Stones Into Schools

by Greg Mortenson

  It was an extraordinary coincidence. Here in Baharak, Abdul Rashid Khan and I had finally been brought together around a plate of roast lamb, long after midnight on the eve of a full-blown religious riot. But even more remarkable, as I was about to discover, were the events that had drawn this man from his home in the mountains at the far end of the Wakhan. As we tucked into the food laid before us, he told me the story of the arduous journey he had just completed to meet the president of Afghanistan in Kabul, and the reasons why he was now returning, empty-handed and nearly broke, to his people in the High Pamir.

  During the mid-1990s, the Afghan forces that had defeated the Soviet army found themselves grappling with the impossible challenge of rebuilding a war-shattered nation without any significant assistance from their former allies abroad, including the United States. In the absence of outside aid, one of the few reliable sources of wealth was opium—a crop that had offered a lucrative source of income to a number of cash-strapped mujahadeen commanders during the Soviet occupation. By the early 1990s, so much heroin was flowing out of the country that Afghanistan rivaled Southeast Asia as the prime source of the world’s opium supply. Then in 1994, as one province and city after another fell to the armies of Mullah Omar, many members of Badakshan’s beleaguered mujahadeen found themselves turning to drug dealing as their primary means of financing their war against the Taliban, sending enormous quantities north through new overland routes developed by organized crime groups in Russia, who would transport it to Moscow and European cities beyond.

  In addition to taxing the growth and export of opium from within their own territory, these mujahadeen had also played a role in selling drugs to peasants in remote villages, especially the Wakhi and Kirghiz of the Wakhan. In village after village, the pattern repeated itself: Within the tight confines of a close-knit household, addiction would spread from an ailing husband or a rebellious teenager to every member of the family, including the women, the elderly, and even toddlers. From there the scourge would spread to members of the extended community, enveloping entire villages. Starting in the late 1990s, Ismaili and Kirghiz communities all across the Corridor began reporting opium addicts in every stratum of society, with estimates as high as a quarter of the entire adult population.

  The results were devastating. Families suffering from advanced levels of addiction wound up selling everything they owned to finance their three-times-a-day habit. First to go were their possessions—mainly the goats, sheep, and yaks—followed by their land, and in the most extreme circumstances, even their daughters, who came to be known as opium brides. (It is not uncommon to find entire families sold into servitude.) Those who remained were reduced to a diet of tea and bread, making them vulnerable to sickness and diseases.

  By early 2005, things had become so desperate that Abdul Rashid Khan decided to form a delegation of leaders from northeastern Afghanistan and travel to Kabul to lay these grievances before the newly elected president, Hamid Karzai. In addition to making Karzai aware of the problems stemming from heroin addiction, the representatives intended to present evidence that their sector of the country lacked virtually any semblance of a functioning federal government.

  For Abdul Rashid Khan, the trip to the capital took an entire month and involved traveling by horse, jeep, and public transport. Upon reaching Kabul in early March, he and Niaz Ali spent several weeks moving around various government ministries in an effort to meet with officials who were responsible for services such as education, transportation, health care, and post offices. During these encounters, they got the same kind of runaround that Sarfraz and I had met with during our own visits. Meanwhile, they set themselves up in a rundown apartment with no heat or electricity and petitioned for an audience with President Karzai. They waited two months before receiving a reply.

  When they were finally granted an audience, the president permitted Abdul Rashid Khan to get halfway through his itemization of the problems among his people before cutting him off. “Don’t worry,” Karzai interrupted. “I am going to arrange food—I will send you back with food on helicopters. You will not go home without a solution to your problems. We will arrange what documentation is needed for the clinics, and we will get your food.”

  With that, the meeting was over.

  There was no follow-up from Karzai’s office on the matters of food, helicopters, medical services, or anything else. In early May, Abdul Rashid Khan and Niaz Ali realized that the president’s promises were not going to be fulfilled and started their journey home to the Wakhan empty-handed—and by road.

  By the time Abdul Rashid Khan and I met at Wohid Khan’s supper in Baharak, the two Kirghiz leaders had been away from home for more than four months and had squandered much of their personal fortune. Upon reaching the Pamirs, they would be faced with the duty of informing their people that it had all been for naught.

  When he had finished relating this tale, Abdul Rashid Khan confirmed that he knew all about my meeting with his son at the entrance to the Irshad Pass and expressed his amazement that we were now, on the heels of his brutally disappointing sojourn in Kabul, finally meeting for the first time. It was a very emotional exchange: He declared that he was deeply honored to meet me; I protested that it was a far greater honor to meet him. Then the duas began to flow from his hands, one after the other, and he and Niaz Ali began a Koranic recitation out of sheer joy.

  A dua is a prayer invoked as a blessing or thanks to Allah, and in the case of Abdul Rashid Khan’s invocation, it was partly an expression of gratitude over the miracle that we had finally met and partly an expression of his hope that the humiliating and fruitless quest on which he had embarked might actually result in something positive.

  “All I really want for my people is a school so that we can provide education for our children,” he said. “To achieve that, I am willing to give up all of my wealth—all of my sheep, all of my camels, all of my yaks—everything I have, if only Allah will grant this one request.”

  “But you have nothing to worry about,” I said. “I have already promised your son that we will build you a school.”

  “If that is truly the case,” he replied, “then let us start now—this very minute!”

  Ooba (yes), I told Abdul Rashid Khan, but first I have to call someone. I stepped into the cool evening outside, turned on my sat phone, and punched the number for Karen McCown, one of our directors, who lives in the Bay Area. Seeking permission from our board to fund a particular school is not the way we normally do things at the CAI. But I was excited and overwhelmed, and so was everyone else, and the emotions of the moment took over.

  “Karen,” I blurted, “do you remember the Kirghiz tribesmen who rode across the border and found me in Zuudkhan in October of 1999? Well, I am finally here with Abdul Rashid Khan, and he is in desperate straits, and we have to start the school for him and his people.”

  My excitement was apparently contagious, even over the phone.

  “Go ahead, Greg,” Karen declared. “I’ll check with the board and get retroactive approval, but let’s get this show on the road!”

  When I returned to the dining room and announced that we had the funding for the school, Abdul Rashid Khan declared that he wanted to draw up a formal agreement right then and there. As the leader of the Kirghiz, it was his duty to provide a guarantee that his people would donate the land and the labor in order to ensure that this project would go forward.

  Wohid Khan summoned a guard to give me a spiral notebook and a pen, and I drew up a standard CAI contract, the document that codifies our arrangement with any new community. I then handed the paper to Niaz Ali and he transcribed it into Kirghiz with a vintage fountain pen. It was only eight sentences long, and in English it read as follows:Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim

  In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Beneficial

  With the witness of Commandhan Wohid Khan, Abdul Rashid Khan, Mullah Mohammed, and Greg Mortenson

  Whereas, the Kirghiz people of the Wakhan have
no school, teacher, or education

  And Whereas, the Afghanistan government has not provided us schools as promised

  The Kirghiz people, under the leadership of Abdul Rashid Khan, hereby sign this agreement to build a four-room school at Bozai Gumbaz, Wakhan, with the assistance of registered charity NGO Central Asia Institute.

  Central Asia Institute will provide building materials, skilled labor, school supplies, and help with teachers’ salary and training

  Abdul Rashid Khan agrees to provide free land, subsidized manual labor, and support for teachers.

  The exact terms of the budget and agreement will be worked out after a jirga is convened in Bozoi Gumbaz.

  Abdul Rashid Khan

  Wohid Khan

  Greg Mortenson

  Mullah Mohammed

  Then Abdul Rashid Khan did something that I had never seen. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a tiny brown leather satchel. Inside was a very old wooden stamp with the official seal of the Khan of the Kirghiz of the Little Pamir. On this seal was emblazoned a pair of Marco Polo sheep horns, twisted in a spiral. He also had an ink dipper, and with this he carefully blotted ink onto the stamp, which I noticed had a tiny crack running down the middle, then placed this mark upon the contract. When he was through, he took a red candle, dribbled a small circle of wax at the bottom of the stamped seal, and with ponderous gravity, pressed his thumbprint into the wax.

  When this formality was complete, Niaz Ali launched into a lengthy prayer that apparently included half of Kirghiz history and that petitioned, among many other things, thatAllah the Compassionate, Allah the Merciful, Allah the Beneficent, might watch over Wohid Khan, whose food had brought these humble servants of Islam together for this miraculous meeting . . . and the men of the eastern Badakshan border security force, who were protecting us on this most dangerous night . . . and, yes, even President Hamid Karzai, who may not have kept his promise but who bore the weight of a shattered nation on his shoulders, which surely is a greater burden than any man ever should be called upon to bear . . . and this school-building American mountaineer, who is attempting to honor the first word of the Holy Koran, Ikra (“to read”) by lighting a lamp for the illiterate daughters of Islam . . . and this American’s strange band of employees—first of all, bless the Sunnis among them, of course, but the Shiites, too; and yes, even this crazy Ismaili from Pakistan with the broken hand named Sarfraz Khan . . . may Allah shower his blessings upon them all . . .

  Praise be to God . . .

  There is no God but God . . .

  And Muhammad is His Prophet . . .

  La Ilaha Illa-Allah . . .

  This went on for quite some time. When it was finally over, everyone clapped. Abdul Rashid Khan and I embraced. And then Wohid Khan solemnly declared that if it became necessary, he would personally travel to Kabul to ensure that no corrupt bureaucrat or misguided government official dared to interfere with the construction of this school for the Kirghiz of the Little Pamir.

  Thus ended one of the most memorable encounters I have experienced during the twelve years since I failed to climb K2 and wound up stumbling into the village of Korphe. It was remarkable on its own terms, to be sure—but it was rendered even more astonishing, it now seems to me, by virtue of the events that were about to unfold.

  At about ten o’clock the following morning, Mullah Mohammed and I bade farewell to our Kirghiz friends and left Baharak, heading west for Faizabad. It was now Friday the thirteenth, and as we made our way through town we could see that a large group of men had gathered around the Najmuddin Khan Wosiq mosque, which was located just off the bazaar. They looked angry, and many of them were carrying hoes, shovels, and sticks.

  We kept driving, reached Faizabad about three hours later, and immediately checked into the Marco Polo Club, a former Soviet guesthouse on an island in the middle of the roaring Amu Darya River that currently functions as a decrepit hotel. By now, the Newsweek story about the desecration of the Koran had filtered into every corner of the Muslim world, and enraged imams from Morocco to Islamabad were preparing to launch fiery sermons on the subject during Friday prayers, which typically begin around 1:30 P.M. Fearing that things might get out of hand, the employees of almost every foreign NGO in eastern Badakshan appeared to be evacuating Faizabad, either by getting a seat on the one UN flight at the airport or by heading south on the road to Kabul in their Land Cruisers.

  My thinking in these matters has always been different. When things get tense, I’d rather be with local people than with foreigners, even if the foreigners have guns. So I stayed put at the Marco Polo.

  That evening, a group of aid workers who were fleeing from Baharak to Kabul stopped in Faizabad and brought word that a pair of conservative mullahs had given especially inflammatory speeches that afternoon at the Baharak mosque in which they had declared that the insult to the Koran that had taken place at Guantánamo Bay was an unpardonable offense that needed to be met with violence. In response, several hundred men had swarmed out of the mosque into the streets of Baharak and headed southeast toward a street that houses the offices of nearly every foreign aid agency in town.

  During the next several hours of rioting, each of these offices was ransacked. The windows were smashed, the doors broken down. While every piece of furniture and equipment inside was destroyed, the vehicles parked outside them were pummeled with sledgehammers and crowbars, then set on fire. In the process, four local residents who had been employed by these organizations were murdered and the entire bazaar was smashed to pieces. Wohid Khan and the Border Security Force were eventually able to restore order and quell the violence, but only after shooting down two rioters, wounding at least a dozen more, and arresting more than fifty.

  When word of these events reached me in Faizabad, my heart sank. Under most circumstances, I remain optimistic that things will work out for us in Asia, but on that evening, I was convinced that our new school just outside Baharak, which is less than a mile from the street where the NGO offices were attacked, had been gutted and destroyed. If that had indeed happened, it would be a setback for our entire Wakhan initiative, one from which we might not recover. Years of work and patient negotiation might spiral down the drain, along with our newly lit hopes of finally making good on our promise to Abdul Rashid Khan and his people in the Pamirs. In short, if this new school in the backyard of our strongest supporter in the entire province—Sadhar Khan himself—had been sacked by the mob, we could be out of business in the Wakhan.

  I had no confirmation that this had actually taken place, of course, but my fears were getting the best of me. Not helping my frame of mind was Mullah Mohammed, who at some point that Friday had bolted from the Marco Polo and gone into hiding, apparently concluding that he’d be safer without me. I wasn’t angry—who could blame him? But his actions seemed to underscore the extent to which everything was spinning out of control.

  Two days later, Mullah Mohammed reappeared at the Marco Polo Club, apologizing profusely for having abandoned me. I wanted to ask him why he had violated the most sacrosanct of tribal codes and deserted me, but I noticed he was still terrified, literally trembling, and I reassured him we both were quite fine—but I added that we needed to line up some transportation and head for Baharak, where by now the rioting had subsided, in order to find out what had happened to our school. He quickly found a minivan for hire, and we were off.

  As we drove into the outskirts of Faizabad, I began to see piles of burned wood, twisted rebar, and other remnants of the rioting piled at the north end of town. Near the main mosque, a firebombed Land Cruiser still smoldered and was missing its big antenna. Nervous men and curiosity seekers lingered on all sides of the locked-down bazaar stalls. A few local chai stands were doing a brisk business, with men congregating around them to sort out fact from fiction among the rumors that were flying through town.

  Beyond Faizabad itself, there was no evidence of rioting or destruction on the sides of the roads. The farmers were in t
heir fields weeding and rerouting irrigation channels; the small shops along the road were mostly open for business. For lunch we stopped at a local tandoori shop to get warm chai and fresh naan, hot out of a clay oven. The baker there complained that most of the vehicles that day were in a hurry to get out of the area and raced by his stand without stopping. He was amused when we told him where we were headed.

  “You two are fools to be headed for Baharak today,” he declared. “You should be going the other way.”

  Just before the entrance to Baharak, the road sweeps over a plateau and offers a stunning view of the town with the distant Hindu Kush in the south. As we topped the rise, we failed to spot anything unusual—but upon crossing the final bridge into Baharak and entering the main bazaar where the mosque and the government offices are located, it seemed as if we were passing into a war zone. Rubber tires still smoldered in the streets, which were covered with sticks, bricks, and stones.

  In the middle of the bazaar, where the NGO offices began, there were gutted Land Cruisers, smashed computers, and broken glass everywhere. The mob’s fury had clearly been directed at these buildings, which housed the Aga Khan Development Network, FOCUS, East West Foundation, Afghan Aid, and other NGOs. Their offices lay in ruins, and even the safes and desks had been smashed to pieces.

  As we made our way down past the south end of the bazaar toward Yardar, I was braced for the worst. But when we pulled up in front of the boundary wall of the new school, I could hardly believe my eyes. No windows were broken. The door was intact. The fresh coat of lime green paint that the building had received only a week earlier was as bright as a newly minted dime.