens are literate, and many diseases not seen in the modern world are endemic in Afghanistan.

Thirty years of war crushed the vitality out of the Afghanistan infrastructure. Those who were unable to escape saw their homes destroyed, their family members killed, the very essence of their lives crushed into the dust. Even now, land mines kill at least sixty people a month, mainly children. Last winter, many people died from overexposure to the winter cold. Because little infrastructure exists, people have nothing on which to rely for their daily needs, and cannot even consider their long-term needs. Even the transitional government receives only 27% of its monetary support from its own resources; all the rest comes from foreign aid.

Having existed on a survival level for so long, Afghanistan has generally lost its ability to rebuild itself, depending instead on outside funding, and unable to find the initiative and the integrity to become self-dependent. This is apparent at all levels in the culture. Everyone is looking for a handout, form the orphan on the street to the businessman to the government official. A foreigner cannot walk down the street without being besieged by small children in dirty clothes, burka-clad mothers with small children, old men, and cripples. Yet stories abound of men who secure street corners and hire children to beg there, taking most of the contributions for themselves and leaving the child little, stories of women who borrow small children from other women so that they can extort money from sympathetic benefactors. And many educational programs are available to assist the handicapped in retraining themselves. Businessmen automatically double or triple the price of items being sold to foreigners, and government employees and supervisors are always looking out for available resources to channel into their own use. Essentially, taking advantage of situations for personal benefit has become the way of surviving for most Afghans. The government official will somehow find a way to divert funds from a grant into his own pocket. The businessman will get the most out of you that he can get for his product or service, and the people at the bottom will somehow convince you that you need to give them money.

This selfish attitude creates a similar problem to that encountered with the goose, which laid the golden eggs. Shortsighted Afghan people destroy programs by their own selfishness and unwillingness to see the big picture, the situation that could be created by using resources to create a new reality rather than short-term thinking about immediate needs on a self-centered level. As a result, many programs designed to help uplift Afghanistan’s infrastructure have been looted before they could have a beneficial effect. Not too long ago, over 3,000 non-government organizations were in Afghanistan, ostensibly working to help the people get back on their feet. Most of these organizations were corrupt, spending their funds on their own needs, with little or nothing actually going to improve the country. An audit caused three-fourths of these NGO’s to lose their Afghan certification, leaving only around 800 remaining. The failed NGO’s were notoriously corrupt, giving the illusion that the country was benefiting from their aid when, in reality, people within the NGO were the only beneficiaries.

The Afghan government has also gotten a reputation for corruption and inefficiency. Many government officials on a salary of $200 a month are building construction projects and show undue affluence. General belief is that a project cannot make progress through the government without significant contributions from the hopeful project manager. Coupled with inefficient bureaucratic processes that are obstructive and counter-productive, one can see why so little progress can be made.

Aid workers focusing on these problems in their efforts to overhaul these bureaucratic processes are frustrated by an unwillingness of the government to change. Implementing efficient programs within the government to improve its effectiveness is extremely difficult. As a result, aid designed to assist people at the bottom does not generally reach them, and the general poverty existing in the country continues. Aid workers dealing with these cumbersome bureaucratic processes become weary and often lose their altruism. As a result, the money spent to change ineffective system is often paying salaries of aid workers who are not very effective in changing policies and procedures. The most-often-heard comment is that change is going to take a long time. Meanwhile, the people at the bottom feel little of the benefit, and continue to survive on the scraps. As drought persists in the rural areas, people continue to crowd into Kabul, looking for work. Refugees are returning at incredible rates, only to find that housing is out of reach, and jobs are scarce. Many families live in a single room of an apartment and pay almost their entire income just for rent, having one bicycle for the entire family’s transportation. A common scene on the roads of Kabul is to see entire families on one bicycle, braving the heavy traffic. These bicycles become trucks for transporting goods as well, in unique and creative ways.

Maintenance of bicycles is a major industry for small boys in roadside businesses. Because everyone at the bottom must work, children are often seen doing the work of adults. Because no environmental health rules are in place, the children often are working with hazardous materials. Because water and electricity are not available generally for the entire city, children often become the water bearers and purveyors of diesel fuel to power generators. Lack of access to water for hygienic purposes in common, and seeing people who are dirty is very ordinary.

Throughout the city, the skeletons of former buildings stand, without roofs, walls, windows. Refugees have adapted to any space offering shelter. Many open areas are covered with makeshift tents constructed of plastic and cardboard scraps and little else. In association with these makeshift refugee camps are nomadic settlements of Kuchi tribesmen, with their herds of goats and sheep, commonly seen along Kabul streets. While the nomadic herders seem oblivious to the poverty around them, with their herds of potential kebabs, the refugees are on the lowest level of survival, and face the greatest hardship. As former residents continue to return to Afghanistan, they all face incredible challenges surviving in this harsh world.

As aid programs prove to be less effective than ideal, and military funding increases, many Afghans with hopes for a better future become disillusioned, looking for alternatives. Limited water in rural areas suffering from drought stimulates farmers to plant opium poppies. Powerful political forces such as Taliban and rural feudal warlord protect these farmers from interference by the central government, police, and military. This year, despite increased pressure to reduce opium production, a rise in poppy cultivation of 60% occurred. While America and other nations devote a major portion of foreign aid into poppy eradication, few alternatives are available to poor Afghan farmers in these areas. As more foreign aid is spent countering poppy growing without producing effective alternatives, the rural populations becomes more susceptible to influences from Taliban fundamentalists, who point out that no real help is coming from the central, western-oriented government. The Taliban can more easily influence these people to support their cause, and as a result, conflict continues between the central government and western-led military forces on one hand, and rural residents influenced by the Taliban fundamentalists and warlords on the other hand. Resolving this conflict will take time, helping farmers learn techniques to make their efforts more productive, and implementing other programs to improve health and general welfare in these depressed areas. Unlike countrysides in developed nations, these areas are only marginally linked to the rest of the world by primitive roads difficult to traverse. Lacking other methods of modern electronic communication, and isolated from radio and television, the rural areas function mainly like feudal fiefdoms with powerful local tribesmen overseeing the welfare of local residents. Aid programs to residents of these areas must augment and acknowledge these pre-existing social systems, and not dilute and disparage their essential functions, upon which the people depend.

To effectively create change in Afghanistan, more analysis must be done by informed. Altruistically oriented people, who actually feel passion for their task. Too many “experts” are employed at high salaries in this area, with little motivating passion to drive their aid projects forward. In fact, from my experience, this is one of the major problems in reconstructing Afghanistan. Desperate people trying to survive need passionate, selfless humanitarians, finding and implementing resources for their recovery. How to access these people and get them into positions of influence is a huge challenge. Aid workers typically lack altruism, passion, and creativity………without these attributes, there is no driving force to create change. During my six-week visit to Afghanistan, I did not meet one person like myself, who had created, funded, and implemented his own program with his own energy. As the richest and most powerful nation in the world, we have an obligation to help the Afghan people, not just to make platitudes, but to create change from a desire and passion to see justice and equity prevail. Only then can we earn the respect as a nation of the rest of the world community. We should become the Big Brother instead of the Big Bully, and actually help people rather than just impose our will with force.

Please access our website, www.adrpinc.org.

Thank you for your interest.
James G. Rolfe, DDS; Founder
Afghanistan Dental Relief Project, Inc.
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