It was winter of 2000 in Yawcalang, a small village nestled 10,000 feet up in the mountains of central Afghanistan. The people of Yawcalang, a minority group with asian facial features called the Hazzarras, were going about their normal lives – farming wheat and potatoes, raising their cattle, hauling water from the river up to their houses on the mountainsides. A whole caravan of black trucks carrying black-turbaned bearded men pulled up into the center of the village, just as they had done last winter. Before, in the winter of 1999 the trucks had come carrying emissaries from the newly powerful Taliban government who assured the people of Yawcalang that they wanted to be kind to them and help them.
This time, the people wanted to respond with likewise goodwill, and went into their houses to bring out gifts to greet the Taliban representatives. But the turbaned men jumped out of their trucks with machine guns and began shooting everyone in sight. There was mass panic, and the people fled out into the snow-covered mountains. 400 people were killed outright by the guns of the Taliban, and many many more were killed by the elements while fleeing across the mountains to escape the raid. Most of the babies and elderly died. The government of Afghanistan has stated that Yawcalang is one of two villages with the highest population of widows in the country.
My name is Ryan Costello and I am the Director of Agriculture for Global Hope Network in Afghanistan. I found out about Yawcalang and the situation of it’s people through the Afghan government, who in 2002 extended an invitation for GHNI to come to Yawcalang and aid the returning refugees.
In February of 2004, when I went to visit Yawcalang, the people were just returning to find their villages destroyed – their seed stock and cattle gone, their roofs burned. They would have to start over. Many of them told me stories of the horror of that time and how difficult it was to come back to nothing. I made this project my number one priority, and after visiting and surveying the needs of the area I started with vegetable seed distributions in Spring 2003. I distributed for 10 different subvillages carrot, onion, kale, and many other kinds of seeds that could grow at high altitudes and supplement the simple traditional diet of rice and bread.
As I sat and shared with different families, they expressed their gratitude for the seed distributions but also shared the need for education. They needed training in how to grow these new kinds of vegetables. They wanted training in how to use water and fertilizers correctly. They asked me over and over, “can you help us”?
I began to strategize along with the rest of my team in Kabul – how can we help train communities in agriculture? As we brainstormed we expanded the project to include the women of the community. We found in our research that areas like Yawcalang had very high child mortality rates do to lacking hygiene and very low levels of nutrition.
The plan we came up with was for the Hope Center for Agriculture and Nutrition Development (HCAND) Center, which would be a central location where training could be conducted. We would select community leaders from the different subvillages on the area who were willing to learn, and then train them so that they could go back to their respective communities and train others. In late 2003 we started looking for the best location and talking with community leaders to find potential candidates for the training.
By February of 2004 we had found the perfect building in Kabul which could house the students. We had also worked through community leaders to select six couples to go through training. Because of cultural concerns over the different sexes living in the same location, we were advised to train couples and no single men or women. We selected four married couples, one brother and sister team, and one father and daughter team. The candidates came from all over the region of Yawcalang and many of them had never met each other before.
On March 1st, 2004 we officially opened the HCAND center with a ceremony. The students were excited to begin classes as many of them had never had any formal education in their lives. They would live in the center and be trained for 5 months, until the end of July, and then after that they would return periodically for further training and reporting of results. Each month, they would stay at the center for three weeks and then return home for one week, allowing them to continue to have a face in their community and keep watch on their family’s needs. Each couple would also be given a monthly stipend to help them support their families while they are not able to work their farms.
As is appropriate to Afghan culture, because I am a man I mainly trained the men. I started by focusing on creativity and critical thinking. We talked about what it means to “think outside the box” in their communities. I explained to them that although I would be able to show them many new things, the best ideas for helping their communities would come from them, as insiders who know their people and their land. We analyzed the markets in their area, and asked what kinds of new produce would people be interested in buying? What could grow well that they haven’t tried? We kept a running list of new ideas that the students had come up with themselves to try.
Every farmer in Yawcalang plants wheat and potatoes as they have done for hundreds of years. They all plant at the same time and they all harvest at the same time, resulting in a very decreased profit margin because the market is flooded. We brainstormed about ways to start growing earlier in the season and continue growing later. When I first brought up making greenhouses, they said that would never work because of the high expense for them. Wood, metal, and plastic are all very expensive where they live. After some brainstorming, we came up with a type of hotbox which would be nothing else than a long rectangular hole in the ground which they could plant into and then cover with small amounts of clear plastic. The soil would absorb the heat that built up in the hotbox and release it slowly through the night. As they realized the potential of this kind of idea they became more and more excited to see how they could get good results with such simple materials. This was how I saw my role – as a catalyst to help them think more creatively.
Every new technique that we learned we tried out on our demonstration plot of land. If the students were a little skeptical at first, all of that disappeared as we tried out the different new techniques and had success. When we learned about composting, we made our own compost pile. When we learned about planting into seed trays we made our own home-made seed trays and planted vegetable seeds into them using compost from the pile I had made last year. We made our own manure tea (liquid fertilizer), trellises to get plants up off the ground, and organic pesticide. I also focused on showing them alternate methods of irrigation, and we set up two different kinds of drip irrigation systems that deliver water one drop at a time to the root systems of plants. I had brought in many new varieties of seed that they had never seen, and several new kinds of rooted berries including blackberries, strawberries, and elderberries (all of which had never been grown in Afghanistan before). We planted all of these out in drip-irrigation systems as a demonstration plot to show other farmers in the area. At the same time, Dorothy, our nutrition specialist who is also a registered nurse, was training the women. She helped them cook meals, showing them hygienic ways of preparing and cooking food. She taught them what kinds of vitamins and minerals children, babies, and the elderly need and how to get those nutrients from certain kinds of food. She also taught them about germs and germ theory, and the need for washing hands and sanitizing utensils and glasses.
At the same time we were also running concurrent literacy classes. Seven out of the twelve students were illiterate to begin with, but by the end of the course each could proudly read their class notes. The students would head home for one week out of every month. When they came back after that week, I heard many glowing reports about how they put into practice some of the things we were learning in the center. Some of them had set up small hotboxes at home that they were planting vegetables into, even though it was early in the season. They found that it was warm enough in the hot boxes to be able to start seeds.
The time quickly flew by, and soon the end of July was here. At the graduation, the Ministry of Agriculture gave the students signed and sealed certificates, certifying them to go back to their villages and teach others. I realized that I had learned just as much from my students as they had learned from me – about their culture and about their lives.
Each student is now a trainer, who will go on to train others in what they have learned. From Fall of 2005 to Summer of 2006 they will be receiving additional periodic training and support from GHNI as they move into positions of leadership and influence in their communities.