10 a.m. The women’s physiotherapy unit is full of mothers and children. Simà, the head prosthesist, comes up to me. Today she has two of her children with her. They’ve grown. She wants to know about the war in Iraq.
“The bombings are continuing”, I answer. “Even on the cities?” she asks. She shakes her head. Zarminà, the physiotherapist, come up. She has no children, but war took one of her legs, her parents and her sister. She knows what it’s like. I tell them what the radio and TV are reporting.
Now I’m surrounded by women. With their burqa half lifted, they ask what has happened and where. Some know what’s going on. Afghan houses nearly always have a radio. They are relieved to know that the war isn’t close by. America is a well-known name. A distant place, and rich: that’s where dollars come from. A powerful world, with extraordinary weapons. The Mujahedeen’s sub-machine guns are nothing by comparison.
They know that Iraq is an Arab country that fought against Iran for a long time. “It’s in Arabistan”, says a student. No one asks why there is a war on, but whether there’s food, whether the hospitals have medicines, whether people have large families and who helps the widows. “Can they escape to the countryside?” “It’s all desert”, replies the know-all student.
The women’s thoughts turn to the days of the civil war, when bombs were falling on Kabul and no place was safe. They waited anxiously for people who had gone out to buy food or get water to return. If they stopped shooting for a day, you immediately began to hope it was all over. But each time they started up again. “War, war… It’s always the poor who pay” comments one mother.
Kabir, the principal of our school for disabled children arrives. He’s more knowledgeable about it. He used to be a teacher of contemporary history, he has studied and lived in Russia. A golden era, he always says. He speaks with assurance of dictatorships, rights violated, weapons and oil. The conflict will have major repercussions throughout the world. Less so in Afghanistan: the people have suffered so much, wounds are recent, they’re not so interested in other people’s wars. At least as long as foreign aid is arriving and the international peace forces remain.
“In Iraq have they mud houses like ours?” asks one woman. “They’re in cement,” says the student, “luxury houses”. “The American weapons can reach anywhere. Like they did with the Taliban,” says Kabir. The whole of Kabul used to shake – memories are still very vivid.
On Thursday, the staff and various patients in the orthopaedic centre asked me how people in Europe were reacting to the war. “Those who don’t agree are going out into the street and protesting.”
“What can we do here?”
“We can pray,” I suggested suddenly, even though I’m not very good in that department.
Alberto Cairo
