December 21, 2012 – Happy Solstice, Happy Holidays

December 17, 2012 – Awal Baba School provides hope for girls in Maidan Shahr

Afghanistan’s Minister of Education Farooq Wardak helped Central Asia Institute and residents of Maidan Shahr, in Wardak Province, celebrate the opening of the new Awal Baba Girls’ Higher Secondary School.

Cold temperatures and overcast skies did not diminish the community’s excitement at the completion of the two-story, 24-room school. The 972 students in grades one to 12 who attend Awal Baba School, formerly known as Famila Girls’ High School, had been spread out in classrooms throughout the neighborhood during construction.

The new school provides the highest level of education available for girls in Wardak Province, a volatile area just southwest of Kabul, Wardak said at the 12 Dec., 2012, ceremony.

The education minister congratulated the community and thanked CAI for its decade-long commitment to providing education in the more difficult, dangerous, and remote parts of Afghanistan. He said he was pleased to have placed the school’s cornerstone when the project commenced and to be asked to cut the ribbon on opening day.

“Education is not only important, but is an obligation and responsibility for us to provide to our children and I strongly request you resist the militants who oppose education, as education is a fundamental part of our Islamic teachings,” he told the several hundred people who gathered for the official inauguration.

In addition to the education minister, provincial Gov. Abdul Majeed Khogianiwal, provincial and district education directors, local ulema (religious leaders), students and parents attended the ceremony.

“We are thirsty, thirsty, thirsty for knowledge, and if we want to eliminate terrorism from the world, we need schools for both boys and girls,” Wardak Provincial Education Director Fazil ul Rahman told the crowd of several hundred people who gathered for the official inauguration.

After a ceremony last year to lay the cornerstone for the Awal Baba school, Taliban militants opposed to girls’ education placed an improvised explosive device, or IED, near the road leading from the school site, said CAI Co-founder Greg Mortenson, who attended that ceremony. Garbage had been piled in the road in an attempt to steer vehicles carrying dignitaries back to Kabul over to the side of the road where the IED had been planted.

Fortunately, drivers anticipated the trap, swerved to the opposite side of the road and everyone escaped unharmed.

Wardak Gov. Khogianiwal said during the inauguration ceremony that part of the reason Afghanistan is in turmoil is because leaders had not made education a top priority in the past.

“It is our own fault that we remain a backward country, instead of being one of the most progressive places in the world,” he told the audience. “But we should not give up now that we are on the right track.”

In the past decade, the total number of children in school in Afghanistan has increased from 1 million to 8 million, including more than 2 million girls, according to the Afghan Ministry of Education. However, UNICEF estimates 5 million Afghan children between the ages of 5 and 16 are still not in school, so “there is a long way to go,” Mortenson said.

Education is a fundamental building block of any strong society, Wakil Karimi, CAI’s program director for the region, told the crowd. Books and pencils are much more important than bullets or guns when it comes to building security and peace.

“The only way to protect ourselves and our country from conflict and poverty is education, and we must all dedicate our lives to ensure that all our children can go to school,” Karimi said.

Despite Wardak Province’s lack of resources – including electricity and communication – it has historically provided many of the country’s leaders, doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, military commanders, and businessmen, Karimi noted. In the next decade this will continue, except that many of the next generation of leaders will be female, he predicted.

Karimi also read a message from Mortenson, which had been translated into Pashto. Mortenson praised the community for its commitment to education, even in times of adversity and war, and quoted a Pashto proverb that translates: “Learning makes a good man better and an ill man worse.”

Awal Baba’s headmaster, Mr. Noorullah, told the guests that the new school was a symbol of pride and hope for all the community.

In addition to Awal Baba, another CAI-supported school in Wardak Province opened this week, but the inauguration ceremony was held quietly due to militants’ presence in the region.

The presence of these girls’ schools in the area has almost doubled the female school enrollment in Maidan Shahr and has inspired community leaders from surrounding villages and towns to ask CAI and the government for help building more new girls schools as soon as possible, Karimi said.

QUOTE: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

- Greg Mortenson and Karin Ronnow

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December 11, 2012 – Hope unites us; CAI releases 2012 Journey of Hope

BAHARAK, Afghanistan – A young woman in her 20s, newly married and pregnant with her first child, asked me which I liked better – Kabul or her remote mountain village.

Without hesitating, I said, “The village.” And I meant it. I love the mountains and the wide-open spaces that surround so many of the places where Central Asia Institute (CAI) works. For me, the village is a respite, a retreat to a simpler life. There’s time to think, clean air to breathe, and easy access to the natural world. And I am much happier away from the furious pursuit, sometimes futile, of something better in the city, where millions of others are striving and competing amid the dirt and noise.

But I only know village life as a visitor, and only during the temperate seasons, I conceded. Winter in these places, with little respite from the numbing cold, heavy snow, and freezing winds must be brutal. The dearth of things to read, no electricity, and months of isolation without news of the outside world would quickly wear me down.

All of that combined with the grinding poverty, conservative attitudes toward women, food shortages, dirty water, lack of health care – well, maybe I spoke too quickly, I said.

I asked her which she preferred. Smiling and without hesitation, she said, “Kabul. The village is isolated and backwards and everyone knows your business. In Kabul, I am free.”

But in the remote villages of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan where CAI works, few people have the luxury of choice. Each year as I work to document CAI’s efforts to promote peace through education, especially for girls, for the annual Journey of Hope publication, I witness the start juxtapositions between rural and urban, illiterate and educated, young and old, war and peace.

From the beginning, CAI has focused on villages in the world’s Last Best Places, as CAI Co-founder Greg Mortenson calls them. These are often stunningly beautiful places, with snowcapped mountains and rushing rivers. But they are also impoverished and ignored by much of the outside world.

The universality of hope – hope that things can change for the better, that choices will emerge, that the fighting will end, and that peace is possible – unites these people and places. Pashtuns call it “umayd.” In Urdu and Persian, the word is “umeed” or “omid.” But no matter how you say it, hope is the wish or desire for something better.

And education delivers hope.

Countless studies have proven that education, especially for girls, is the single most important investment any country can make. Education boosts personal income and economic growth, reduces child and maternal mortality, helps fight government corruption, and safeguards human rights.

CAI has spent nearly two decades “building relationships, people to people, country to country, with people coming together around education,” said Sarfraz Khan, a CAI program director who died in November. “The younger people, if they have education and good health, they know that fighting is no good. All the world needs peace. You should be able to visit any country safely. But now in Pakistan and Afghanistan, this is impossible. So CAI and Greg focused on these countries. And now people in the mountainside are living in villages, healthier and happier because of education.”

Promoting peace through education, however, requires enormous patience. Afghans say: “Drop by drop, a river is formed.”

Project by project, CAI makes a difference. This is true for students like Zeenat, a CAI-supported scholarship student in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan.

“I come from a small village and have completed one year at the university,” she said. Her widowed mother “is a housewife and she is not educated. In my mother’s time there were no schools, and her mother died, and in those days female education was not supported. But the thinking of our generation is to be educated-minded in every frame of lifve. It is very important for the people of my area, especially the females, to get education.”

CAI’s work makes a difference for parents.

“We are happy because our girls are in school,” said Nasreen Akhtar, whose daughter attends CAI-supported Dhok Bidder School in Pakistan. “I didn’t have a chance to get education, but I want my children and grandchildren to get education. This is going to help them, and it is going to help our country.”

And it makes a difference for society.

“Afghanistan has a very old culture,” said one woman who requested anonymity. “Most people think girls don’t need education, or knowledge, or to go to university. Women only need to work in home, take care of the children, and cook the food. We must change these old ideas. Afghan women don’t know their rights. We need a lot of time to get rights for all Afghan women. But we must try. And it must start with education.”

The past year has brought changes within CAI, too. Greg is healthier than he has been in years, and time spent overseas has proved invigorating and restorative for him, the organization, and the communities. When Greg’s around, people are inspired to see beyond the difficulties of daily life to a better future. He inspires hope.

“Everybody knows that last spring CAI was attacked and faced a difficult time, but Allah helped us because CAI is good and does good work,” said Punjab program director Suleman Minhas. “I am grateful to Allah we are together here with our boss and grateful that Allah blessed our boss with new life.”

To frame the organization’s future work, CAI held its first-ever meeting with all its community program directors in January 2012.

“I am grateful to God for giving me a new life and for blessing our CAI family,” Greg told the group. “But I am most thankful for all the many years of service you have given CAI. All of you, when we had no money or connections, when we were dealing with corruption and difficulties, everybody was ready 24 hours a day and gave their lives for education. That is the real story of CAI – everybody here. I pray for you everyday.”

“We are here because of you,” said Fazil Baig, CAI’s program director in the Ghizer region of NW Pakistan.

The meeting was a chance to take stock of what CAI has done and set the stage for future efforts, said Anne Byersdorfer, executive director.

“This was the first time all the CAI family from both countries were together,” Anne said. “For the past four or five years, everyone has been busier than ever building and pursuing the mission. It was rapid growth for all involved. So this was an important time to connect and share ideas and stories and to look ahead.”

There is no shortage of work to do.

As the stories in this year’s JOH show, access to education in Pakistan and Afghanistan is slowly improving, but progress is still hampered by a shortage of qualified teachers, poor facilities and threats posed by insurgents.

Extremism continues to spread in the regions where CAI works. An elder from Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan told me he worries about what will happen when international troops leave in 2014.

“I think we will see a repeat of the fighting after Russia left” in 1989, he said. “Actually, I think it will be worse than that time. Now there are so many groups, not just the mujahedin. Now two people work together and it is a group.”

No one knows what the future holds. But CAI’s focus on sustaining existing projects, investing in teacher training, and supporting higher education in the form of scholarships continue to inspire hope.

“Until CAI started working in Badakhshan [Province in northeastern Afghanistan], students studied on the ground in the sun, snow, rain,” said Janagha Jaheed, who directs projects in that region. “Now we have new schools, furniture and boundary walls. And people, they are hopeful. And it can bring a change – especially to the north of Afghanistan, which is one of the hardest places. Never ever in our history will our people forget this help from CAI.”

I feel privileged to have the chance to see CAI’s work in action, to meet the gracious, hardworking people who make it possible, and to drink endless cups of tea in some of the last best places on earth. I hope the stories do justice to the work and inspire hope for all of you.

As Gilgit-area director Saidullah Baig said: “Every time I put a stone there for the children I give thanks – to Central Asia Institute, to Greg, and to the donors. Our spirit, the work we do, is always about the thousands of children who never even dared to dream about getting an education before CAI.”

– Karin Ronnow

CAI’s Journey of Hope calendar for 2013 makes a great end-of-year gift for teachers, coworkers, friends and family. Copies are $10 each, and proceeds go to support CAI programs overseas. To order online, click HERE. Or call 406.585.7841; email info@ikat.org, or send a note to: Central Asia Institute | P.O. Box 7209 | Bozeman, MT 59771, USA.

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December 7, 2012 – Trust Women reinvigorates CAI’s work for rights of women and girls

LONDON, England – Women’s empowerment starts with girls’ education. It’s that simple, or, in many parts of the world, that complicated.

Either way, it must be done, said participants at Trust Women, a two-day women’s rights conference held in a city that has become the world’s melting pot.

“This work is not easy, but it’s not impossible,” noted Sima Samar, chairwoman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Samar was one of the hundreds of women leaders and change-makers from all over the world who gathered here to underscore the importance of supporting women and girls in the universal battle for equal rights.

“So often if there is a problem, girls and women, they don’t speak about it,” said Fozia Naseer, CAI’s program director in Azad-Kashmir, Pakistan. “But here are all these women who decided to say something and do something, women who worked really hard to change their own lives from what they were before – they were slaves, or prostitutes, or uneducated, or abused.”

“Changing takes lots of courage. And we can learn a lot from them about ways to change the lives of women and girls in our own communities, especially as we fight for girls’ rights to stay in school,” she said.

Ignorance is not bliss. Lack of education contributes to poverty and fuels corruption, human trafficking, and even modern-day slavery, the speakers said. And it contributes mightily to the continued use of “culture” and “tradition” to defend cruelties ranging from child marriage to female genital mutilation, acid attacks, and honor killings – despite laws forbidding these practices.

“Culture trumps law every single day,” in much of the developing world, said Alison Smale, executive editor of the International Herald Tribune, which sponsored the conference with Thomson Reuters Foundation.

But cultures can be changed; harmful traditions can be challenged. And Fozia said the ideas discussed had important implications for her own work.

“We know there would be danger, and lots of boundaries to break, but we have to do this work because it is the right thing,” she said. “That is how you get your rights. Nobody is going to serve it to you on a plate. You have to trust in yourself. You can do it if you try. It’s going to be hard, it’s going to take awhile, but change will come.”

Change is, indeed, slow, said Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born author and former member of the Dutch Parliament.

The centuries-old practice of male guardianship of women in Muslim countries, for example, may have been a good idea 1400 years ago, when women needed protection, she said. But in modern life, it has become a “source of crude power, abuse, and abandonment,” enforced by law in some countries and by “culture” in others.

Today, however, women have a “unique opportunity” to stop these practices, she said. “More and more people, including women, in the Muslim world are standing up for their rights. The future is not bleak, but we must take this opportunity.”

Queen Noor, founder of the King Hussein Foundation, stressed to conference participants that, “Islam is not the source of misogyny in the region.” Rather, it is holdovers from ancient cultures and tribal rules, the lack of human development, including education, and persistent economic and security issues that create an “ideology of fear and power.”

Much of the conference focused on how to seize the unique opportunity Ali referenced, fight the ideology Noor defined, and create tangible change.

As New York Times columnist Roger Cohen noted before moderating a panel discussion on the Arab Spring: “People now believe they can change the world.”

And education is a fundamental tool in that transformation. When women are educated, know and can defend their rights, they stand up to cruel abuses of power.

“Education is key … to living with dignity and respecting others’ rights,” said Samar, who earned her medical degree from Kabul University. Even in places where laws exist to protect women and girls, “the rule of law is weaker where people aren’t educated.”

Education is consistently “the catalyst for enlightenment,” said Ann Cotton, founder of Camfed International, which promotes girls’ education in Africa.

Consider a grandmother in a small African village whose child has died and now has “all her children’s children to bring up,” she said. The “brutality of poverty” limits her options. She will block out all knowledge of the potential horrors of forced marriage or other forms of enslavement if she sees that as a way to help keep those children fed, clothed, and sheltered. (Similar scenarios play out all over the world – including the areas where CAI works, Fozia noted.)

Cotton said educating traditional village leaders – usually men – about the detriments of such practices gives them the tools to, for example, insist girls stay in school.

Once those tools are employed, “change can actually happen in one generation,” said Mabel van Oranje, a senior advisor to The Elders, global leaders working together for peace and human rights.

“If you keep one girl in school to age 18,” then she will insist her own daughters finish school and be prepared to protect them from such abuses, van Oranje said.

Throughout the conference, participants were charged with channeling ideas into “action items.” Conference organizers said a final list of proposed actions would be finalized and released in coming days.

But the conference also served to revitalize and reinvigorate many people who do the work on the ground, providing ideas, tools, new relationships, and a surge of energy to do the hard work that needs to be done.

“So many issues make it hard for girls and women in our communities, and so many of them are hidden,” Fozia said. “So it’s important to be reminded that women are facing these problems all over the world. It is really important for CAI to be here at the conference, see the work other people are doing, tell them what CAI is doing, and to feel connected to them and learn from them.”

“Now I will tell the girls I work with, ‘It was hard for me, and it’s going to be hard for you, but we are going to make a difference. How do I know this? Because I have seen it.’”

QUOTE: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Ghandi

– Karin Ronnow

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November 30, 2012 – Upper Hunza prepares for ‘hardest year’ since massive landslide

The lake created by a massive landslide on the Hunza River in 2010 is slowly receding, but the outlook for the thousands of people north of the lake who were isolated by the impoundment remains bleak.

In the Chapursan Valley, a remote area in northernmost Pakistan where Central Asia Institute has worked for more than a decade, “the situation is becoming worse,” said Saidullah Baig, CAI’s community program manager for the Gilgit-Hunza region.

“This year is very hard for Chapursan people,” Saidullah said. “There is much unemployment, no food and much hunger, no source of fuels, and now the cold has started. Already it was snowing there in late October and it was cold, minus 20 or 25 degrees Celsius (-4 to -13 Fahrenheit). This is very early for such cold.

“The Chinese gave food relief in 2010 and 2011 and this year people are waiting for China to again provide food, but I think it is impossible, especially now that winter has started. China cannot continue this. And our government is not helping. I think we can say 2013 will be the hardest year,” he said.”

The Hunza River Valley in the Karakoram Mountains is an area prone to earthquakes, flash floods, and landslides. The January 2010 landslide created a 13-mile-long lake on the river, from Attabad village north to Hussaini, in an area known as Gojal. The midwinter disaster killed at least 19 people and displaced thousands of others whose land and villages were submerged.

Attabad Lake also submerged about 12 miles of the Karakoram Highway (KKH), the main north-south route between China and central Pakistan, which drastically reduced food and fuel transports to the isolated villages north of the lake.

The Pakistan government has largely ignored the social and economic repercussions of the disaster, leaving the impoverished people – mostly subsistence farmers – to fend for themselves.

CAI helped with immediate relief after the landslide, donating tent schools for affected villages to ensure children’s education was uninterrupted. Dozens of girls from the region have also been helped by CAI scholarships for higher education in Gilgit and Rawalpindi.

This month, the regional Gilgit-Baltistan government reportedly asked the Pakistan government for permission to request more help from China, according to a Nov. 20 Pamir Times report. But the answer was no. “They have, instead, instructed the GB government to arrange food and fuel for the disaster-affected people,” the news website reported.

Perhaps anticipating the unlikelihood of such arrangements, Gojal residents have asked the GB government to survey the 30,000 residents and, if it is unable to help everyone, at least “identify highly vulnerable families and households who can be severely affected due to food shortage, and devise strategies to help them directly,” the Pamir Times reported.

The lake, more than 300 feet deep in places, put Lower Shishkat village completely underwater, and partially submerged the valley headquarters in Gulmit and large sections of Hussain and Ghulkin villages.

For nearly three years, people in those villages – plus everyone on the north side of the lake – has had to cross the deep, cold water in open dories brought up from the southern Pakistan port city of Karachi.

“Businessmen who want to get the goods from China into Pakistan got the boats,” Saidullah said. “They use this same transportation for the people. The boats are not from the government or any other side. Local people say sometimes you can pay 100 or 200 rupees ($1-$2) to go along. If you have to rent the whole boat, it is 5,000 to 7,000 rupees ($50-$75). When people have no work, even 100 rupees is a lot of money.”

The crippling economic and logistical implications of the lake have also been exacerbated by the absence of jobs in the once vibrant tourism industry.

For many years, Hunza was a popular destination for mountain climbers, trekkers and travelers, who came for the 6,000-meter-plus peaks and stunning natural beauty. But “security issues” and the war in Afghanistan have prompted the Pakistan government to restrict foreigners’ access to certain regions north of the lake, including Chapursan Valley.

Saidullah spent some time this fall trying to convince the government to reopen Chapursan to foreigners. He is optimistic that increased access for tourists could make a difference.

“We try to convince them that if some people will visit the area, that is one source of income for the local people,” he said.

Chinese-funded improvements on the KKH near Sost – a dry port and trading hub about 40 miles north of the lake – provided work for a few years, which helped some local families, he said. But that’s about to end.

“The people just down from Sost had a chance for laboring with the Chinese on the KKH, but the Chinese have nearly finished that construction work, so from next year those jobs will be finished from Upper Hunza,” Saidullah said.

There are hopes that a planned $282 million KKH realignment project around the lake, announced by the Pakistan government in conjunction with China this fall, will create new jobs, but that’s at least six or seven months away. “The Chinese company planning the workaround near the lake has not started work yet. Maybe they start work in May,” Saidullah said.

In addition to disrupting travel, trade and food deliveries, Attabad Lake has decreased access to adequate emergency medical care, Saidullah said. There’s a 10-bed hospital in Gulmit, north of the lake, but no government doctor. Anyone north of the lake needing doctor’s care has to travel by boat to Gilgit.

A fatal van accident on the road near Hussaini on Aug. 22, the worst road disaster of Gojal Valley’s history, highlighted the shortcomings. According to news reports, some of the injured were brought to the Gulmit hospital, where despite the efforts of a private doctor in the region, the lack of trauma medicine and equipment contributed to the deaths of several accident victims.

“The other injured were shifted to a private hospital in Aliabad Tehsil by boat, but there was no fuel for the government hospital ambulance to take immediate steps in response,” Tariq Rahim Baig wrote in a letter to the editor of Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.

Eventually locals pitched in for fuel, but four people died in Aliabad. In all, the wreck claimed 10 lives, including both the father and an uncle of a CAI worker.

“People who are sick, or in an accident, or women with difficult pregnancies are in a very bad position,” Saidullah said. “It is very hard to travel because there is no good transportation. People who can’t get to the hospital quickly end up dying.

“Hunza has many difficulties, but it is even worse for the people now” than it was before the landslide,” he said.

- Karin Ronnow

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November 27, 2012 – CAI celebrates Giving Tuesday

Central Asia Institute joins the philanthropic community today in what’s being called a “national celebration of our great tradition of generosity.”

Giving Tuesday is intended to mark the opening day of the giving season. It is also in marked juxtaposition to the national pre-holiday shopping craze memorialized every year on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

We hope you will include CAI in your giving plans this holiday season.

“Education is one of the few things that a person can never be stripped of, even if they lose everything else,” said Greg Mortenson, CAI Co-founder. “It is an investment in all our futures.”

Click HERE to make a donation to CAI.

For more information, visit givingtuesday.org.

QUOTES:
I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. – Maya Angelou

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go. – Mother Teresa

No one has ever become poor by giving. – Anne Frank

- Central Asia Institute

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November 21, 2012 – Gratitude, growth, and grace

Grateful greetings from all of us in Bozeman. The “Attitude of Gratitude” post that Karin Ronnow wrote last year at Thanksgiving time still rings true today and we wanted to share it, and the sentiments, again. We hope you enjoy this re-post (with a few minor edits). We have so much to be thankful for, and we have so much more to do. Happy Thanksgiving.
- Anne Beyersdorfer

Asalaam Aleikum (Peace be with you).
And to all our stateside readers and supporters, Happy Thanksgiving.

As we count our blessings here at Central Asia Institute, it has been noted that some of them have arrived in strange packages this year. But blessings are sometimes like that. It’s what happens next that matters.

And at CAI, we opted to turn challenges into opportunities to learn and grow. After all, CAI is all about education and adaptation, about listening and growing, and, when necessary, changing. Every new project, new relationship, and new geographic region teaches us valuable lessons. We learn something new every day. We never stop learning.

So we are grateful for our teachers, who come in all shapes and sizes.
We are grateful for our supporters, who continue to believe that it is possible to make a difference in the world, one child at a time.

And we are grateful for the ties that bind us all together in our mission.
Our annual Journey of Hope publication is CAI’s attempt to document that mission with words and photos. And assembling this year’s edition has truly been a journey of hope. The process, the people, and the places – they all combine to leave me with an unshakeable attitude of gratitude, just in time for Thanksgiving.

I’m grateful for our hardworking, multitalented project managers who guided me and photographer Erik Petersen down so many roads less traveled this year. They introduce us to amazing people who entrust us with their stories and treat us like family, people whose open hearts, hospitality, and honesty leave me humbled and inspired.

I’m grateful, too, for the teachers and students. They are the heart and soul of everything CAI does. Their creativity, passion, and determination to make a better future keep me focused on what’s important.

I am also grateful for the hardworking, multitalented individuals at CAI’s headquarters in Bozeman. What a team. Layout, photo selection, proofreading, fact checking – the Journey of Hope is an enormous project and it takes all hands on deck to get it done. Shukria. Tashakur. Manana. Thank you!

And of course I am grateful to CAI’s cofounder Greg Mortenson, for his capacity to articulate the principles that continue to guide CAI into the future – take time to drink three cups of tea, listen to people, empower those you are trying to help, respect the elders, don’t rush, don’t be afraid to fail, and believe that education is the key to a peaceful world.

It takes a village, as the saying goes, and on this Thanksgiving we are filled with an attitude of gratitude for all who are part of CAI’s mission.

Thank you for your continued support.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

– Karin Ronnow

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November 19, 2012 – Sarfraz’ final journey home

All dear friends and well wishers,

Thank you for your heartfelt sorrow messages for our dearest Sarfraz’s sudden death [of cancer]. It was a big shock for the family, friends, students, and for all the valley people from all over Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.

I am sorry for late reply because on 13 November, we lost our brother Sarfraz at 5.30 p.m. After the first formality, we left Islamabad for Gilgit on the Karakoram Highway (KKH) at 10 p.m. with all his family and kids. We arrived 14 November, 5 p.m. in Gilgit, where friends, relatives and family members were waiting to receive Sarfraz Khan. After one hour rest and tea we continued our journey to Hunza. Our group arrived at Aliabad Hunza at 8 p.m. There all local community received us with great sorrow.

Because of the lake and boat transport closed at night, we rested for five hours and started our journey again at 2 a.m., on 15 November. We loaded our vehicles and Sarfraz coffin on boats, and by 6 a.m. crossed the lake safely.

Then we continued by road to Charpusan Valley. In some places there was snow and slippery, but the Frontier Works Organization had cleared the way for us. There many thousands of people were awaiting our arrival, and even more thousands were still arriving to join Sarfraz and his family for the final journey home. It was beyond belief to see so many people. We finally arrived at 11 a.m. in Zuudkhan, Sarfraz Khan home and the last village of Charpusan Valley. At Zuudkhan, veterans in their old uniforms were ready to perform honor guard for Sarfraz.

It was not easy for everyone to believe that Sarfraz was really dead, and especially since his father died only a month earlier. There was three days of mourning, memorial services, discussions all attended by a riderless horse, Kazil, who is Sarfraz Khan’s white horse that carried him many times over the mountains to do projects. Kazil had his saddle on, ready to take Sarfraz to his next life in heaven.

Death is reality of our life, and as a Muslim we all know that every life comes to an end one day. Sarfraz has left us, but in our hearts and those of the tens of thousands of children he has given education and hope to, he is with us forever.

Thanks for all of you again.

Inalilah he wa Inailiahr Rajiun. Amin.

Saidullah Baig
CAI Hunza Director

Please visit our memorial page for Sarfraz. You can send messages to media@ikat.org.

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November 13, 2012 – “Sarfraz has gone home on his white horse”

In memory of Sarfraz Khan 1957-2012
CAI “Most remote area” project director

Asalaam-o-Alaikum,

With heavy heart, I regret to inform you that our beloved brother, mentor and dear friend, Sarfraz Khan, passed away peacefully in Islamabad at about 5:30PM Pakistan time on Monday evening. When I left him about 48 hours ago, he was relaxed, peaceful, coherent, and said he was waiting for his ‘white horse to pick him up and take him home.’

His departure leaves a deep void in CAI and our hearts, but we should celebrate that Sarfraz was a man ahead of his time, and long ago was making plans that the schools he established were sustainable and enduring, and in his wake he given us a vision to follow, has left two qualified female directors, who are the first women ever to do work like that in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), Tajikistan and Wakhan-Pamir, Afghanistan.

We weep, but the Pamir, Hindu Kush mountains, stand tall and prouder than ever, to know that in their foothills, tens of thousands of eager children have the light and hope of education to pave a brave new future because of Sarfraz’s courage and vision.

Please remember Sarfraz’s wife Bibi Nouma, and his eight children in your prayers and thoughts.

Inalilah he wa Inailiahr Rajiun. Amin. ‘Surely we belong to God and to Him shall we return.’

Allah Hafiz.
Greg Mortenson

Please visit our memorial page for Sarfraz. You can send messages to media@ikat.org.

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November 9, 2012 – UN urges Pakistan to commit to girls’ education on eve of Malala Day

United Nations envoy Gordon Brown Friday called on the Pakistani government to make a stronger commitment to education for all its citizen, but especially girls.

UN Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown made his comments in Islamabad in conjunction with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s announcement of an initiative to enroll 3 million children in school in the next four years. The program has been dubbed “Waseela-e-Taleem,” which means “right to education.”

Brown also used the occasion to present Zardari a petition with more than a million signatures in support of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen shot by the Taliban for her support of girls’ education.

The UN has declared Saturday, Nov. 10, Malala Day, a global day of action to honor Malala and support girls’ education. An estimated 32 million girls around the world are denied education, including 3 million in Pakistan alone. Malala became a symbol of their struggles after her brutal attack one month ago in northwestern Swat Valley. She is recovering at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England.

In a meeting with Zardari, Brown said, “Malala and her family believe that there are many, many more courageous and brave girls and families in your country who want to stand up for the right of every child, in particular girls, to have the education that they deserve,” according to news reports.

Extremist militants’ opposition to secular education, especially for girls, is just part of the reason more than 3 million Pakistani girls are not in school, Dawn (Pakistan) newspaper reported. Education also suffers from “chronic underfunding,” with less than 2.5 percent of Pakistan’s GNP allocated to schools. A recent UNESCO report found that Pakistan had the second worst global rate of children out of school.

Waseela-e-Taleem is a four-year program that will give free education to children of poor families, according to the Express Tribune. It is part of the Benazir Income Support Program, which said in a statement Friday that the pilot phase has been launched in Skardu and two other areas.

“I support [Pakistan] in every effort you are making because there is no more precious asset, no greater investment, nothing that signifies better your faith in the future [than] the help and support you give every child in your country,” Brown told Pakistan’s government.

Brown also said the UN will work with the World Bank and Pakistan’s government “to ensure the international community is able to do everything it can do to help [Pakistan] as you employ teachers, build schools, provide learning materials and end discrimination that should not exist against girls who go to school.”

In announcing Malala Day on its website, the UN special envoy’s office said it was intended to recognize “that discrimination takes many forms, some of which are akin to exploitation,” including child marriage, sex trafficking, slavery and exploitative labor – all of which keep girls out of school and keep them from realizing their full potential.

Central Asia Institute and its supporters have worked to promote education, especially for girls, in Pakistan for more than 16 years. We are grateful to hear the Pakistani government’s reiteration of its commitment to providing education for all its children. And we send our prayers and heartfelt get-well wishes to Malala and her family.

QUOTE: “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” -Thomas Jefferson

- Karin Ronnow

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November 2, 2012 – Spread the love: 2013 Journey of Hope calendars available for pre-orders

The 2013 limited-edition Journey of Hope calendar has gone to press and Central Asia Institute is now taking preorders.

This year, photographer Erik Petersen and CAI Communication Director Karin Ronnow documented CAI projects in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. The calendar includes stunning photography of CAI projects, plus explanations of CAI’s programs and a map of the areas we serve.

The stories will be published in the upcoming “Journey of Hope,” which is scheduled for an early December distribution.

Each calendar is $10, with delivery by early December.

Proceeds from all calendar sales help CAI carry out its mission to promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.

Order yours now. CAI calendars make great gifts, and help us spread the message of peace through education.

To order online, click HERE. Or call 406.585.7841; email info@ikat.org, or send a note to: Central Asia Institute | P.O. Box 7209 | Bozeman, MT 59771, USA.

As always, thanks for your support.

- CAI staff

Sneak peek at what’s inside:

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October 23, 2012 – Snapshots – CAI-supported girl students

Central Asia Institute has received many inquiries and messages of support since the Taliban’s attack on Malala. Malala is now a worldwide symbol – bringing awareness of the everyday challenges and danger that face many girls who seek education in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In the communities we serve there are thousands upon thousands of girls, parents, and educators who want more educational opportunity for themselves and for their countries. Below are a just a few snapshots of CAI-supported girls from my recent visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Each girl is an inspiration, a symbol of hope, and the potential for a more peaceful future.

We hold them in our hearts everyday.

	CAI supported middle school students. Dhok Luna, Pakistan.
	CAI supported primary school student. Parwan, Afghanistan.
	CAI supported University scholarship students. Bannu, Pakistan.
	CAI supported high school students. Kabul, Afghanistan.
	CAI supported high school student. Kabul, Afghanistan.
	CAI supported primary school students. Dhok Bidder, Pakistan.

All photos: Central Asia Institute, 2012.

QUOTE: “The only thing better than education is more education.” 
— Agnes E. Benedict

- Anne Beyersdorfer

NOTE: Our upcoming Journey of Hope will again detail CAI’s efforts providing education and community health opportunities, especially for girls, in remote communities of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Please sign-up here to receive a copy.

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October 16, 2012 – CAI releases Annual Report (September 30, 2011)

Central Asia Institute (CAI) is pleased to announce that it has completed its independent financial audit for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2011 and 2010. Eide Bailly, certified public accountants and business advisors, issued the audited financial statements.

CAI’s Annual Report and the full audited financial statements are provided here and on our Financials Page. The report summarizes CAI’s financial statements and programs, and illustrates how your support continues to further our mission.

CAI is now preparing for its FYE 2012 audit, a review of the past 12 months of activity, both stateside and overseas. This provides an opportunity to reflect on the significant accomplishments of this past year, all in pursuit of our mission to promote peace through education, especially for girls, in some of the most remote areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

Those accomplishments include:

CAI US Operations
1. CAI, Greg Mortenson, and the Montana Attorney General’s Office (OAG) signed an agreement resolving the OAG’s inquiries.
2. U.S. District Court Judge Sam E. Haddon dismissed the lawsuit against CAI, Greg Mortenson, writer David Oliver Relin, and Penguin Group publishing. In dismissing the suit, Judge Sam E. Haddon concluded: “The case has been pending for almost a year. The Complaint before the Court is the fifth pleading filed. Plaintiffs have been accorded every opportunity to adequately plead a case, if one exists. Moreover, the imprecise, in part flimsy, and speculative nature of the claims and theories advanced underscore the necessary conclusion that further amendment would be futile. This case will be dismissed with prejudice.”
3. CAI expanded its Board of Directors to 10 members, adding seven individuals with many years of leadership experience, financial and legal expertise, and knowledge of and appreciation for the people we serve.
4. CAI launched a search for a new Executive Director to provide the leadership and strategic vision to continue CAI’s mission of enhancing human resources through education and training, especially for girls.
5. CAI joined the Combined Federal Campaign’s list of eligible charities.
6. CAI expanded its social media outlets to include Facebook and Twitter.
7. CAI’s Pennies for Peace program continued to inspire people around the globe, with 7,305 campaigns initiated since its inception, 185 currently active, and 153 initiated in 2012 to date.

Overseas Operations
CAI made an extended effort to focus much of its time on the heart of the mission in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. With three trips made by Co-founder Greg Mortenson, two by Executive Director Anne Beyersdorfer, and five by Communications Director Karin Ronnow, we accomplished a lot.

CAI has funded the initiation of more than 300 school and community programs. Specifically in 2012, communities initiated 60 new projects: 20 in Pakistan, 36 in Afghanistan, and four in Tajikistan, while also providing ongoing support to existing projects in the remote areas we serve. All of these projects are listed on our Master Project List, which is frequently updated.

1. CAI initiated an “Overseas Grantee Monitoring” program. Independent accountans reviewed the activities and structure of CAI operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, documenting generally accepted business methods and accounting for transactions. These included an understanding of: payment flows, formal contracts with those involved in program activities, and invoice documentation for program-related activities (school buildings, water projects, healthcare, scholarships, teacher support, women’s vocational centers, literacy centers, and community support).
2. CAI provided funding to increase teachers’ salaries based on level of education and years of service in CAI-supported schools.
3. CAI provided funding for a winter disaster relief program for the people of Badakhshan, Afghanistan.
4. CAI provided funding for laptops for scholarship students in Gilgit, Hunza, Chapurson, Azad Kashmir, and Ghizer, Pakistan.
5. CAI’s Baltistan Library Project provided funding for expansion of library resources throughout Baltistan, Pakistan. CAI delivered hundreds of books to communities, including the Skardu Municipal Library and the Women’s Degree College-Skardu.
6. CAI provided funding for a teacher training and evaluation program for 22 teachers from CAI-supported schools in the Ishkoman, Ghizer, and Gupis areas of northwest Pakistan.
7. CAI provided funding for the second healthcare-worker training in northern Pakistan.
8. CAI helped to reorganize and expand oversight resources for its scholarship programs in Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir.

All of these accomplishments could not have happened without the thousands of CAI supporters across the world. We are truly grateful. Every penny makes a difference. Every kind word spread about our mission increases awareness of the importance of education worldwide. And all your support gives hope to thousands of children who yearn to build a more peaceful world.

On behalf of CAI’s Board of Directors, staff, and the communities we serve, thank you for your continued dedication to the mission of peace through education.

- Jennifer Sipes, CAI’s Operations Director

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October 15, 2012 – Support for Malala

The Pakistani Taliban’s deplorable attempt to kill 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai, an advocate for girls’ education, has become the modern-day shot heard ‘round the world.

By seeking to silence this brave ninth-grader in Pakistan’s volatile Swat Valley, the Taliban gunmen inadvertently managed to do just the opposite: They turned up the volume on calls to educate the girls of the world.

The world now knows that Malala was critically wounded when Taliban fighters boarded a school van. The gunmen asked which of the girls was Malala, and then opened fire. Another girl and a teacher were injured, too.

“Our prayers are with Malala and her family,” Central Asia Institute co-founder Greg Mortenson said Sunday in a phone interview from Tajikistan. “Her story is heartbreaking. But it’s important to remember that Malala is just one of many. Scores of students and teachers risk their lives every day in support of girls’ education in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

“The lengths to which extremists will go to prevent girls from attending school – and to perpetuate ignorance and instability – are demonstrated repeatedly in the places where CAI works,” Mortenson said.

“There are so many stories,” Mortenson said. “Girls attending classes are gassed and poisoned. Girls are attacked on their way to and from school. In Pakistan, militants destroyed 440 schools, including 130 all-girls’ schools, last year. In Afghanistan, several dozen teachers have been murdered for teaching at girls’ schools, including a teacher at the CAI school in Saw, in Kunar Province (Afghanistan), this past summer.”

Malala’s story has resonated with people and CAI supporters’ outpouring of concern was immediate.

“I am worried about the shooting of the 14-year-old,” Dan wrote in an email to CAI. “I will keep the young female student in my prayers.”

“Can you get word to the family of Malala Yousafzai that many people here in the USA are praying for her recovery and sending their support and deep appreciation to her family?” Nancy wrote.

Others asked whether Malala or her school is affiliated with CAI in any way. “Was just wondering if [Malala’s] school was aided by CAI,” Cynthia asked.

Malala’s school in Mingora, Pakistan, is not a CAI project, although CAI works in other remote areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

More than anything, people expressed outrage.

“I am shocked and horrified at the Taliban shooting of the wee 14-year-old in Pakistan,” Bette, a CAI supporter, wrote in an email this weekend. “The world needs to wake up.”

Bette added: “What can I do to help the 14-year-old lass who is fighting for her life?”

As per Bette’s request, here are some ways to help Malala and others like her:
- Post a comment on CAI’s Facebook page expressing support for girls’ education.
- Sign the United Nation’s Special Envoy for Global Education’s petition, which states: “We call on Pakistan to agree to a plan to deliver education for every child. We call on all countries to outlaw discrimination against girls.”
- Sign the change.org petition to express your “grave concern regarding the ongoing and shocking destruction of schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Adinistered Tribal Areas in northern Pakistan and the danger that women and children face.”
- Support CAI with a donation.

CAI’s mission is built on the fact that education is the best and most lasting antidote to poverty, inequality, and ignorance – and that girls have an equal right to participate in that solution.

“Malala is the tragic public face of the thousands of girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan who overcome incredible challenges to secure an education,” CAI Executive Director Anne Beyersdorfer said Sunday. “These young women are their nations’ and the world’s daughters. Forging ahead with them, arm in arm, we are working towards a better future.”

- Karin Ronnow

QUOTE: “There is an African proverb I learned as a child in Tanzania, ‘If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. But if you educate a girl, you educate a community.’” – Greg Mortenson

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October 11, 2012 – Girls’ education highlighted on first-ever Day of the Girl

Girls’ education matters! Spread the word today, the first International Day of the Girl, and every day.

Here’s Nooria’s story:

Nooria, an 18-year-old student in class 10 at Mir Afghan Girls’ School in the foothills north of Kabul, is engaged to be married. But she has had to fight to stay in school.

“My father and my brothers don’t let me come to school and I missed one year,” she said, shyly pulling her pink dupatta (headscarf). “They say I have to stay at home to help, that it’s not fair for me to go to school, that people will talk because girls are not supposed to go to school when they are older. Only my one brother has helped me come here.”

- Excerpted from Journey of Hope, Vol. 5

Around the world, millions of girls are denied the right to go to school due to poverty, war, religion, and discrimination. Girls’ education is fundamental to CAI’s work helping communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan build a better future.

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September 12, 2012 – Gains for girls’ education in Afghanistan remain vulnerable

Despite remarkable gains over the past decade, girls’ education in Afghanistan remains an uphill battle.

Shifting attitudes and increased resources for girls’ education in this impoverished and war-torn country have no doubt led to increased enrollment, although the exact number is hard to pin down, with girls making up an estimated one-third to one-half of the roughly 8 million Afghan children enrolled in school today.

Clearly a growing number of parents, teachers, government officials, and girls themselves recognize the importance of girls’ education.

“Education is very important, it is the light that allows us to see the world,” Fazeela, a sixth-grader at a Central Asia Institute community school in Logar Province, said in July.

However, gains made in the past decade remain tenuous.

The Afghan Ministry of Education “has undoubtedly made laudable progress in improving both the availability and quality of education, but with such a large influx of students over the past few years, it is struggling to keep pace with demand,” according to Oxfam International’s report, “High Stakes: Girls’ Education in Afghanistan.”

“With donors increasingly focused on stabilization and counterinsurgency rather than development, and with security deteriorating in many areas of the country, the gains made in improving girls’ education are in danger of slipping away,” the report states.

The obstacles to girls’ education in Afghanistan haven’t changed much since the fall of the Taliban. Security remains a constant concern as attacks on girls’ schools continue throughout the country. Also, girls’ schools are still too few and far between, especially in rural areas. Nearly half of the schools in Afghanistan have no building. And qualified teachers, especially female teachers, are in short supply.

Afghan Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak said in June that only 50 percent of the country’s 200,000 teachers are considered professional-level educators. He also said his ministry encourages families to send their daughters to school.

CAI looks forward to the day when all children have access to safe, quality education. In pursuit of that goal, we continue to work with people across northern, eastern and central Afghanistan – as well as in Pakistan and eastern Tajikistan – to promote community-based schools, literacy centers and scholarships for higher education.

And our programs already serve thousands of Afghan girls like 11-year-old Fazeela, who, according to her teacher, works hard at her studies, never misses a class and wants to be a doctor.

With an illiterate mother, Fazeela knows education will make a difference in the path she takes through life – and in the future of her country.

“It is valuable for all people, for both boys and girls, to find the light of their own lives,” she said. “And then it is our job to give education to the next generation. That is how Afghanistan will have a better future.”

QUOTE: “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

- Karin Ronnow

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September 10, 2012 – Marking International Literacy Day in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Every day is Literacy Day at Central Asia Institute.

After all, with an estimated 61 million of the world’s primary-school-age children out of school, according to UNESCO, there is no shortage of work to do – especially here in Pakistan.

Pakistan has the second-highest number of children not attending school – 5.12 million boys and girls. “Around one in four 7- to 16-year-olds had never been to school at all,” according to a UNESCO report, “and most will probably not have the chance to enter a classroom.”

Access to education falls precipitously if you are a girl, poor and living in a rural area, the report noted. In Pakistan, “among the poorest girls, as many as two in three have never been to school.”

Yet we know, as CAI co-founder Greg Mortenson has said, that literacy gives people “hope, progress, and the possibility of controlling their own destiny” – three things that are too often in glaringly short supply in this part of the world.

In recognition of the importance of education, the United Nations has been promoting International Literacy Day for decades. This year’s celebration on Saturday, Sept. 8, focused on literacy and peace. “Literacy contributes to peace as it brings people closer to attaining individual freedoms and better understanding (of) the world, as well as preventing or resolving conflict,” according to UNESCO.

The theme echoes what Mortenson has written and said since he started working in this region in 1993.

The result of Pakistan’s neglect of childhood education is an estimated 50 million illiterate adults – people unable to read, write and understand a short simple sentence about their everyday life. Sixty-five percent of those illiterate adults are women.

An estimated 75 percent of neighboring Afghanistan’s population is illiterate, too, although figures are harder to come by for that country.

Yet people want education, especially for their children. As Mortenson wrote in “Stones Into Schools,” the CAI-supported community-based schools in Afghanistan “are a testament not only to the Afghans’ hunger for literacy, but also to their willingness to pour scarce resources into this effort, even during a time of war.

“I have seen children studying in classrooms set up inside animal sheds, windowless basements, garages, and even an abandoned public toilet. We ourselves have run schools out of refugee tents, shipping containers, and the shells of bombed-out Soviet armored personnel carriers. The thirst for education over there is limitless.

“The Afghans want their children to go to school because literacy represents what neither we nor anyone else has so far managed to offer them: hope, progress, and the possibility of controlling their own destiny,” he wrote.

For more information on international literacy statistics, visit: UNESCO Institute for Statistics

QUOTE: “Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.” ― Kofi Annan

- Karin Ronnow

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September 5, 2012 – Torrential rains trigger deadly flashfloods and landslides in Azad Kashmir

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Heavy monsoon rains in Azad Kashmir in recent weeks have triggered landslides and flash floods, killing at least 17 people and washing away homes, crops, livestock, bridges and roads.

One of the hardest hit areas is the remote Neelum Valley, northeast of the capital city of Muzaffarabad, where Central Asia Institute has supported communities with education projects since 2005.

“It has rained heavily every day since 15 August, especially at Eid time,” said Fozia Naseer, CAI’s community women’s development and scholarship director in AJK. Muslims this year celebrated Eid, which marks the end of Ramadan, on Aug. 20. “It is raining really heavily every evening because of monsoon.”

Much of the destruction has occurred close to the epicenter of the catastrophic October 2005 earthquake, which killed at least 79,000 people in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

“Some people built their houses near the rivers and streams and when the water level was high, the whole houses are just gone,” Naseer said. In other cases, homes have just collapsed from the heavy rain. “The rains are worse than any year since the earthquake.”

The main road up the Neelum Valley was blocked for four days last week.

“There were three landslides on the new road between Muzaffarabad and Patika,” she said. “One near Kahori is really bad – the road is just gone. There is a small river on the side of the mountain, like a waterfall. Maybe it was a spring that was exposed. But it created constant mud sliding down. They weren’t able to even work on the road because the mountain was moving, the whole thing. So they closed the road for four days.”

Such decisions have a ripple effect, she noted.

“Then there was a shortage of food because of that, so the shopkeepers in Patika were selling food for higher prices,” Fozia said. “Plus people couldn’t go to work or school. Lots of teachers, they live in Muzaffarabad and are teaching in the remote areas, so they drive on this road every day.

“Several schools were supposed to open on Aug. 23, but are still off. Because of the landslides, the teachers and staff can’t go there until they clear the road. They are going to try to open this week,” she said.

The government has been able to move heavy equipment into the area, “so they can clear it every time it slides” and the road was reopened Friday, Aug. 31. “But still it is dangerous,” Fozia said. The other two landslides are near Chalpani and Yadgar.

The Chinese government spent more than six years after the earthquake rebuilding and paving the Neelum Valley road.

“We had a new road, but now it is ruined,” Naseer said. “The Chinese handed it over to the government five months ago and went home. Now people are saying the Chinese are gone and the government is not going to rebuild the road, maybe for years.”

The monsoon rains have also wreaked havoc in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, two of the many regions of Pakistan still struggling to rebuild after the epic floods of 2010.

- Karin Ronnow

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August 24, 2012 – Greg Mortenson on CAI’s search for a new executive director

The launch of a search for a new executive director is an exciting time for all of us at Central Asia Institute. For me, it is the fulfillment of discussions I’ve had with CAI’s board members over the past few years about turning over the position to a person with the expertise that I lacked, so that I could focus on what I do best – promote peace through education, continue to build relationships, and empower the communities and children who have captured my heart.

Since I resigned as executive director in November 2011 and we turned the position over to Anne Beyersdorfer, I’ve spent four months in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. There I met and drank tea with hundreds of elders, community leaders, imams (religious leaders), military commanders, and government officials. I spent time with women and mothers, who reiterated what they have told me for almost two decades: “We want peace and we want education.” And, best of all, I spent time with thousands of children whom we serve. They have not given up hope, and that is what drives us on, to make their dreams come true through compassion and humility.

The past 18 months have brought many challenges for CAI, but more importantly, they created opportunities to reinvigorate the organization’s mission, board, staff, and family. Our CAI team rose to the challenge, as I had to take time out to get a new lease on life with the diagnosis and repair of a life-threatening atrial septal defect and aneurysm.

My commitment to, and admiration and respect for our community program managers overseas is profound. All of them, and the communities we serve, are the true “heroes” in pursuing CAI’s mission. I will always remember the people who taught me the three cups of tea philosophy. Compassion, humility, education, and incentive are the key factors to making our world a better, more peaceful place.

Our staff in CAI’s Bozeman office work tirelessly to ensure our growing organization stays strong. Our board of directors was recently expanded to nine members, each of whom bring unique and valuable skills and ideas to the organization. And the foundation has now been laid for a new executive director.

Being executive director of Central Asia Institute is a unique task with incredible rewards. More than a job, it is a calling, and CAI aspires to find someone with the heart and motivation to work relentlessly for the sustainable future of the organization. The executive director must inspire others, possess cross-cultural understanding, have excellent management and communication skills, and be able to tackle adversity.

Although CAI has incredible support around the world, unfortunately there are also those who seek to destroy our work, and even more sadly, those who are vehemently opposed to the education of girls. To deny even one girl the right of education hinders the best way to bring change and create peace for a society. The new executive director will be charged with bringing awareness of the power of girls’ education, as well as an understanding of Islam, to the global community.

We look forward to the added vitality that this person will bring to the CAI team — especially during these particularly challenging times in the communities CAI serves in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.

I am also excited about continuing my work to inspire children and young adults around the world to value community service and volunteerism, and to know they can make a difference in their own communities. Despite all the maladies of our planet, there is an eagerness, yearning and collective consciousness among youth to make the world a better place. They are the future.

To view the executive director job description, please Click Here

QUOTE: “Only in growth, reform, and change — paradoxically enough — is true security to be found.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

- Greg Mortenson

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August 20, 2012 – CAI community teacher training and evaluation program big success

Twenty-two teachers from Central Asia Institute-supported schools in the Ishkoman, Ghizer, and Gupis areas of northwest Pakistan attended an intensive, four-day teacher training and evaluation program from July 28 to Aug. 1.

The program opened with discussion of teachers’ roles in society and articulation of their greater visions for the future, which they formulated into written presentations.

During those presentations, many of the teachers expressed how they had come from humble beginnings, including writing with sticks in the sand, and the many social, logistic, financial, and physical obstacles they had to overcome to ultimately become educators.

Although skills and background education help, I have long believed it is critical to build a corps of teachers from the ground up. Fifteen years ago we did not have a great pool of highly qualified teachers, so we took eighth- or tenth-graders and put them through intensive training. They have done a magnificent job and produced hundreds of high school and college graduates. More than a decade later, it is nothing short of a miracle.

Dilshad Baig, CAI’s teacher and women’s center training director, worked with a team of master trainers to facilitate this summer’s teacher training and evaluation program.

The teacher training programs are part of CAI’s renewed focus on improving the quality of education in schools. This initiative includes increased teacher salaries, additional support for teachers, upgraded schools, increased number of scholarships, and overall human-capacity building, as opposed to a focus on establishing new schools in rural or volatile regions.

The teachers were excited to attend the program, and to share their skills and experience with their colleagues, Dilshad said.

Days two and three were more nuts and bolts based, with lesson planning and instructions on setting up implementation and evaluation procedures. Then the teachers conducted mock classes with each other and assessed their performances in groups, with evaluations by the training staff, their teaching peers and themselves.

Some teachers, such as Afsana, from the CAI-supported middle school in Noor Abad, had never before received any formal teacher training and were elated to participate in a program in which their peers could help improve their skills.

Another stellar CAI-supported teacher, Khosh Begum, also from Noor Abad middle school, shared her preference for visual teaching tools, like flash cards, to make the education process more interesting.

The program also included sessions in which teachers actually were observed and trained in the classroom with students.

Dilshad said that, despite some teachers’ lack of previous training, all were highly motivated and inspired to become better teachers, and their enthusiasm in the classroom settings was like a burst of sunshine in on a dark, cloudy day.

The teachers’ had numerous ideas for improving their own skills and the quality of education offered, including: more outdoor activities; engage with students at eye level; make class time livelier, shorter, and organized; improve teachers’ writing on blackboard; introduce more animation and cultural context on some topics; spend more time organizing lesson plans; and get to know the students better to see if health issues, overwork, lack of sleep, or insufficient nutrition might be affecting their performances.

Dilshad is a unique, woman leader in Northern Pakistan. She is one of the first women in the region to complete a university degree, who pursued her dreams while encouraged and supported by her husband, who was then a hotel owner-operator. Dilshad previously taught in an English school for (mostly) foreigners in Gilgit, and has extensive experience in teacher training.

QUOTE: “Education is improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.” – Marian Wright Edelman

- Greg Mortenson

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August 17, 2012 – Sending out blessings and prayers for peace on Eid

Central Asia Institute wishes all its Muslim friends and family “Eid Mubarak” at this most holy and joyous time of year.

This weekend marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, a month of fasting that culminates with Eid ul-Fitr (“Eid” means celebration, “Fitr” means ending the fast).

“The Eid ul-Fitr is a very joyous day; it is a true Thanksgiving Day for the believing men and women,” Islamic scholar Imam Ali Siddiqui wrote in an oft-cited explanatory piece about Eid. “On this day Muslims show their real joy for the health, strength and the opportunities of life, which Allah has given to them to fulfill their obligation of fasting and other good deeds during the blessed month of Ramadan.”

Ramadan is always held the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which follows the lunar calendar. This year, it began Saturday, July 21. It ends about 30 days later with the rising of a new or crescent moon, expected this year on Aug. 18 or 19.

The month-long fast is intended to help Muslims experience what it is like to be hungry and thus empathize with the poor, and to put individuals’ focus on the power of the spiritual over the physical.

On each day during Ramadan, Muslims typically have a predawn meal and then fast from sunrise to sunset – no food or water. Exceptions are made for pre-pubescent children, pregnant and nursing women, people who are sick or traveling, and diabetics. After darkness falls, they break the fast with a communal meal known as iftar.

Charity is an important part of Islam, and during Ramadan Muslims pay special attention to those in need, giving gifts of time, money or food. Such actions reflect the adage that actions speak louder than words, said Saidullah Baig, CAI’s community manager in Pakistan’s Hunza region. “We learn that the thing that really makes a difference is working together with communities to make a better future, like CAI does every day. This is the spirit of humanity.”

In addition to fasting and charity, Ramadan is meant to highlight the need for patience, worship and faith in God. Many Muslims dedicate time to reading the entire Quran, beginning to end.

With the coming of the crescent moon, Eid ul-Fitr marks the end of the fast with feasts, celebrations with family and friends, and continued charity. Many girls and women also apply henna decorations, Mehndi, to their hands and feet. In some parts of the world (including Afghanistan) celebrations go on for several days.

Imam Siddiqui quotes a Hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said of Eid ul-Fitr, “For every people there is a feast and this is our feast.”

Non-Muslims are also welcome to share in the Eid festivities, celebrating commonalities and the joy that comes from working toward peace and a better future for all.

“On this holy day at the end of Ramadan, I am most grateful for CAI’s steadfast, long-term commitment to serving humanity, to helping the poor and underserved people become strong through the light of education,” said Lt. Col. (Ret.) Ilyas Mirza, CAI’s community chief operations director in Pakistan.

Eid Mubarak!

- Karin Ronnow

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August 15, 2012 – You spell it T-a-l-a-y, I spell it T-h-a-l-l-y

It never fails. Every time I am checking on a Central Asia Institute-supported school, interviewing an elder or student, or visiting a village for the first time, sooner or later I have to ask, “Please, would you spell that for me?”

Whether I’m asking about the name of a person, place or thing, I usually need help translating it into English-alphabet letters.

In some circles, it has become a bit of a joke. My translators – usually CAI’s community project managers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan – give me one of those here-we-go-again smiles, take a moment to think and then give me their version of the spelling.

But that’s usually not the end of it. Oftentimes, when I ask them to repeat it, they spell it differently. Then when they write it down for me later on, it’s spelled yet another way. Can you spell f-r-u-s-t-r-a-t-i-o-n?

In the case of place names, one would think there’d be some kind of agreed-upon standard. But double-checking the “field” versions against those of “official” sources doesn’t always help.

First I go to the map. Except that there is no one map for any of these places; spellings vary from map to map; and some places where CAI works aren’t even on the maps.

I’ve tried the travel guidebooks, too, but I’ve found that even in those authoritative volumes, town and place names may be spelled two or three different ways in the same book – Khaphlu, Haphlu, Khapalu, for example.

And I am always hoping I’ll see a signboard suggesting how the locals might spell it. That’s easier in Pakistan. In Afghanistan, it’s hard to even find a street sign, highway number or place name anywhere. This is understandable given that 75 percent of the population is illiterate, signs cost money, and everyone who lives there knows what it is called so why bother with a sign.

But even in Pakistan, where there are signs, the signs don’t agree. On a trip to Baltistan in Northern Pakistan in May, I noticed that signboards marking NGO projects in the Thally River valley, for example, spelled just that one word at least four different ways: Talay, Thalley, Thally and Tahlay.

On the same trip, I got a letter from the president of the social welfare organization in a small Hushe Valley community that included three different spellings of his village’s name – Marzigond, Mar Zigong, and Marzi Gone. All in the same letter. And all three were different from the spelling CAI had been using.

This problem is not unique to CAI. Books about the regions where we work invariably include the qualifier: “The English spellings of place names vary.”

This is a Westerner’s conundrum; I recognize that. But it’s nice to know I’m not alone.

CAI Co-founder Greg Mortenson pointed out that words in common languages such as Arabic, or obscure languages such as Balti (ancient Tibetan language of Baltistan) or Burushaski (isolate language of Hunza, Pakistan) also have dipthongs, or phonetic sounds, that are not even possible to replicate using the 26-character English-language alphabet. The International Phonetic Alphabet, created in 1888, was one effort to adapt phonetic sounds for English-language speakers, but it is not in wide use, Greg said.

These days, even Western governments have gotten involved in trying to clarify the English-alphabet spellings of place names in Afghanistan. Until a few years ago, translations of place names “happened in a rather ad hoc way in Afghanistan,” leaving “the English-speaking armies and NGOs a little confused,” the BBC reported in 2008.

So the United States Board of Geographical Names teamed up with the British Permanent Committee on Geographical Names and began trying to standardize English-language versions of the names of every town and village in Afghanistan, according to the BBC report.

This was a big project. As the PCGN in London has noted, the almost 26 million people of Afghanistan “display an ethnic tapestry of astonishing variety,” with about 70 languages and dialects spoken. Two languages have official status, Dari (Persian) and Pashto, and both are written in Arabic script, although they have different alphabets.

“The confusion comes because Dari and Pashto are the main languages in the country and like all languages in Arabic script, vowels are left out of the written form. This explains why the boys’ name Mohammed can be spelt in several ways in the Roman alphabet … only the consonants M-h-m-d appear in the written version of Perso-Arabic scripts.”

Yet another difference is the use of “v” versus “w,” as in Parvan Province (Dari) versus Parwan Province (Pashto).

A few particulars from the US-UK Afghanistan naming project have leaked out. For example, PCGN has posted this admonition: “The spelling Konduz is obsolete and Kondoz should now be used.” And that is much more helpful than this Wikipedia note: “Kunduz will be seen spelled as Konduz, Qunduz, Qundoz, Qundoze and variations on these.”

But for the most part, the “official” place-names list seems to be available only at the official government level.

And in some ways, that’s just fine. I believe all languages are expressions of human creativity, art forms, if you will. Making the world more comfortable for us English-speaking sorts is helpful to us, but worrisome in the long run in that it threatens to undermine that beautiful “ethnic tapestry.”

As Marianne Mithun said, “The loss of languages is tragic precisely because they are not interchangeable, precisely because they represent the distillation of the thoughts and communication of people over their entire history.”

So when it comes to spelling proper nouns, perhaps those of us outside official channels are better off left to our own devices, respecting the fact that we are visitors and politely asking, “Please, would you spell that for me?”

NOTE: Since I’m on the topic of place names, let me answer a question I frequently hear: “Who/what was ‘Stan’?” (as in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, etc.).

The suffix “-stan” comes from the Persian root “sta,” which means, “place where one stays,” according to several online sources. In the countries where CAI works, the suffix was either tagged onto the names of the people living in a place (Afghan, Tajik) or, in Pakistan’s case, to the acronym for Punjab, Afghanistan, and Kashmir (PAK).

- Karin Ronnow

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August 7, 2012 – Promoting education in the last, best places

Any trip to visit Central Asia Institute-supported projects overseas is bound to be extraordinary.

But photographer Erik Petersen and I just returned from a four-week journey through Afghanistan and Tajikistan that turned out to be, well, extra extraordinary. And one that made me vow to my family that henceforth I will never go too far off the beaten path without a satellite phone. Because you just never know what might happen.

Erik and I landed in Kabul in late June and got right to work surveying CAI-supported projects, meeting teachers and students, drinking tea with village elders and government officials – all guided by CAI’s Afghan “family.”

Our travels took us from the capital and surrounding provinces, up to Badakhshan Province, the Wakhan Corridor and eventually Tajikistan. At times we traveled with accountants hired to monitor CAI’s overseas expenditures. We met with scholarship students, adult women learning to read and write in discreetly located literacy centers, and Kuchi nomad children practicing their math skills in a tent school on a verdant plain southeast of Kabul.

From Kabul to Kapisa, Kipkut to Khorog, we collected stories and photos that will be part of this year’s “Journey of Hope” publication and 2013 calendar. Every stop was a reminder of the constant uncertainty in the lives of the Afghans, people who so desperately want education for their children and peace for their country.

But then, just as we were getting ready to head home, CAI’s Sarfraz Khan, Erik and I got stuck in Khorog, Tajikistan, while Tajik Special Forces battled a rogue warlord and his army right there in the city.

We spent four days essentially trapped in a nondescript Soviet-style apartment. And that’s where the satellite phone comes in. Without it, we would never have been able to contact friends and family. Without it, we would have had little reliable information about the heavy gunfire, helicopter gunships and soldiers on the streets of Khorog. Without that phone, for all I know, we might still be there.

It was hardly what we expected during our visit to Tajikistan. Until that trip, all three of us regarded the Gorno-Badakhshan region in eastern Tajikistan as the most peaceful place where CAI works. Alas, that reputation no longer holds.

We had crossed the Panj River – which marks the Afghan-Tajik border — on July 17 in Ishkashim and driven north to Khorog, capital of the remote mountain region. The plan was to visit four villages where CAI is helping build schools and arrange delivery of supplies to CAI’s most-remote school in Bozoi Gumbad, Afghanistan.

Things took a turn for the worse July 21 when Gen. Abdullo Nazarov, chief of the KGB (State Committee for National Security) in the GBAO, was stopped on a remote stretch of the same Ishkashim-Khorog road, pulled from his car and stabbed to death. Government forces pointed the finger at Tolib Ayombekov, a 46-year-old border patrol officer who allegedly murdered Nazarov (his boss), for interfering with a lucrative cigarette, gemstone, weapons, alcohol and heroin smuggling operation. When Ayombekov refused to surrender, the Special Forces opened fire on Ayombekov and his followers in Khorog.

When the gunfire started at 4 a.m. on July 24, Erik, Sarfraz and I stood in the hallway of our rented apartment, a bit stunned. Then we did what most people across the city did – we reached for our mobile phones. “No network coverage,” the screens said. The Tajik government had blocked communication with the outside world – cellular and landline phone service and the Internet.

So we hunkered down in the dark – “No lights,” Sarfraz, a veteran of armed conflict, commanded – and waited, listening to the gunfire outside our window that periodically pinged off the ubiquitous satellite dishes.

As the sun came up and the fierce fighting wore on, we learned that all roads in and out of Khorog were also closed. And the airport. We were trapped. That’s when Sarfraz pulled out the satellite phone.

The whole thing was surreal. I sat on floor, my back to the window, talking on the satellite phone amid the sounds of gunfire and helicopters. But I realized I could also hear the birds chirping in the trees, children chattering in nearby apartments, and the squeak of clotheslines as women hung out wet laundry. I could smell baking bread. Life goes on.

Dozens of people were killed in the military strikes that continued over the next few days, although casualty reports varied wildly. Some people said 30 killed, others said 200. One person told us that dozens of civilians had died. One young man told Sarfraz, “Nobody died. The soldiers and militants were just shooting those big guns into the sky.”

After the first day of heavy fighting, the Special Forces backed off a bit. The gunfire was much more sporadic. Erik and I walked to the bazaar in the early morning, looking for an open shop where we could stock up on eggs, powdered milk, coffee, and gossip. Banks, offices and other businesses were closed and it seemed there were soldiers posted around every corner.

But it took days before the government finally opened the road, thanks in part to pressure from the U.S. embassy in Dushanbe eager to get tourists and aid workers like us out of harm’s way. When we got word, we found a car and driver and made a beeline for Dushanbe, a 14-hour drive. Ayombekov, meanwhile, reportedly made a beeline into Afghanistan.

We never got cell phone service or Internet in Khorog. Everyone said the government had blocked the signals, although EurasiaNet.org reported at one point that the state communications service was blaming a stray bullet for severing telephone, mobile and Internet connections to the region.

And after we left, I heard the Tajik troops confiscated all satellite phones.

- Karin Ronnow

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August 3, 2012 – CAI friends killed in tragic jeep accident in Braldu valley, Baltistan, NE Pakistan

On Aug. 1, at approximately 9:45 a.m. local time in the Braldu Valley of Baltistan, NE Pakistan, a jeep loaded with farmers and part-time expedition porters went off the precarious dirt road above the Braldu River in an area notorious for landslides and falling rock.

Three of the men were killed, three were seriously injured and two are still missing after falling into the rapids of the silt-laden river. Although efforts are still under way to locate the men, they are presumed to be dead.

One of the men killed was Ali from Korphe village, according to Mohammad Nazir, CAI’s Baltistan community liaison. Ali was a big supporter of the Korphe School, and worked hard to encourage children to attend school. His family has been notified and received his body for burial.

The two missing men are Hussein and Hassani, the jeep driver, both from Teste village, who worked tirelessly to help rebuild Korphe School in 2010 after severe storms and rain destroyed the school roof.

Nazir was one of the first people to reach the accident scene, which was in a remote valley where few people walk by, and jeep transits are occasional. He was making the approximately 120-kilometer, seven-hour trip from Skardu to Korphe village to deliver supplies for Korphe School and community. There is no cell phone coverage in the area, so evacuation plans to get the injured to the hospital and the deceased to their villages was complex.

“This is a big tragedy for our entire region during the holy month of Ramadan, as these were courageous men with big hearts who were leaders for our communities, and most of them were the sole providers for 10 to 20 people in their villages,” Nazir said.

Even though we are halfway around the world, this is painful for me to hear. I mourn with the communities we serve for the loss of these great men. Without their support, blood, and sweat, we could have never established schools to serve their children.

In addition to the challenges of war, extremism, and extreme poverty, life in the Karakoram Mountains is truly harsh. However, the resilience, hope, and devout faith of the Balti people offer lessons we all can learn from.

Within hours of Ali’s body arriving in Korphe village, he was buried in the simple, local graveyard, overlooking the escarpment of the roaring Braldu River, against the backdrop of the magnificent Bakhor Das peak (“Little K2″), and beside the trail winding down to Korphe School, where the children pass each day.

All of us at CAI send our prayers and condolences to the families and friends of these men.
May they and their dedication to education, their faith, and community not be forgotten.

- Greg Mortenson

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July 30 2012—Safe Evacuation from Khorog, Tajikistan

All of us at CAI are relieved that Karin Ronnow, Erik Peterson, and Sarfraz Khan are safe and homeward bound. Our thoughts are with those who lost loved ones, and remain in harm’s way.

The U.S. Embassy Tajikistan, European Union representatives, and Tajik government officials successfully negotiated permission for foreign nationals to leave the turmoiled Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) region on Saturday.

CAI’s indomitable trio traveled approximately twenty hours in a land-cruiser on the M 41 ‘Silk Road’ from Khorog to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. There were plans to be met by U.S. embassy personnel and U.S. Marines to escort them safely to Dushanbe, but once they were on the road they decided to “make their own way”. Local people and connections helped their journey.

Karin told Greg Mortenson via satellite phone on Friday, “The most frustrating thing was to be totally isolated and cut off from the rest of the world, and while we were in the middle of a war zone that made international news, we had practically no information about what was going on, even in the nearby streets or neighborhoods.”

Greg Mortenson remains concerned about the deteriorating situation in eastern Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan, “There has been a proliferation of heroin smuggling, militant insurgency, and instability the last year, and the need to support and empower communities with literacy, jobs, and infrastructure is greater than ever.”

Our local Tajik and Afghan staff still remain on the ground, and have not stopped their work to fulfill CAI’s mission, despite skirmishes, war, and natural disasters.

Profound thanks to everyone who offered prayers and support, and to the many people who helped coordinate the evacuation plan for our staff and other foreign nationals, we are extremely grateful for a successful outcome.

- Anne Beyersdorfer

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July 27 2012-CAI Communications Director and Photographer Caught in Tajikistan Crossfire

Karin Ronnow, Erik Petersen, and Sarfraz Khan have been stranded in the eastern Tajikistan city of Khorog for the last week, caught in the cross-fire of an abrupt conflict.

Karin, Erik, and Sarfraz arrived in Khorog only a day before the violent conflict ensued, after completing an extended field trip to Afghanistan and Tajikistan, to visit and document school, educational, and women’s projects in the remote areas of the Hindu Kush and Pamir mountains.

Karin informed us that all cell phone communications, internet, television were shut off by the Tajik government. The airport has been closed, roads out of Khorog are blocked off, all government offices and post offices closed, with only a few grocery stores and bakeries open a few hours a day until the rations run out. The nearby border with Afghanistan is also shut down.

She’s in touch via satellite phone, and said yesterday, “Other than two massive explosions in the middle of the night, it has been mostly quiet here for about forty hours, apparently in the wake of a government declared cease-fire. However, if the four alleged murderers of Abdullo Nazarov do not get caught or turn themselves in, the government is threatening to launch more military operations in the city.”

On Thursday, the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, issued a statement regarding the conflict, stating that it “is deeply concerned by the recent violence and reported loss of life in the Gorno-Badakshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan. We offer our sincere condolences for the loss of life and express our concern for the safety of civilians in the conduct of operations by Tajik authorities. We urge that all measures be taken to allow the safe evacuation of civilians from the combat zones, including foreigners currently trapped in the city of Khorog.”

The U.S. State Department, U.S. Embassy Tajikistan, U.S. Senator Jon Tester, Tajikistan government, and U.S. military have been coordinating efforts to evacuate them, and other stranded foreigners safely from the conflict.

CAI launched its work in eastern Tajikistan in 2010, and is presently working with communities to establish and build new schools in Mugrab and Vanj districts, in the remote Pamir mountains.

The violence in the normally peaceful region in the Pamir mountains, which is near the Afghan and Chinese borders, began last Saturday, when the regional Tajik security chief, Abdullo Nazarov, was stabbed to death near Khorog by unknown assailants.

Tajikistan’s government has blamed a border security commander, Tolib Ayombekov, who is also an alleged tobacco, drug and gemstone smuggler, with the murder of Nazarov, although Ayombekov has denied the allegations and told the state media that Nazarov was killed in a drunken brawl instead, and the Tajik government is using his death to perpetuate decade’s long feuds and ethnic cleansing.

Khorog, across the Panj river from Afghanistan, is the provincial capital of Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), and previously the strong-hold of Islamic rebels, who fought the more secular, central government in a brutal civil war that ended in 1997, and killed over 100,000 people.

The Tajik central government responded to Nazarov’s murder with a heavy-handed response, bringing in helicopter gunships, tanks, and thousands of soldiers, to launch a massive military operation early Tuesday morning in order to attempt to bring the suspected murderers to justice.

“The isolation and situation is made worse, since it is the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and local patience is growing thin with all communication and access cut off, and supplies dwindling”, said Ronnow. “The things we still have are water, electricity, and plenty of Chinese Ramen noodles, however, all bottled water in the region is depleted, and we have to boil water due to contamination of tap and river water.”

We are incredibly grateful for the support from our State Department, U.S. Embassy Tajikistan, Senator Tester of Montana, and U.S. military, to reach out on our behalf when we need them.

Greg Mortenson, who recently returned from a two month trip to the region, says that although CAI takes significant precautions to minimize the risk of working in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, “it is inevitable that some unforeseeable events will happen, like flash-floods, avalanches, accidents, riots, and skirmishes, and I’m grateful that there are courageous people like Karin, Erik, and Sarfraz, whose enthusiasm and commitment never wanes, and armed only with pencils and not weapons, enable tens of thousands of children to get an education.”

Thanks to everyone for their concern and prayers.

- Anne Beyersdorfer

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July 24, 2012: Exam time in Afghanistan

BAHARAK, Afghanistan – The ninth-grade students were spread out under the school’s old walnut tree taking an exam, enough space between them to prevent cheating, but still close enough to allow the teacher to keep an eye on everyone.

Squatting in the dust – a position most Westerners would be hard-pressed to maintain for a few minutes, but which people in these parts can do for hours – the 28 girls answered the test questions in longhand in their exam books.

A light breeze carried the sounds of braying donkeys and crowing roosters up the river valley and across the schoolyard near Baharak, in remote Badakhshan province. Central Asia Institute and the community finished the Chapchi Yardar Girls’ High School here in 2011 and classes filled fast, prompting two shifts at the school – younger girls in the morning, older girls in the afternoon.

“Before we had the school, the girls were mostly outside, studying in the sunshine and the rain,” said Principal Fariba Halali. “Some families would not send their daughters to school because there was no building. Others were at the boys’ school.

“Now there are 750 girls and obviously they are very happy, in many aspects. The lessons are going well and they are studying well. And if the students are calm and the place is comfortable, everyone, including the teachers, is happy,” she said.

The midsummer exam period takes place all over Afghanistan at the same time. Students take a different subject exam each school day. After they complete their test, they turn it in and go home to study for the next day’s test. Regular classes are suspended during exam time.

On the day of our visit, the test was on Islamic subjects. The day before, it was math. The day before that, Dari.

“The girls in the morning shift take exams inside the classrooms, but on warm days like this, in the afternoon the rooms get very hot and so the students ask to take exams outside,” Halali explained. “The sun is hot, but it is cooler outside, here in this shady place” under the walnut tree.

- Karin Ronnow

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July 19, 2012: New Board Directors help lead Central Asia Institute’s mission forward

Central Asia Institute (CAI) welcomed seven new Board members to the charity’s Board of Directors in meetings last week in San Francisco, California. The new directors bring many years of leadership experience, expertise, and a depth of understanding of the people we serve. They come to CAI from a range of fields including education, management, finance, corporate governance, and law (brief bios below).

Dozens of highly qualified individuals had expressed interest to serve on CAI’s Board over the last year. A majority of CAI’s Board members are from, or have lived, worked, traveled, or have extensive knowledge about Afghanistan and Pakistan, the primary regions that CAI serves.

“CAI has always been a small group of devoted, mission-centric individuals doing extraordinary work,” co-founder Greg Mortenson said. “We are excited, honored, and grateful to have such a high caliber Board of Directors, who will provide the independent expertise necessary to fulfill our mission as we move forward.”

Greg Mortenson and CAI have worked with communities in the mountainous, remote, and often war-wracked areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1996 to establish over 300 educational and community support initiatives, including literacy centers, school buildings, vocational centers, scholarship programs, and public health (potable water, midwifery, and disaster-relief) initiatives.

At the conclusion of the meeting, new board member Steve Barrett commented, “CAI’s future is bright. We will continue to build on the important accomplishments of CAI in promoting education, especially for girls, with the communities we serve.”

Steve Barrett is a native Montanan and worked as a lawyer in Bozeman for more than 35 years, first with Kirwan & Barrett and for the last several years of counsel with the firm of CrowleyFleck, PLLP. Steve recently concluded a seven-year term on the Board of Regents of the Montana University System where he served as Vice Chair and Chair. Steve was previously general counsel, senior vice president and CEO of Video Lottery Technologies, Inc (formerly NASDQ VLTS). He has also served on several nonprofit Boards, including Eagle Mount and Big Sky Owners Association. Steve earned his BS from Montana State University and his JD from Pepperdine University School of Law.

Talat Khan is a retired teacher and philanthropist. Talat taught Chemistry at PECHS College for Women, Karachi for 13 years before emigrating to the U.S where she obtained a teaching credential and continued teaching Chemistry in San Francisco public schools for 23 years. More recently, Talat has developed and sponsored several educational and community initiatives in Pakistan including: classroom expansions, library materials, the “One Laptop Per Child” program, scholarship, and food programs.

Farid Senzai is a Fellow and the Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU). He is also Assistant Professor of Political Science at Santa Clara University. Farid was previously a research associate at the Brookings Institution, where he studied U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, and a research analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as a consultant for Oxford Analytica and the World Bank. He is currently on the advisory board of The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. His recent co-authored book is “Educating the Muslims of America” (Oxford University Press, 2009). Farid received an M.A. in international affairs from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in politics and international relations from Oxford University.

Iram Shah is a global marketing executive with 20 years of experience in marketing, general management, and business development in Fortune 20 companies and has held senior executive positions in companies such as Coca Cola, BP, Quaker Oats and Zurich Financial. She has worked and lived in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. Iram received her MBA degree in finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and attended postgraduate programs at Harvard and Kellogg Business Schools. She has won the Asian Jewel Award for business professionals and was included in the list of ‘Power 100’ Asians in UK in 2005.

Howard Slayen has over 35 years of professional services and financial operating management experience working in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and tax advisory for private equity firms, middle market operating companies, venture-backed technology companies, and multi-national conglomerates. For 30 years, Howard was with one of the major international accounting and professional services firms holding a number of management and leadership positions at both the national and regional level. Most recently, he has served on a number of boards of directors for public, private and nonprofit organizations. Howard holds an A.B. in Economics from Claremont McKenna and a J.D. from U.C. Berkeley (Boalt). He is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive) and attorney (inactive) in the State of California.

Peter Thatcher is a retired international finance and management executive. Early in his career he spent nearly two years in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. He studied Middle Eastern history during summers at Harvard University, and earned an M.A. in food research at Stanford University in 1966. His career included living in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Cairo, Egypt, Moscow, and Vladivostok, Russia. In Washington, DC, he worked for the US Agency for International Development as Senior Agribusiness Advisor for the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. In Bozeman, Peter served at both the College of Agriculture and the Engineering Research Center.

John E. “Jed” Williamson is the Past President of Sterling College in Vermont and of the American Alpine Club. He was on the faculty of the U. of New Hampshire from 1973 to 1982. In retirement, he serves as a consultant in education and outdoor pursuits and specializes in quality, risk management, and accreditation reviews. He has been the editor of “Accidents in North American Mountaineering” since 1974 and is the co-author of the Association for Experiential Education’s Accreditation Standards for Adventure Programs. He has been a director, program director, and instructor for U.S. Outward Bound, Executive Director of the United States Biathlon Association, and has served on several nonprofit Boards. Jed received his B.A. in English Lit. and his M. Ed from the University of New Hampshire.

CAI Board Chairman Dr. Abdul Jabbar, professor of literature from City College San Francisco, and CAI Board member Karen McCown, who started two schools in the San Francisco Bay area, and is also the founder of Six Seconds, an emotional intelligence training organization, will remain on the CAI Board until spring 2013.

- Central Asia Institute

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July 18, 2012: ‘They are the lucky ones’

KABUL, Afghanistan – The 11-year-old girl who lies to her parents about where she is going for two hours every afternoon. The 50-year-old war widow who says it is never too late to learn to read and write. And the 20-year-old teacher determined to share her education with the women in her neighborhood.

These are three of the 45 women who fill the temporary classroom set up in the teacher’s east Kabul home. Their goal is to learn to read and write – attaining the equivalent of a third-grade education – over the span of the nine-month Central Asia Institute literacy class.

“These girls and women, they are the lucky ones,” the teacher says. “They have a chance for education and they are most interested. But we must encourage them because it is hard work.”

It is but one of the dozens of projects photographer Erik Petersen and I have visited since arriving in Afghanistan last month. Accompanied by CAI program directors, we have fought the insane Kabuli traffic, driven endless hours through breathtaking mountains, and traipsed along narrow footpaths to visit CAI projects in Kabul, Logar, Parwan, Kapisa, Wardak, and Badakhshan provinces.

Over endless cups of tea, boiled mutton, salt tea with curdled goat’s milk, and heaping plates of Kabuli pilau, we have talked to community leaders, teachers and students about the role of education in Afghanistan’s future and what CAI can do to help. We have seen CAI community schools under construction and those that date back to CAI’s early days in Afghanistan established after 9/11. And we have visited women’s literacy and vocational centers, all full to bursting with girls and women eager to garner the skills – reading, writing, sewing, math – to improve their lives.

In a country where at least 70 percent of the population is illiterate and the average person earns only a little more than $500 a year, according to the World Bank, there is no shortage of need here.

Security concerns, meanwhile, are a constant, as pervasive of the question of where to charge our electronic gizmos – phones, camera batteries, computers – that keep us in touch. CAI folks often say, “It’s complicated.” And given the power struggles being waged in anticipation of the withdrawal of US/NATO troops in 2014, it seems things in Afghanistan are more complicated than ever.

Yet even with deteriorating security, the consistent refrain is that education is the only path to a better future for this war-weary country. Elders, teachers, students, parents – they all know the power of education. As CAI co-founder Greg Mortenson says, “War destroys people’s families, homes, livelihoods. But no one can take away a person’s education – it remains theirs forever.”
And the Afghan people seem to know that intuitively – including the courageous and happy 11-year-old girl at CAI’s sponsored literacy center who every day risks her parents’ wrath in order to learn to read and write.

As always, the people of this country inspire me beyond words.

QUOTE: Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. – Margaret Fuller

— Karin Ronnow

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June 28, 2012: Preserving Balti history and culture

SKARDU, Baltistan, Pakistan – Verdant vines nearly covered the entry to the unassuming building set in a garden bursting with late-spring blooms.

Muhammad Yousuf Hussainabadi ducked beneath the vines, pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the porch. He pulled out a set of keys, opened two heavy padlocks and swung open another door.

He flipped the light switch and sighed. “No electricity,” he said.

But the midday light from the window was enough to reveal his treasure: a storage room crammed full of Balti artifacts.

Dozens of antique apricot-oil-burning lamps hung from the ceiling. Massive clay and metal urns and were piled on the floor. In between were shelves filled with soldier kits, brass bowls, ancient clay joints and pipes, a piece of the last king of Baltistan’s fountain and four different kinds of wooden rat traps.

“This is a Buddha that is 2000 years old,” he said, turning over the statue. “The writing on the back shows it is from the fifth and sixth centuries. A friend in Khapalu found it.

“And this is a bow made of horn,” he said, reaching for an item against a wall in the shadows. “Horn has much flexibility.”

The 64-year-old Balti historian and retired educator is proud of his collection.

“I have spent five years collecting artifacts in villages, shops, from individuals – all means were used by me,” he said. “Even this morning I have gotten one artifact.”

His determined efforts to find items that tell the stories of his homeland have yielded 1,606 artifacts – ancient pottery, metalwork, jewelry, carvings, clothing, architectural remnants, agricultural tools and implements of stone, clay, leather, horn, and wood – plus 36 handwritten books and 24 historical papers.

Now he wants to share it with others. He hopes to build an education and cultural center here in the village that is also his namesake, Hussainabad, east of Skardu.

“This will be the most comprehensive collection in Gilgit-Baltistan,” said Hussainabadi, a published author and founder of the Jinnah School, a prestigious private school in Skardu. “It will be a complete museum, a very good research center.

“I am an educator and this is part of my struggle for education and preservation of culture,” he said.

History and education
Former Central Asia Institute Board Chairwoman Julia Bergman is one of Hussainabadi’s biggest fans. (Central Asia Institute is not providing funds for the center, but recognizes the value of his efforts and the role such a center could play in the education of children and adults.) She met him on a trip to Baltistan in 1999 to help set up a CAI-funded library in his Jinnah School.

During that trip, Bergman also learned from CAI teachers “that they had nothing in their curriculum related to Balti history and culture,” she recalled. “Most of them had never read about or visited important historical sites, such as the Mantal Buddha or Karpucho Fort.”

When she told Hussainabadi about this, he arranged several tours of historical sights and antique shops around Skardu to familiarize Bergman with the region’s rich history and the fate of many of its artifacts.

“I was distressed to see so many beautiful Balti artifacts for sale,” she said. “In one shop I heard voices in a back room, behind a curtain. They were speaking in German, which I also speak. They were talking about pieces of carved wood, removed from the window and door of an old Balti house. They were excited about the carvings and said, ‘We can sell these in Düsseldorf for a fortune!’

“I was shocked. Hussainabadi then (told) me that Pathan traders from the Peshawar area traveled all the way up to Baltistan with shiny new aluminum water kettles, went into the villages and traded the kettles for old Balti artifacts, and then sold the artifacts in the Skardu bazaar. Who were their customers? Members of high-altitude climbing expeditions from all over the world.”

Mountaineers and trekkers are significant contributors to Baltistan’s economy. The region contains the loftiest peaks of the Karakoram Mountains, including the world’s second-highest mountain, K2 (28,251 feet), Gasherbrum I (26,470 feet), and Broad Peak (26,401 feet). It is also home to three of the world’s longest glaciers outside the Polar Regions – Biafo, Baltoro, and Batur. Local men work as high-altitude porters, jeep drivers, cooks, and guides.

But the idea that these and other visitors were scooping up the historical artifacts of the region was more than a little disconcerting to Bergman, whose involvement with the project today exists independent of CAI.

Shop owners and collectors “have swept away all precious and valuable objects paying very cheap prices,” Hussainabadi later wrote to Bergman in an e-mail. “Neither our government nor any NGO has so far practically done anything to establish a museum and save the remnants of Balti history and culture.”

So he decided to do it himself.

Buddhism to bling
Hussainabadi’s collection covers many, many years of Baltistan’s rich but largely peaceful history.

Modern-day Baltistan, like the rest of Pakistan, is populated by Muslims, but Baltis are of Tibetan origin, and for centuries practiced Buddhism. Tibet invaded Baltistan in the sixth century and later conquered Brushal (modern Gilgit), annexing these to the Tibetan empire, according to visitbaltistan.com.

“Tibetan influence can be seen in (Baltistan’s) architecture, where houses with flat roof(s), painted white and sloping inwards are built,” according to Wikipedia.

Carved Buddhist symbols – yung drung (a swastika-like symbol) and lotus flowers – can still be found on wooden planks and beams in mosques, houses, and public buildings. The indigenous culture includes some Buddhist rituals, the local language is called Balti Tibetan and the region is commonly referred to as “Little Tibet.”

In fact, Hussainabadi’s scholarly endeavors include adding four new letters to the Tibetan script to create Yige, a complete alphabet for the Balti language. And his collection includes many artifacts from that time in Balti history. The oldest items in his collection were found during the excavation of a Buddhist monastery in Shigar Valley.

However, “little remains of the pre-Islamic Buddhist culture of Baltistan, largely destroyed and supplaced (sic) by the dominant Punjabi and Persian culture which arrived with Islam,” Wikipedia noted.

But Hussainabadi is determined that his Baltistan Education and Cultural Center will show visitors the arc of history, from the demise of Tibetan power in the 11th century, when Baltistan came under the control of the rajas (ruling landlords) from leading families in the independent valley states, to the 15th century, when Iranian scholars brought Islam to the region and Baltis converted en mass to the Nurbakhshi order of Islamic Sufism.

In the 19th century, Baltistan was overtaken by the “despotic” Kashmiri Dogra rulers and annexed to Kashmir. That lasted until 1947, when the British divided India and created Pakistan.

Through it all, the isolation of the Karakoram Mountains ensured that Baltistan “developed and preserved its unique history, cultural values and traditional political identity,” according to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization in the Netherlands.

And Hussainabadi’s collection tells those stories. Old snowshoes hang on the wall near his assortment of local guns – rifles and pistols mostly made of wood. A large set of brass and wooden spoons evoke images of everyday meals, while the jewelry and decorative items are reminders of the ubiquitous human desire for ornamentation.

The smell of mothballs filled the porch as Hussainabadi untied and then unrolled a scarf containing silver necklaces and bracelets dotted with gemstones. Raw silver was likely brought from elsewhere, but the gemstones are local.

“But these were for the rich people,” he said. “For the poor people, the common people, such items were made of brass.”

An old doorway leaning against the wall tells another story.

“Researchers can use doorways to show many things – the art of carving, carpenter skills, the height of people, the culture of those days,” he said. “I have tried to show a complete picture of everything, material-wise, design-wise, and size-wise.”

The building
The jewelry, along with the ancient coins and keys, are among the smallest items he has acquired. The largest item is a storage vessel, a huge urn, which he keeps at his home in Skardu.

“That will have to be installed before the building is complete,” as it is too large to fit through a doorway, he said.
He then unrolled the architect’s “map,” or blueprints, for the Baltistan Education and Cultural Center, which will be built here in his elaborate garden overlooking the Indus River.

The existing building will be torn down and replaced with a 2,115-square-foot building with a 60×24 hall and an “office cum library,” he said. Cinderblocks, made in Skardu town and brought to the property for curing, are already stacked between flowering bushes at the edge of the property.

The center will be privately owned, registered with the government and managed by a board of directors, Hussainabadi said. It will be open to “all the students and public of Baltistan and all the tourists of the world, including the domestic Pakistani tourists, visiting Skardu.”

Bergman said she intends to contribute the Balti artifacts she collected during her travels. And Susan Roth, illustrator of “Listen to the Wind,” will donate much of her original artwork to the museum.

That all these items will finally have a proper home is exciting, Bergman said.

“Over many trips to Baltistan for teacher training and ongoing library projects” Bergman worked with two associates and the CAI teachers to create a “Balti Workbook.” “I have always felt that the workbook should be combined with field trips to historic sites, and to a cultural center or museum so the students could also see the things and places related to the fascinating story of their extraordinary homeland.

“I have thought about this very important project for 13 years and will do everything I can to be there for the dedication.”

Most of the items have already been catalogued, Hussainabadi said, pulling from his briefcase a 16-page single-spaced list of artifacts. His next big chore will be writing the descriptions, a chore he expects will take about a year. He hopes to do that while the building is being constructed.

— Karin Ronnow

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June 24, 2012 – CAI teacher, village mullah killed for supporting girls’ education

With heavy hearts and immeasurable sadness we deliver news that militants have killed a CAI teacher and a high-ranking local mullah, who was also part of provincial leadership.

These two men risked and gave their lives to promote literacy and girls’ education in their Afghan village. Our prayers, condolences and support go to the widows, families and communities of these brave men. The Arabic words that Muslims use upon hearing of anyone’s death are, “Inna Lillahe wa inna eleihe rajioon.” In English, the words mean, “We are from Allah, and to Allah return.”

Afghan authorities are still investigating the murders, but witnesses have told CAI that non-local militants deliberately targeted the two men for death. The militants lured the men outside the village, conducted a short illegal tribunal, charged them both with spying for the Afghan government, and then brutally and summarily executed them. The men left behind two widows and 14 children.

Wakil Karimi, our Afghanistan program manager, and CAI were notified almost immediately after the tragedy. However, we wanted to ensure the men’s families were safe and supported before sharing this story. Afghan authorities have asked that the men’s names not be released until their investigation is complete.

CAI has had a long relationship with both men. We shared their joy in the early days, as they encouraged families to send their daughters to school in the mullah’s house, and then to a tent school. We shared their duas (prayer blessings) and excitement during groundbreaking for the new school and when the new school building opened for classes.

The school faced threats over the years, but the village shura (elders) and the mullah negotiated with the local militants not to harm the students or the school. Only recently, with the influx of non-local militants who have disrupted civil society in the area, did this tragedy unfold.

There are no words to adequately express the grief that CAI’s family in the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan feels over the loss of these men. Even though our overseas staff come from different countries, various Islamic sects, and multiple tribal and ethnic affiliations, we have all taken time to offer prayers and pledged to help the families in the future, including scholarships for the men’s children.

It would have been understandable if the community had opted to close the school or sever their ties with CAI to avoid further reprisals. But villagers have instead insisted that girls’ education will continue and that the men will not have died in vain. They have asked for a new teacher and CAI’s continued support. We will do everything in our power to honor that request.

If and when the time is right, and with permission from the families, CAI will release the names of the murdered teacher and mullah. In the meantime, please take a moment of silence to remember our friends, and, if you are inclined, please remember their families in your prayers.

Blessings of peace.

QUOTE: “When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him lies on the paths of men.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

— Greg Mortenson

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June 20, 2012 – Summertime is CAI’s busy season

Today marks the official start of summer in the northern hemisphere. For us here at Central Asia Institute, the summer solstice (a word derived from the Latin word for sun, “sol,” and to stand still, “sistere,”) is also a reminder that time is flying by and the too-short Central Asia travel and building season is well under way.

The to-do list both stateside and overseas is especially long this year. Here in Montana, we’re working with seven new members of our Board of Directors; providing details for the independent financial audit; exhibiting at the National Education Association Expo in Washington, D.C.; and managing the constant flow of questions, requests, and reporting from overseas.

In the midst of all this, CAI’s Co-founder Greg Mortenson took time to write a letter to CAI supporters from Skardu a few weeks ago and the response has been terrific – thank you, shukria, tashakur.

I spent a month traveling with Greg in Pakistan, a journey that included his return to the mountain communities in Baltistan where he started his work all those years ago. It was a memorable trip in so many ways and one that will be well documented in the 2012 Journey of Hope. Yet it was just one of five overseas trips I will make this year. Being a go-between – or a “bridge,” as Executive Director Anne Beyersdorfer calls me – between our two worlds is a challenging yet invigorating responsibility. I wear many hats in this capacity, but my favorite role is that of reporter, collecting stories, asking questions, and learning something new every day.

Yet there is no denying that the state of affairs in Pakistan and Afghanistan grows more complicated by the day. The 2014 deadline for the drawdown of NATO troops in Afghanistan has already triggered increased militant activity – ranging from intimidation to outright murder – in some of the areas where CAI works and the resultant anxiety in many of these areas is palpable.

I read constantly to keep up with developments in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. The news stories keep me current. The books round it all out. Anne suggested I come up with a summertime reading list for anyone interested in expanding their familiarity with and education about the region where CAI works.

We regularly post news links to the left of this communique, but here are links to a few stories published in recent days that merit a read:
Taliban blocks vaccinations in Pakistan | NY Times
Pakistan power-cut riots spread | Guardian
Political instability rises as Pakistani court ousts prime minister | NY Times
Four Pakistani journalists murdered in a month | Guardian blog
Afghanistan is leading source of refugees | Reuters AlertNet
Afghanistan needs $7 billion in aid after Western pullout | Reuters News Service
In Afghanistan, a mother bravely campaigns for president | CNN

As for books, well, it’s hard to pick just a few. With public interest in the region at what seems like an all-time high, the list of published titles just keeps growing. Here are the titles and synopses, cribbed from goodreads.com, of a few of the books that I particularly liked:
Pakistan:

• “Where the Indus is Young: Walking to Baltistan,” by Dervla Murphy. Nonfiction (1978). The Irish adventure-travel writer and her 6-year-old daughter, accompanied by a pony, walk into the Karakoram Mountains of northern Pakistan one winter, a journey that takes them into “the frozen heart of the Western Himalayas and along the perilous Indus Gorge,” goodreads.com says. The mother-daughter travelers “encountered conditions that tested the limits of their ingenuity, endurance, and courage” in this story described as “hair-raising, gloriously subjective, and with the quirky vitality of fiction.”

• “The Wandering Falcon,” by Jamil Ahmad. Fiction (2011). “The rich dramatic tones of a master storyteller” reveal from the inside the “stunning, honor-bound culture” of Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, an “unimaginably remote region, a geopolitical hotbed of conspiracies, drone attacks and conflict,” according to goodreads.com. “Ahmad has written an unforgettable portrait of a world of customs and compassion, of love and cruelty, of hardship and survival, a place fragile, unknown and unforgiving.”

• “Pakistani Bride,” by Bapsi Sidhwa. Fiction (2008). Sidhwa’s novel of women, tribal and contemporary politics tells the story of Zaitoon, a woman reared in Lahore, Paksitan, and promised in marriage to a man of her adopted father’s isolated tribe. “Giving up the civilized city life … to become the bride of this hard, inscrutable husband proves traumatic to the point where she decides to run away, though she knows that by the tribal code the punishment for such an act is death,” goodreads.com says.

Afghanistan:

• “The Sewing Circles of Herat,” by Christina Lamb. Nonfiction (2004). Back in the 1980s, news reporter Lamb left her suburban England home to spend two years “tracking the final stages of the mujahideen victory over the Soviets” in Afghanistan, according to goodreads.com. Captivated by the country, she returned after 9/11 and “discovered the people no one else had written about: the abandoned victims of almost a quarter century of war. Among them, the brave women writers of Herat who risked their lives to carry on a literary tradition under the guise of sewing circles; the princess whose palace was surrounded by tanks on the eve of her wedding; the artist who painted out all the people in his works to prevent them from being destroyed by the Taliban; and … a former Taliban torturer who admitted to breaking the spines of men and then making them stand on their heads.”

• “Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep,” by Siba Shakib. Nonfiction (2001). The Russians leveled her village in 1979, the men in the family joined the resistance, and Shirin-Gol fled with the women and children to Kabul and a Pakistani refugee camp. Her story – “told truthfully and with unflinching detail” – includes “being forced into a marriage to pay off her brother’s gambling debts, selling her body and begging for the money to feed her growing family, [and] an attempted suicide,” and parallels the fate of many Afghan women, especially during the Taliban years, goodreads.com says. “The moving story of a proud woman, a woman who did not want to be banished to a life behind the walls of her house or told how to dress, who wanted an education for her children so that they could have a chance at a future without fear and poverty.”

We at CAI do believe that the future of the people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan is intertwined with our own. We are all more alike than we are different.

SWEDISH PROVERB: “A life without love is like a year without summer.”

— Karin Ronnow

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June 11, 2012 – Fire destroys school in far northeast Afghanistan

A nighttime gasoline-fueled fire destroyed a boys’ and girls’ school in remote Badakhshan Province Wednesday, according to Janagha Jaheed, Central Asia Institute’s field director for northeast Afghanistan.

No one was injured in the blaze at the Malangab School, which CAI had been planning to expand this year. The government school is in the central Baharak district of the mountainous province.

The fire was started “by unknown people,” Mahbobullah, assistant principal of the school, told Janagha, adding that he and some other community leaders believe the Taliban was responsible, “but the Taliban did not accept or reject it.”

“The fire started at 9:40 p.m.,” Mahbobullah said. “The building was showered by petrol from the wooden roof and inside some classes and then” set ablaze.

“When the villagers became aware of this burning at around 10:30, they came to (extinguish) the fire altogether,” the assistant principal continued. “But it was very difficult to stop the fire because it was nighttime and there were no facilities like water pump or firefighters. So the people collected some tools and carried water to stop the fire. Unfortunately, they could not succeed.”

The cause of the fire is being investigated by authorities from national security agencies and the education department, Janagha said.

The nine-classroom school in Baharak district has 643 girls and 682 boys who were studying in two shifts, Mahbobullah said. The school serves children from nine surrounding villages.

“Already there was shortage of classrooms and we needed another new school building beside this one,” Mahbobullah said. “But right now, as unfortunately this building is totally damaged due to this fire, all our students face much more problems.”

The next morning, the district governor gathered representatives of all NGOs based in Baharak in his office, Janagha said.

“Then he took them to the school, which was still burning. He and many of the villagers and community leaders requested from all the NGOs, especially CAI, to help and support this school as soon as possible,” he said.

“They said they hope Marco Polo [a local nonprofit created by CAI] and CAI will help their innocent children at this moment. If these students are not helped urgently, they will be dismissed and as a result they will fail the midterm exams, which are near. If that happens it will be a big hurdle for the education of these students,” Janagha said.

Badakhshan, one of the most difficult areas of Afghanistan to access, was long considered one of the safest parts of the war-torn country. In recent years, however, militants have established a foothold in the province, leading to increasingly frequent battles with the Afghan National Army, provincial border police and security forces.

“The security situation in Badakhshan – especially in Warduj area, where we have schools – is getting worse day by day,” Janagha said in May. “Taliban have been killed and injured in the fighting, but also border police. Some Taliban have been arrested. But fortunately all our schools are safe and active.”

QUOTE: “Unless we teach our children peace, someone else will teach them violence.” – Colman McCarthy

— Karin Ronnow

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June 8, 2012 – Shakeela – Empowered through education

KHAPALU, Pakistan – Shakeela grew up in Hushe village in Baltistan, an impoverished village at about 10,000 feet altitude in northern Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountains. Hushe, the last village at the northern end of Hushe Valley, which is situated south of Masherbrum peak (25,659 ft), and the south entrance to the Gondogoro Pass (18,634 feet), which leads to Concordia and K2 (28,253 feet).

Masherbrum peak is a stunning massif. It dominates the Hushe Valley, and was first climbed in 1960 by the late Willi Unsoeld, and two CAI supporters, expedition leader Nick Clinch and the late George Bell.

Shakeela is one of three daughters of Aslam, who is the first educated person in Hushe Valley.

When Aslam was growing up, there was no school in Hushe, so his father walked him two days to the riverbank near Khapalu village (also spelled Haphlu, Khaphlu, and other spellings), put him on an inverted goat skin float, handed him a sack of coins, said a prayer, and told Aslam he was on his own. When Aslam arrived in Khapalu with sheep skin boots and hide jacket, other kids taunted him. But he was determined to obey his father and get an education.

Now, Aslam is a respected Hushe elder and chief forest and conservation officer in the region, facilitating the government and many NGO efforts to establish the Karakoram National Park.

When I first met Shakeela in 1997, she was the oldest female in a dilapidated, crumbling government school in Hushe. CAI established a school in Hushe in 1998, and since then has worked in collaboration with the government to run the school.

Although the school has faced challenges, contrary to media allegations, the school has been running for 14 years, and has produced dozens of high school graduates and a handful of college and master’s degree graduates. Today, there are 153 students attending Hushe Community School.

Shakeela was the top student in her class and, following in her father’s footsteps, went to Khapalu to complete her high school degree, becoming the first female from Hushe to finish high school.

CAI supported Shakeela to attend two more years of school in Khapalu, and extensive maternal health training in Lahore. She then returned to her native Baltistan to start practicing. She took a brief time off to have her first child, and then hired on with the government, which was eager to hire a highly qualified and trained maternal health-care worker to work in rural Baltistan.

She has worked for the past year as a maternal health-care provider in the northern part of Thallay Valley, a remote valley between Skardu and Khapalu. According to her records, in the past eight months, Shakeela has delivered 51 babies, without a single mother or child dying. This is significant in a region where the maternal mortality rate (deaths per live births) is exceptionally high.

Of the 51 babies, Shakeela says about 10 deliveries were complicated by extensive bleeding, retained placenta, and prolonged labor. Often, Shakeela had to improvise or walk to remote houses when the woman could not make it by foot to her clinic. Shakeela works alone to deliver the babies in a one-room clinic that has occasional electricity, but no phone, and few outside resources.

For this coming winter, Shakeela has asked CAI to facilitate her attending a three- to four-month intensive ultrasound training session, and a one-month medical computer-training course in Islamabad. She says the ultrasound will be especially helpful to detect CPD (cephalo-pelvic disproportion), and get the pregnant women in this situation to a hospital before entering labor to facilitate the delivery.

Shakeela also asked for CAI’s help finding someone to donate a good ultrasound machine to her clinic, as the government may not provide her with one due to lack of funding.

There are significant health care problems and diseases in Baltistan, she said. In the Thalle area those include: pneumonia, tuberculosis, typhoid, heartburn, urinary tract infections, anemia, malnutrition, rickets (lack of vitamin D), intestinal worms, hepatitis, eye and ear infections, cataracts, and skin diseases like scabies and shingles. Some diseases common one or two decades ago, like polio and vitamin A blindness have been significantly reduced due to effective immunization programs by the Pakistan government, WHO, UNICEF and Red Crescent Society (Islamic equivalent of Red Cross).

Aslam, Shakeela and I met for tea on June 4, which because of a religious holiday, gave Shakeela a rare day off from work.

Aslam said, “I wanted Shakeela to be a teacher instead of health care worker, so she would not have to work so hard, and get messy with deliveries and dealing with sick people. However, she was very stubborn and made sure her lifelong ambition to work in health care was realized.

“I also thought Shakeela might want to stay in the city and have an easy job and make a lot of money. But as soon as she graduated, she returned home to Baltistan, to work and serve our people,” he continued.

“When I realized that my daughter was intelligent and brighter than her brothers in school, our family put all our resources into helping her, and I could not be prouder of all she has achieved,” her father said.

Aslam also added, “We are thankful for CAI’s patience and support for such a long time. Fourteen years ago CAI planted the seed and helped Hushe with a school. Now the tree has grown, and there is fruit on the tree since Shakeela has completed her training.”

I had not seen Shakeela in several years, and she said she prayed a lot when she heard of my major heart problems last year, “I’m so happy to see that your heart has been fixed, and that Allah has made you healthy, strong and happy so you can continue your important work here.”

Shakeela said she believes the best way to improve health care in the region is to help build the government’s resources, with improving clean drinking water, hygiene, and public-health initiatives and awareness.

“Wealthy people can afford private doctors and clinics, but most people here in Baltistan are very poor and have little access to health care,” she said. “There are several NGOs working in the area, and some clever local people try to make money off the NGOs, but do not really serve the poor people.

“It will take a long time, but if NGOs can work with the government, the results will be more sustainable and successful,” she said.

— Greg Mortenson

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June 4, 2012 – Field Report from Karin Ronnow (2-June-2012)

Salaam from Skardu. All’s well on this end.

I have just returned from Hushe-side with Taha (Korphe chief), Baqir, and our driver, Daoud. We had a cold, rainy drive that concluded with the most intense wind-sand storm I’ve ever seen. It was like a blizzard, but with sand rather than snow. And sand hurts. This was east of Skardu, in the “desert.” Daoud had to stop the jeep three or four times because he couldn’t see the road in front of us. Wild.

We visited Daughoni and Daltri schools in the Thallay Valley Thursday. Both schools are doing quite well, with bright kids, hard-working education committees and dedicated teachers. Also, more classrooms are under construction at Daughoni now that a community member has agreed to donate a piece of land adjacent to the original school. The communities each prepared huge receptions for Dr. Greg. Daughoni is the home of Ghulam, the “triple-load porter” who is a good friend of Greg’s, so it was yet another reunion. Many, many cups of tea.

We overnighted in Khapalu, where three Hushe elders joined us. On Friday morning, we piled into two jeeps and headed up the Hushe Valley. We went through Talis (where the floods devastated the entire village in 2010 and 2011; massive reconstruction work under way there) to Marzigon. There we inaugurated the school that I saw under construction in 2009. It, too, is doing really well. The community has even recruited a female teacher from Skardu, Shahida, who has a bachelor’s in English. The inauguration ceremony went on for a couple of hours, complete with a loudspeaker system, a brief rain shower, lots of singing and cheering and speeches.

After an amazing lunch, we parted ways. I came back to Skardu. Greg and the rest of the crew piled into the other jeep and headed on to Kanday and then Hushe. Their plan is for a big celebration/reunion in Hushe this weekend. My plan, inshallah, is to fly to Islamabad, homeward bound.

Now that I am leaving (or at least am scheduled to leave), there’s a steady stream of requests for help with sick family members, arthritic elders, scholarships, housing, food … the need is endless.

But I’ve learned so much traveling with Greg, watching him interact with old friends, make new acquaintances, greet the students and teachers and elders – and much of it in the Balti language. He’s in his element here and I feel privileged to be along to help tell the story.

— Karin Ronnow

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May 29, 2012 – Work begins on Broghil School in Hindu Kush Mountains

GILGIT-BALTISTAN, Pakistan – When the long winter finally began to loosen its grip in the Hindu Kush Mountains at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in May, work began on the second phase of Central Asia Institute’s Broghil School project.

“We rented yaks, donkeys, and horses to take building materials from the end of the road 20 kilometers north to the village,” Fazil Baig, Ghizar & Gupis District Manager, said of the remote area near the Broghil Pass. “It took one week to move all materials.”

The project got its start when village leader Mastal Muhammad Aziz met CAI’s Pakistan field manager Sarfraz Khan and requested help building a community school. Sarfraz passed along the request to Fazil, who worked out a plan to build an eight-room high school to replace a crumbling two-room community school.

“Broghil has many, many problems,” Fazil said. “Nothing is there. It is wild place. They cannot even imagine education and health care. This is the last village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and it is very much ignored, more ignored than even Chapursan,” Fazil’s home region east of Broghil.

“We say we have nothing in Chapursan. But when we go Broghil we realize we are in better position than they are. The area is closed four to six months due to snowfall. The altitude is near to 14,000 feet. Nothing grows there, only a kind of oats that grow 6 to 10 inches tall only. It is very hard to go there easily. If you try to go to Broghil, you think you are going wrong. After Mastuj, you only hope you are going the right way,” he said.

Logistical complications also include a short building season. “Winter is very long and in winter impossible anybody can go there,” Sarfraz said.

To speed things along once the snow melted, Fazil moved the building materials to a winter storage location outside of the village last fall. That was phase one.

Then in May, phase two involved shifting the materials from the winter storage location up to the school site. The rented four-legged beasts of burden were loaded with bags of cement, wood, iron bar and metal sheet for the roof.

Meanwhile, in the village, workers had begun the prep work for phase three: excavating the school site, making the mud bricks and choosing stones for the foundation. The day after the materials were delivered, it snowed again. But for these mountain people, snow is “no problem.” They simply carried on with the work, determined to give their children a school and hope for a better future.

The school has the potential to change the lives of hundreds of boys and girls. Broghil is made up of several settlements with a total of about 250 households. “The school is in the middle of the area, in the central valley area,” Fazil said.

The people are mostly Ismaili Muslims – many of them migrated from Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor and Badakhshan Province during the Taliban years of the late 1990s – with some Sunni Muslims in the valley, Sarfraz said.

“People told us that so many Broghil people are hoping and waiting for CAI’s help,” Fazil said. “Inshallah it will be completed in July. Afterwards we have to focus on this area. The need is so big it (will) never finish.”

QUOTE: “Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Work, continuous work and hard work, is the only way to accomplish results that last.” – Hamilton Holt

— Karin Ronnow

Above (from left to right): Broghil residents help load donkeys, yaks and horses with building materials. Men haul stones from the riverbed to the school site. School-age children come to watch the activity surrounding construction of their new school. Photos by Central Asia Institute.

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May 24, 2012 – “Dr. Greg” back in Baltistan

SKARDU, Pakistan – “Dr. Greg” is back in Baltistan. And his “homecoming” has been a sight to behold.

With a healthy heart, Central Asia Institute’s co-founder Greg Mortenson arrived in Baltistan this past weekend. His goals include the “one-by-one” survey of CAI projects, renewing acquaintances, and meeting with government officials, ulema (religious leaders) and, most importantly, students and teachers in CAI’s schools.

“Being back in Baltistan where this all began almost 19 years ago is an incredible, invigorating, inspirational experience,” Greg said. “It is especially exciting to see old friends and supporters who have been with us for almost two decades and the students, especially girls, whom I met when they were in kindergarten and now are grown into young women.”

Just getting to Baltistan from Islamabad, or “downcountry,” sometimes seems more difficult than climbing K2, or trying to establish a school.

Anyone hoping to fly to Skardu, the Balti capital, must fly Pakistan International Airlines, which claims to operate a daily flight to this city in the Karakoram Mountains. But equipment problems and weather (flights to Skardu only land when skies are clear) mean the flights are far less frequent. And since PIA has a monopoly on airline service to Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), it’s PIA or stay on the ground.

The other option to travel by road up the Karakoram Highway (KKH) has become a dangerous proposition. This spring, sectarian violence erupted in Kohistan, a semi-tribal area where militias and bandits often have more power than government. Shiia Muslims were pulled out of vehicles and killed. In addition, landslides frequently bring traffic to a halt in both directions. And the road itself, once the pride of Pakistan and one of the world’s great engineering feats, is in shambles.

The result is that aid workers, trekkers, climbers, scientists, gemstone dealers, doctors, businessmen and many others wind up stranded in Islamabad for days on end trying to get to Skardu, including CAI staff.

But patience is its own reward. And watching Greg re-engage with the people he has known since he began his work here in 1993 has been amazing. He’s in his element.

Greg arrived in Skardu discretely, but word that he was here spread through the bazaar and streets like wildfire. Hundreds of people came on foot, bus and jeep to pay respects and see with their own eyes that it was true – he was alive, healthy and back in Baltistan.

The first few days were bittersweet. The sense of joy is mixed with sadness as Greg has learned about the deaths and serious medical problems of friends and colleagues since his last visit. Two of his oldest friends, the driver Hussein from Sondus and retired policeman Mehdi Ali from Shigar, both suffered crippling strokes.

The joy, however, is most apparent on the school visits. And with more than three-dozen schools to visit in Baltistan, Greg and the CAI team hit the ground running.

First stop was Bagardho Thang School, aka the Nick Clinch and Pete Schoening Memorial School, a co-ed middle school built a decade ago west of Skardu on the Indus River. The six-classroom school is bursting at the seams with 152 students (90 girls and 62 boys) and the dedicated staff of six teachers was delighted with Greg’s unannounced visit.

Greg did an informal survey and found that only one of the students’ mothers was educated – a fact that reinforces his belief that education will have a profound effect on this humble farming community.

“We are proud and thankful that within one generation our females are going from being illiterate to being enrolled in school, learning to read and write,” said Basira, a sixth- and seventh-grade teacher, “All our students will make the shift from illiterate farmers to nurses, teachers and engineers.”

One girl said she’d like to be a pilot and another a policewoman – goals their mothers never dreamed of, Greg observed.

After the classroom visits, the usual green tea was served. The CAI team, including Greg, CAI’s Baltistan manager Mohammed Nazir, Apo Razaq, Fazil Baig and others discuss teachers’ and students’ progress and concerns. Ibrahim, a school administrator, said some of their main wishes were for computers (although there’s no electricity or Internet there), more library books, and repairs to the bathrooms.

One of CAI’s priorities in this region is to help communities with maintenance and upgrades of facilities, teacher training, and long-term sustainability.

“CAI schools need to have strong heart as well as strong walls,” Nazir said. “So we are happy this year that we can help improve our existing schools.”

On a windy Wednesday, the CAI crew traveled to Jafarabad Girls School, aka Jack Tackle School, in Shigar Valley. The school, started by old CAI friend Mehdi Ali in his home (he also donated the land) and now expanded to a freshly painted, two-story blue building, has become so popular that there is not enough room for all girls who want to attend. At the moment, 168 girls attend classes in 10 classrooms under the watchful eyes of nine dedicated teachers.

Mehdi, who built a reputuation as a tough but honest police inspector, came to meet Greg and the CAI team. The emotion showed on his face as he walked into the schoolyard, where all the students gave him a big round of applause. After greetings, songs and prayers, Greg visited with the students. He was especially keen to catch up with the upper-class students, whom he met when they were little girls and his joy in seeing them was matched in their willingness to sit and visit with him long after the school day ended.

The students and teachers alike asked for computers and an improved science laboratory.

Next on the ever-shifting itinerary is travel up Shigar and Braldu valley, where Greg’s plans include a visit to Korphe village, where he helped establish a school in 1996.

“This is a great day when Dr. Greg can see that the schools are strong and we all see that Dr. Greg is strong,” said Syed Ahmad Ali Shah, who donated land for Brig. Agha Primary/Qumrah School.

— Karin Ronnow

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May 15, 2012 – Afghan Pamir Kyrgyz seek move to Kyrgyzstan

Central Asia Institute (CAI) has worked for several years with the Krygyz nomadic pastoralists who live in the remote high mountain ranges of the eastern Pamir Mountains. There are an estimated 1,500-2,000 Krygyz remaining in some of the harshest living conditions in the world, where the bitter winter completely isolates the Krygyz from the rest of the world for seven to eight months a year.

Now, news reports from Kyrgyzstan indicate that the Afghan Kyrgyz are looking to relocate to Kyrgyzstan, as reported here.

They are not the first Afghan Kyrgyz to seek a way out. In 1979, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, they placed troops right up against the Chinese and Pakistan borders adjacent to Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor. This completely sealed the Kyrgyz from the outside world. The Soviet troops also started hunting rare Marco Polo sheep and ibex and took yaks and sheep from the Kyrgyz. The state of Alaska offered to take in the Kyrgyz, however the offer was cancelled at the last minute.

A Kyrgyz leader, Rahman Kul, then led more than a thousand of his people over a high mountain pass to Pakistan to seek political asylum. But the Krygyz were not well received in Gilgit, Pakistan. The heat, horrific conditions in refugee camps, and locals’ fears that the Kyrgyz nomads would compete for precious grazing grounds took a toll. Many Kyrgyz died in Pakistan. The government of Turkey then offered help, and the Kyrgyz were flown to the Anatolian plains of eastern Turkey, where they have since settled.

For the Kyrgyz who remained in the Afghan Pamir, life is extremely hard. Women make up only about one-third of the population, as so many die during childbirth or from anemia, high-altitude maladies and even starvation. In the winter, there are typhoid and diptheria epidemics when the Kyrgyz are hunkered down in their yurts. According to the Krygyz, about half of the children die before age 5. There is no electricity, communications or health care.

And they are trapped in the Pamir. The Chinese military has a shoot to kill order for any trespassers who wander over the Afghanistan-China border.

The isolation of these proud people is a big part of the reason for the estimated 80 percent illiteracy rate. CAI was asked to help the Kyrgyz by their long-time leader, Abdul Rashid Khan, who passed away in the fall of 2009 (described at the end of my book “Stones Into Schools”). His hope was that the children would have a better future with the help of education.

CAI established a school in Bozoi Gumbad in 2009, which is the only school in the entire region. Classes are conducted in the summer and fall when the roaming Kyrgyz are in the area. As there is no one there who can read and write in Dari, Arabic and Kyrgyz, CAI has to bring in teachers from far away to provide education initiatives.

Although the Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai have made several promises to help the Kyrgyz, we have not seen any evidence of government help there, except for a non-functioning old jeep that was supposed to be the health care system.

The repatriation attempt comes on the heels of one of the most severe winters in the Pamir, Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges in decades. The Kyrgyz were especially affected, and CAI field director Sarfraz Khan made a heroic mission across country lines to bring the starving and stranded Kyrgyz about four tons of food, supplies and blankets in March 2012. Read about CAI’s winter relief efforts here.

Although CAI is not involved in any efforts to repatriate the Kyrgyz, we stand by to assist them in any way with education and more. Despite all the difficulties they face, the Kyrgyz are proud, strong people who represent the triumph of the human spirit in their remarkable ability to survive in one of the harshest environments in the world.

— Greg Mortenson

CAI video of Krygyz encampment

An hour long documentary called, “The Prisoners Of The Himalaya” which features the Kyrgyz was released in spring 2012: www.theroofoftheworld.com

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April 30, 2012 – Lawsuit Dismissed, Mission Continues

Central Asia Institute is extremely pleased with the U.S. District Court ruling Monday dismissing the lawsuit against it, cofounder Greg Mortenson, writer David Oliver Relin and Penguin Group publishing.

In dismissing the suit U.S. District Court Judge Sam E. Haddon concluded:

“The case has been pending for almost a year. The Complaint before the Court is the fifth pleading filed. Plaintiffs have been accorded every opportunity to adequately plead a case, if one exists. Moreover, the imprecise, in part flimsy, and speculative nature of the claims and theories advanced underscore the necessary conclusion that further amendment would be futile. This case will be dismissed with prejudice.”

CAI is invigorated by the news. Greg is on his way overseas. Our dual mission continues unabated.
Yet, today’s good news should not take away from the tremendous amount of work still to be done. Millions of children in the world remain out of school due to war, religious extremism, discrimination, and poverty.

CAI has worked with communities in remote, mountainous, and often war-wracked regions for more than 15 years to build, supply, staff, and maintain over 180 schools and 30 vocational centers, and support an additional 56 schools, 20 literacy centers, eight scholarship programs, and 22 public health (potable water, midwifery, and disaster-relief) projects. No other NGO does what we do in these locales with such a small team of dedicated individuals.

Greg stands by the stories in his books. Please read his response to some media allegations last spring.

As always, CAI staff is available to answer any questions or concerns. info@ikat.org

— Central Asia Institute

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April 27, 2012 – Education continues despite fighting

Gov. Shah Waliyullah of northeast Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province this week honored Central Asia Institute for its educational and humanitarian work in the region.

“He handed (the certificate) to me in Faizabad and said he very much appreciated the work CAI is doing,” said Janagha Jaheed, CAI’s northeast Afghanistan field director.

The laudatory words were in Farsi (Persian). Jaheed provided this translation:

“To Central Asia Institute,
Regarding the donations and implementation of the useful and valuable projects of CAI in different fields of life – especially education and social services in Badakhshan province, which surely have very good effects on the future of Badakhshan education and social development – the Badakhshan provincial government appreciates your activities and is proud to present this certificate of appreciation. And we hope more success to CAI and its hard-working staff in the future.
Best Regards
Dr. Shah Waliyullah Adeeb
Governor of Badakhshan province”

The certificate was signed and stamped, Jaheed added.

Central and western Badakhshan have been hard hit in recent months by vicious fighting initiated by the Taliban, the Islamic Movement Uzbekistan (IMU) and militants fom North Waziristan, Pakistan. Some of the fighting is related to ideology; and some of it is tied to outside “mafias” trying to gain a foothold on opium-trafficking routes to Central Asia and Europe.

The Warduj and Kishim districts, where CAI has schools, have been frequent militant targets. Although no CAI schools have been harmed, no students or teachers attacked, the fighting and killing disrupts the learning process and frightens the children. The communities’ courage and determined support of education amid the fighting engenders our utmost respect and our thoughts and prayers are with them.

CAI has worked with local communities throughout the mountainous, impoverished province to build dozens of schools, women’s vocational centers and public-health projects. Badakhshan includes the Wakhan Corridor and Afghan Pamir.

In addition, CAI this year provided humanitarian support – food and blankets – to families suffering the effects of extreme winter weather.

QUOTE: “The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help.” – Sir Walter Scott (1771-1855)

— Karin Ronnow

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April 24, 2012 – Most of Afghanistan’s female opium addicts first use drug as medicine

Bibi Khanim first learned about opium addiction in Ishkashim, the village where she grew up in the Pamir Mountains of northeast Afghanistan.

“A religious leader brought a doctor and medicine to Ishkashim [in the 1990s] to help with opium-addicted people,” Khanim told me. “At that time I was a student and I volunteered and learned (about addiction).”

And Khanim, 32, never forgot what she learned.

More than a decade later, “12 people in Koran-wa-Monjan have stopped using opium because of Bibi Khanim,” Janagha Jaheed, CAI’s field director in northeast Afghanistan, told me recently. “She probably saved their lives.”

Khanim wears many hats. A wife and mother of four, she teaches at Central Asia Institute’s Koran-wa-Monjan school, her husband’s home village high in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Badakhshan Province. She also tutors women in basic literacy, and provides essential but simple health-care services.

“I do it to help the people. It makes me very happy,” she said. The literacy courses, especially, “bring many changes to life because without literacy, it is difficult to continue and improve your life. There are many problems it can change, but most is opium. If the women are educated, they will not get addicted.”

Afghanistan supplies more than 90 percent of the world’s opium, up from just 6 percent in 2001, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. But Afghans don’t just grow it. They use it. This war-wracked country has around 1 million heroin and opium addicts out of a population of 30 million, making it the world’s top user per capita, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Afghan women, who have little access to modern medicine or health care, represent a growing percentage of users, according to an April 1 Reuters news agency story about female addiction. The story was illustrated with a photo of a woman in Ishkashim smoking opium.

“There has been a definite increase among women drug users over the last decade,” an employee at a United Nations-funded drug rehab center in Kabul told Reuters.

Some women smoke the opium to treat a medical ailment. Others drink it in tea to ease the pain of the hard physical labor. Some use it to escape the harsh reality of extreme poverty or feelings of hopelessness. They give it to their children, even infants, to treat sickness. Entire families get addicted. The drug is cheap and readily available.

“The biggest reason for women’s addition to opium is lack of medicine and health care services in the distant and remote places like Koran-wa-Monjan,” said Mohammad Zakir, a village elder and project manager of CAI’s school. “Anytime someone gets sick, he or she cannot have access to local clinic or good health services, so they use a small piece of opium to reduce their pain for a while. And it does reduce their pain for a while. But as a result of repeatedly using opium, finally most of the women and children become addicted to it unintentionally.”

In rural areas, addiction is also often explained in the context of the region’s extremely harsh realities: Daily life is hard and redundant. Malnutrition is rampant. Winter lasts for eight months, from September through April, during which time people are essentially housebound. “There is no road, no cars, no electricity, no phones, no doctor, no medical dispensary,” Janagha said. “Many women and children die, especially during childbirth.”

One day in June 2010, I visited a smoke-filled, wood-and-mud house in Koran-wa-Monjan. Three women, three toddlers and a baby were at home; the men were working in the field and the older children were in school. Dusty rugs covered the floors; dirty bedrolls were pushed against the walls.

The women were shy of strangers, but the eldest woman, Zainalma agreed to talk. As she rocked her grandchild in a hanging crib, she said she was about 40 years old, although her rotting teeth, wrinkled face and resigned disposition made her look twice that old. “And opium,” one of the male villagers whispered to me. “She takes the opium. It makes her look old.”

She said six families lived in the two-room house – she and her husband, and the families of their four sons and one daughter. None of the adults were educated. Their daily existence was dictated by what it took to survive: wake up with the sun, pray, prepare breakfast, work outside until sun sets, pray, work at home, cook, and sleep.

The family does not have enough food, she said, and subsists largely on milk tea and bread. She also ticked off a list of physical ailments that she said bother her constantly: cough, stomachache, headache, body ache.

Such an anguished existence, even hopelessness, makes people like Zainalma even more susceptible to drug abuse and addiction.

Mulvi Abdul Wahid, chief of CAI’s Qurashi School in Darayem, said the repercussions of opium use and abuse ripple throughout society. “It has many, many bad effects for our society, especially for women and children. Sometimes it even takes children away from going to school.”

Opium is still a popular crop in Darayem, although most farmers struggle with the fact that it is “forbidden in Islam,” he said. But they have few choices, given “the bad economic situation of our people and lack of good support for the farmers.”

“No good and standard seeds are prepared for the farmers, no tractors and machinery tools are available. No one pays attention to the farmers. So the outcome of opium – compared to wheat or barley or other seeds – is better for the farmers. They are compelled to cultivate it and it ruins their lives.

“This year it is being cultivated more than last year and still it is not clear whether the government will remove (the plants) or not. Anyway, if it is removed without any kind of support to the farmers, it will be very dangerous and the people will fight for keeping their hauls.”

Toshi Boi, an elder in Sarhad village at the end of the road in the Wakhan Corridor, was himself an opium addict for several years before he and two other local men took advantage of a rehabilitation program in Pakistan.

Since getting clean, he has denounced the use of opium in his family and his village and waged a campaign to rid the entire Wakhan of opium peddlers.

He said the mujahideen pushed opium during the 1980s and 1990s. People got hooked and, as time went on, became so desperate that they resorted to selling their land, and even women and children, to support their habits.

Fighting back against the dealers is part of the solution, he said. So is helping farmers with alternative crops. In Sarhad, he got villagers to pool the money they would have spent on opium and bought a communal tractor. The vehicle allows farmers to transport other cash crops and livestock to market relatively quickly, reducing the arduous weeklong trek by foot to one or two days.

But, like Khanim, Boi said the solution ultimately lies in education.

“Education is most important now,” he said. “When you have no maktab (school), when you have no education, you are blind, you have no eyes. When you have education, you can see.”

QUOTE: “In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country.” – Aldous Huxley

— Karin Ronnow

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April 18, 2012 – Lawsuit update

Today was another big day in CAI’s evolution.

At the end of a two hour hearing in U.S. District Court in Great Falls, Judge Sam E. Haddon said he will review motions and oral arguments and issue a ruling “as promptly as possible”.

We continue to hope the case will be dismissed.

CAI’s priority is, as always, providing literacy and education, especially for girls. We remain committed to promoting peace through education and cross-cultural understanding. And we stand by Greg and his books.

Our mission and work continue. CAI’s shared accomplishments with communities overseas are real and tangible and give us hope for the future.

— Central Asia Institute

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April 18, 2012 – Setting the record straight

As Central Asia Institute moves forward on a positive note, our supporters have alerted us to various articles, editorials, and opinion pieces in the media reflecting false information about the recent settlement agreement between CAI, co-founder Greg Mortenson and the Montana Attorney General’s Office (OAG).

The Los Angeles Times was one of the first outlets to demonstrate irresponsibility with its false headline, “Author Greg Mortenson settles lawsuit.”

The article continued with the false assertion that, “A lawsuit brought against Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson and his charity the Central Asia Institute over its administration was settled Thursday.”

The OAG never filed a lawsuit against Greg Mortenson or CAI. The agreement was the result of extensive discourse between the OAG and CAI/Greg. The Agreement entered into between the OAG and CAI specifically sets forth that all parties cooperated in its resolution; and that the resolution did not include any formal findings after a legal hearing of wrongdoing or any admission of wrong-doing – including no fraud or criminal findings. The report, and other relevant information, is posted here on the CAI website.

Other false news stories and headlines containing similarly ludicrous assertions include:
* Red Deer Advocate: “Writer’s fraud exposed.”
* Daily Beast: “Mortenson to repay charity $1 million for ‘Three Cups of Tea’ fraud.”
* Reuters: “Mortenson is no longer allowed to be a board member.”
* NPR’s “Here and Now” program: “Last week the Montana attorney general ordered Greg Mortenson off CAI’s board.”
* Al Jazeera: “Greg Mortenson pays $ 1 million after being found guilty of embezzlement.”
* Daily Telegraph: “Greg Mortenson was fired by CAI.”

These statements are simply untrue. We want our supporters and the public to know that.
CAI has taken steps to inform as many of these media outlets as possible that their statements and assertions are false. But it has proven inordinately difficult to target and respond to each misstatement, mischaracterization, and misunderstanding – especially when errors get picked up and repeated.

— Central Asia Institute

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April 17, 2012 – Follow CAI on Twitter and Facebook

Central Asia Institute has launched two new online ways for supporters to stay informed about our work promoting education and literacy, especially for girls, in some of the most remote, impoverished places on the planet.

Our new Twitter account and Facebook page, both launched this month, are full of news you can use.

Help us spread the word!

Our Tweets are posted under the user name “Peacethroughed”. Here we will alert followers to pertinent news about CAI and the regions we serve, upcoming CAI events, and ways to get involved. CAI co-founder Greg Mortenson also has a Twitter site, “GregMortenson” with current news and information posts.

CAI’s Facebook Page is Central Asia Institute (Non-profit organization). Here you’ll find links to the stories about people and projects on our blog, CAI Communiqué, photo essays, video, and educational tools.

We’re excited about having new ways to communicate the crucial work we’re doing to promote education in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan. We continue to update our “live” CAI master list of projects, which is a compilation of all CAI projects since the organization’s inception.

Check in often for fresh updates from overseas, photos and comments about projects from CAI’s overseas program managers, and much, much more.

All of these “social media” venues are also intended to help us stay connected with you, our supporters, so please send us your comments and suggestions.

As always, you can email us at info@ikat.org.

— Karin Ronnow

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April 11, 2012 – Sectarian violence in Gilgit-Baltistan

The city of Gilgit in northern Pakistan has been under lockdown since last week as fallout from the country’s worst sectarian violence in decades continues to ripple across the region.

An estimated 50 people have been killed and dozens injured since fighting between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in Gilgit-Baltistan region erupted last week.

The regular Pakistan Army was brought in to replace the Northern Light Infantry (NLI) and Gilgit Scouts, and to secure the area eight days ago.

Saidullah Baig, Central Asia Institute’s Gilgit-area program manager, said in a phone interview Wednesday that there is a strict curfew in place, with shoot-to-kill orders against curfew violators.

“We are under house arrest for more than one week now,” Saidullah said. “The situation is that nobody is allowed to go out.”

CAI’s schools in the region are not threatened, he said, but added, “I have moved the scholarship girls out of the hostels. Some are home with their families, others are with relatives and some are here with my family and me. They are safe and we are all OK.”

Schools and offices are closed; power and cell-phone service, ground and air transportation have all been cut off; and there are reports of food, water, fuel and medicine shortages.

Authorities relaxed the curfew in Gilgit for a few hours Friday and Monday so people could shop for food. But when people ventured out, Dawn newspaper (Pakistan) reported, “The stock in the market was almost finished and traders fleeced the buyers.”

“The shops are empty,” Saidullah said. “In Gilgit, everything comes from downside (south), there is nothing local. So for these five hours when army OK’d the people to go outside, the people emptied the shops.

“We have 12 people in my house, some family and some students and we have maybe enough food for 15 days. But there is no news from anywhere; nobody knows what is happening, so the students are a little scared. I am telling them that there is no problem. I will make sure there is food for them and I am trying to make them busy with their studying.”

An AFP journalist reported that the Pakistan Air Force used C-130 planes Sunday to evacuate approximately 120 foreigners, including aid workers and 77 Japanese tourists from the Gilgit area.

Most observers agree that the crisis began in February, when gunmen hauled 18 Shias off a northbound bus on the Karakoram Highway (KKH) in Kohistan and shot them dead, execution style. Shias are a minority in Pakistan, at about 21 percent of the 180 million population, but are a majority – 75 to 95 percent – of the Gilgit-Baltistan population.

Sectarian tension in the region escalated for weeks until it reached a flashpoint April 3 when police refused to release Attaullah Saqib, who had been arrested for his alleged involvement in the February attack. Sunni supporters of Attaullah Saqib in Gilgit responded violently, “opened fire and pelted the anti-riot police with stones,” the News International (Pakistan) reported.

That in turn caused a further “spiral of violence,” Dawn reported. “More killings, kidnappings and protests followed, paralyzing the region.”

In Chilas, about 100 kilometers south of Gilgit, another mob blocked the KKH and reportedly pulled 13 more Shias off buses and killed them. Rioting ensued there, too, with reports of dozens of additional deaths, which led to an army-imposed curfew and a ban on all traffic on the KKH.

In Skardu, angry residents protested the anti-Shia violence by burning tires and blocking roads. Officials cut off communication in Skardu for several days, but reinstated it after a massive avalanche buried a military base on the Siachen glacier and the military launched a huge rescue effort.

“Most protests in Skardu are in a peaceful manner,” said Nazir Mohammad, CAI’s Baltistan program manager. “They switched off all mobile signals and Internet, but that is back now. There is tension, but not killing like in Chilas and Gilgit.”

Saidullah said he had heard that dozens of people traveling home to the Skardu region by road were unaccounted for. “People are saying that there are still 50 people missing from Baltistan and nobody knows where they are,” he said.

Sectarian violence is not new in Gilgit-Baltistan. But the current crisis may be the worst since the late 1980s.

Some blame outside agitators. The Express Tribune (Pakistan) quoted a Parliament member this week as saying, “the incidents of violence were the result of a conspiracy being hatched by certain foreign elements who wish to make Pakistan into yet another battleground, similar to Afghanistan.” Interior Minister Rehman Malik has also asked for an opportunity to brief Parliament about “foreign elements working against the country.”

Other observers point to an “overall breakdown of law and order in Pakistan,” as a result of extreme inequities between the powerful elite and the rest of the population. In an opinion piece in the News International over the weekend, Brig. (Ret.) Farooq Hameed noted that poverty in Pakistan has increased dramatically in recent years, from 23 percent in 2005 to 49 percent in 2011.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan voiced alarm “the reprehensible and lengthening shadow of sectarian bloodshed in Gilgit-Baltistan” last week and said it “condemns it unequivocally.”

There are particular concerns about how the violence might affect tourism in the region. Although Pakistan has been outside the comfort zone of most leisure travelers since 9-11, the Gilgit-Baltistan region, where CAI has dozens of schools and other projects, is still popular among trekkers and mountain climbers headed to the Karakoram and Himalayan mountain ranges. Dozens of foreign tourists trapped by the violence in Gilgit last week were airlifted from Gilgit Sunday. “But locals seem to be left to their own devices,” Dawn reported.

Along those lines, there have been some notable humanitarian gestures amid the violence.

Dawn reported “elders from Diamer (near the KKH) helped escort stranded Shia passengers to Gilgit while Sunnis in Shia-dominated areas were also given protection. This points to the fact that the locals of Gilgit-Baltistan – who in many cases of ties of blood despite their religious differences – want harmony, and that sectarian elements, mostly non-natives, are the ones poisoning the atmosphere.”

That desire for harmony was echoed by CAI’s Apo (which means “old” in Balti) Abdul Razak, an octogenarian retired mountaineering expedition cook and CAI’s first and oldest employee.

“All people same – Christians, Sikhs, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Shia, Sunni, Ismaili,” he said in an interview last month. “Allah created all people to be good and serve humanity.”

Back in Gilgit, Saidullah said it is hard to know when the crisis will abate. When the curfew was lifted for a couple of hours Monday, he moved quickly to try to get some of the scholarship girls out of the city and back home with their families. Officers at the check post at the edge of the city at first refused, as the rule calls for allowing no one except government officials in or out of the city at any time.

“They stopped us for more than one hour, but I requested that, given the situation, and given that they are female, they should be with their families. Finally they let them go,” he said. “The girls had been stuck for five or six days in the hostel so they were very happy to be going to home. They were crying and laughing with relief when the guards said it was OK.

“For the rest of us, I heard that maybe this (curfew) will continue up to the end of this month. Other people say maybe one week more, or two weeks more. But they have murdered more than 50 people. If they can catch the people who have done this, then maybe they will clear all these things and relax the restrictions. Or maybe they will just extend day by day. I think we need your prayers for this.”

— Karin Ronnow

For more information:
Press TV: People of violence-hit Gilgit-Baltistan urge Pakistani govt. to restore order
Daily Times: HRCP slams violence in Gilgit-Baltistan
The Nation: Shoot-on-sight orders in Gilgit
The International News: Sectarian violence leads to frenzied agitation in Skardu

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April 9, 2012 – Search for Siachen avalanche survivors continues into third day

Bad weather Monday hampered the continuing search for 135 Pakistan Army soldiers and civilians trapped by a massive avalanche that buried a military post on the Siachen glacier in the Karakoram Range near the Indian border.

“Seventy to 80 feet of snow, rocks, mud, and ice crashed down on the camp early Saturday morning,” Nazir Mohammad, Central Asia Institute’s Baltistan program manager, said in a phone interview Sunday from his home in Skardu, in northern Pakistan. “The slide was very huge – 1 kilometer wide. All people are praying for a miracle that some soldiers will be alive.”

The 124 Northern Light Infantry soldiers and 11 civilians – clerks, cooks, barbers, and tailors – were likely sleeping or at morning prayers when the avalanche broke loose at about 5:45 a.m. Saturday. They were stationed at battalion headquarters in Gayari, a valley at 16,000 feet at the entrance to the Siachen, the “highest battlefield in the world.”

A massive search-and-rescue operation is under way, using helicopters, tracking dogs, snowmobiles, and heavy snow-clearing equipment in hopes of finding some of the men alive, according to news reports. Medical teams were also sent to the area.

But an official told Dawn newspaper (Pakistan) that the effort was “a race against time amidst fading hope.”

The work is extremely slow going, given the inhospitable terrain, rapidly changing weather, and military directives to leave “no stone unturned” in the hunt for survivors.

“It is very difficult and all of Skardu is quiet while they search,” Nazir said. “Many of the soldiers are from around Gilgit-Baltistan and some may be from communities where CAI works. We all hope very much that still some buried people will be found alive.”

Nazir made many trips to Gayari during his previous job working for an army-supply business; at one point he remained at the post for about a year.

“There are cement buildings there – a kitchen, soldiers’ barracks, workshop, mess hall, heli pads and small area for the officers. There is a beautiful view of the area from there,” he said.

Small avalanches are typical in spring, as snow melts, but nothing of the magnitude of Saturday’s avalanche, he said. “I saw many times small avalanches coming when I was there. But they were normal, small slides that come down the mountain this time of year.”

India and Pakistan have fought for control of these mountains – and the surrounding Kashmir region – since the British partition of India in 1947. Pakistan set up the Gayari base as a hub, with soldiers and supplies going out from there to defend the 49-mile-long Siachen, a no man’s land of rugged peaks and deep crevasses at elevations up to 22,000 feet.

Temperatures regularly plummet to 90 degrees Fahrenheit below zero and more soldiers die from exposure – frostbite, altitude sickness, and avalanches – than combat.

Pakistan prohibits foreigners or climbers access to the Gayari sector, however CAI’s cofounder Greg Mortenson visited the post in 2002 with writer Kevin Fedarko and photographer Teru Kuwayama, Nazir said. “No other foreigners have been allowed there.”

In a 2003 story about the Siachen for Outside magazine, Fedarko said the post also includes “a 600-year-old mosque established by Sayyid Ali Hamadani, who introduced Islam to Baltistan in the 14th century. A few steps from the mosque sits an underground bunker that serves as a studio for a young man named Makhtar, who paints portraits of the shaheeds, or martyrs – soldiers who have been killed in this war and thereby gained admission to paradise. The Pakistanis believe their religious faith gives them motivation that the Indians lack.”

India and Pakistan combined “have about 150 manned outposts along the glacier, totaling an estimated 10,000 and 20,000 troops,” the Washington Post reported Saturday. Expensive to defend. “Officials estimate that the cost of maintaining the outposts is $200 million for Pakistan and $300 million for India.”

Heavy machinery was moved from Army headquarters in Rawalpindi to Skardu and Nazir said he saw the equipment being moved to the avalanche site Sunday.

“I was in Khapalu area working on a school project and I saw the machinery they have been sending – excavators, bulldozers and other big machinery they can use to move ice and rock,” Nazir said. “But they have many problems because of the glacier. They have no roads. First they have to make a way to get inside.”

Pakistan’s Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani flew to Skardu Sunday to review rescue operations and then went on to Gayari, Nazir said. In addition, the U.S. government, India and other countries have offered assistance.

However the region is difficult to access, except by air, and acclimatization to the altitude is a factor. Five of the world’s highest peaks are in Pakistan, including K2 (28,251 feet), the world’s second-highest peak.

Heavy snow has blanketed the entire Karakoram, Hindu Kush and Pamir region this winter and experts are already warning mountain climbers and trekkers about the risk of increased avalanches this year.

For now, some locals are helping with the rescue, but most can only watch and wait for news, Nazir said.

“Many CAI school families, teachers and staff have family members in the Pakistan Army,” Nazir said. “For students who finish metric (high school), there are not so many good jobs, so many want to work for the army, or work in jobs that support the army.

“CAI is ready to help any way we can,” he said.

More than 100 Pakistani soldiers trapped in avalanche near Siachen – YouTube news clip

San Francisco Chronicle: Pakistan avalanche shines light on ‘futile’ war

Dawn: Bad weather hampers Siachen recovery

Note: Teru Kuwayama has worked on and off with CAI for over a decade. In 2002 he was the first photojournalist to visit the frontlines of both the Pakistan and India sides of the Siachen glacier war. His photos illustrated a story entitled “The Coldest War,” by writer Kevin Fedarko in Outside magazine in 2003.

His current project, http://basetrack.org, follows unfolding events in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Visit www.facebook.com/basetrack for more.

— Karin Ronnow

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April 5, 2012 – MT Attorney General: Central Asia Institute’s noble mission should continue

Central Asia Institute (CAI) is pleased that the Montana Attorney General’s Office (OAG), CAI, and Greg Mortenson have signed an agreement resolving the OAG’s inquiries. The Agreement is a compromise of disputed claims, and we look forward to moving ahead as an even stronger organization, focusing on CAI’s vital mission.

Greg and CAI have worked with communities in the mountainous, remote, and often war-wracked areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1996 to build, supply, staff, and maintain over 180 schools and 30 vocational centers and support an additional 56 schools, 20 literacy centers, eight scholarship programs, and 22 public health (potable water, midwifery, and disaster-relief) projects. Our Master Project List can be viewed here.

“CAI has always been a small group of dynamic, mission-centric individuals doing extraordinary work,” Executive Director Anne Beyersdorfer said. “We are grateful to our steadfast supporters, who provide the resources necessary to fulfill our mission, and to the communities, which typically match CAI funds with free land or subsidized or volunteer manual labor. Many CAI schools are the first or only schools in their communities.”

To ensure the long-term sustainability of that work, CAI continues to strengthen its governance, management, and accounting, including internal policy enforcement and action on any findings of our annual financial audits. It is important to note that CAI was already working on some of those changes before media allegations arose or the OAG got involved.

“Over the past 18 months, the Board has undertaken persistent, focused efforts to address the problems identified by the OAG and to implement a pattern of best practices in all of its operations,” CAI’s Board of Directors said in a prepared statement about the OAG inquiries. “In doing so, CAI has demonstrated its commitment to operating transparently and to continued operation within the strictures of Montana law. This record of improvement is incontrovertible.

“CAI believes that the steps it has initiated, as well as the additional voluntary compliance undertakings it has agreed to with the Attorney General justify confidence in the charity by public officials and the public,” according to the Board’s statement.

CAI’s future is bright. We will continue the important work of promoting education, especially for girls, for years to come, and Greg will be involved.

“News fatigue about Pakistan and Afghanistan is evident everywhere we look these days. But the children and their parents, village elders, and teachers with whom we work cannot look away; this is about their futures,” Beyersdorfer said.

“Greg and our overseas managers have dedicated their lives to helping fulfill countless dreams and aspirations and we are proud to continue our life-changing work together,” she said.

For more information related to the Montana Attorney General’s Investigations, click here.

— Karin Ronnow

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April 2, 2012 – CAI added to Combined Federal Campaign’s list of eligible charities

Central Asia Institute has been added to the list of charities eligible for donations through the U.S. government’s Combined Federal Campaign.

The Combined Federal Campaign, or CFC, is the largest annual workplace charity campaign in the world, according to the campaign website, www.opm.gov/cfc/. It allows federal employees – civilian, postal and military workers – to pledge support for eligible nonprofit organizations through a payroll deduction. On average, 57 percent of the federal workforce donates to the campaign.

“This is something that many of our military supporters have requested for a long time, so this is very positive news,” said CAI’s US Operations Director Jennifer Sipes.

One of those people is a U.S. Air Force captain, who wrote to CAI urging our participation in the campaign.

“I read ‘Three Cups of Tea’ several months ago and have long supported education initiatives. I believe, dollar for dollar, education solves more problems than other humanitarian efforts,” he wrote. “I have many peers within the Air Force who have read ‘Three Cups of Tea,’ have spent significant time in Afghanistan and support your efforts. I’m certain the Central Asia Institute would receive significant donations from federal employees if you register with the CFC.”

The CFC was set up by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 “to promote and support philanthropy” by “providing all federal employees the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all,” according to the website. Its 200-plus campaigns helped raise more than $280 million dollars in each of the past two years.

“The civilian workforce in my hometown of Seattle (King County) alone contributed over 3 million dollars toward charities in 2009 and I’ve been part of military installations that have contributed over $10 million each year,” wrote another supporter, a retired U.S. Navy sailor who now works for the U.S. Labor Department in western Washington. “It’s one large way that we public servants give to charity and definitely the armed forces’ favorite way to contribute.”

Like the Air Force captain, the Washington supporter said he was “turned on” to CAI after reading “Three Cups of Tea,” one of two books written by CAI cofounder Greg Mortenson.

“I have been amazed with [Mortenson’s] work and simplicity of focusing efforts in the right places for long-term benefits. Your organization is so right on the money,” he wrote. “My friends and family would like to help and contribute.”

Yet another CAI supporter in Southern California was also inspired by Mortenson’s book.

“I just got done reading ‘Three Cups of Tea,’ and went to check the Combined Federal Campaign to see if CAI was listed as a charity,” he wrote. “I did not see CAI listed. I assume CAI knows about this area of donation opportunity.”

He, too, urged CAI to look into CFC eligibility, as it would give us access to a potential donation pool of “millions of federal, postal and military employees” who “donate to charities right from their paychecks,” he said. “I am a federal employee (who) participates in the CFC each year. … In the Greater Los Angeles Area, it collected over $3 million this last campaign.”

Federal employees can, in most cases, donate online and choose which eligible organization receives that donation. Payroll deductions let workers spread contributions over an entire year. The automated system keeps overhead low, meaning more money goes to the nonprofit organizations. Federal employees can find the campaign nearest them at www.opm.gov/cfc/search/locator.asp

QUOTE: “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” – John F. Kennedy

— Karin Ronnow

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March 29, 2012 – Guest blog by Zaighum Sohail Warsi

Below is a column written by Zaighum Sohail Warsi in Urdu and published in Daily Azkar (Pakistan) in February. Sohail shared his article with Greg Mortenson, Karin Ronnow, and Anne Beyersdorfer during their last visit to Pakistan. Translated by Fozia Naseer.

Greg Mortenson and great people
Some [happening] catches people’s eyes – but we can’t call it a Miracle. We can’t dispel it either by saying, “It is our destiny.”

It is hard to understand the human nature because humans usually follow the ways that fulfill their own needs, but not of others. But there are a few different people, who give us clues of how to direct our lives.

There is a common Pakistani saying that you can understand a person through his friendship, social dreams or thoughts. You understand good or bad behavior quickly. Some people worked hard to do something for others, and they did not give up. We should call these people Great People.

There is a custom, too, that people use a name to make them sound important, like Azeem [great] Kamal [miracle], Afsar [officer], Shi [royal]. etc., Some people do not even want a title, but have inherited it. However, without actions, these are just meaningless names, even for the impoverished.

Some people deserve to be treated well and other people should give them respect and stand up for them. But now days respect (Izat) you can find in the market.

Some people might be surprised that I am trying to talk seriously about hard issues, even though our tendency is to laugh or cry when life gets beyond our control. If the gas prices rise, then journalists write a column about it, but do we understand what the problems of the country are? Corruption? Greed? Infidelity amongst our politicians? If a journalist would ask a question to a politician about their work, they would talk on and on with meaningless rhetoric and say, “We care about our people, and we are for our country, just give us a chance to be together with the people”.

Everything has to be according to their thoughts. As I mentioned in the beginning, our thoughts can lead us to the way we want to go.

When somebody asks the British prime minister what his priorities are, the response is “EDUCATION, EDUCATION AND EDUCATION.” What are the differences between us [in Pakistan] and others? It’s clear.

Dreams and aspirations about personal gain are high, but education does not have any priority or strategy here.

We have forget that one USA university budget is higher than our country budget [for education]. Criticism can go on and on but we need to have a practical plan in this country. If people are asked about their rights, they fear that partition is happening again.

Our federal system is a based out of fear, and nobody can think properly. We were shocked when we heard that even in Punjab province, some leaders are prohibiting building a girl school. In some countries, people want to go to the moon, but in Pakistan, we do not even want girls to go to school. What good is that?

Welfare workers are trying to make sure that no restriction for their work but there are so many problems for them, they get tired of this.

Greg Mortenson came to Gilgit-Baltistan for climbing K2, but he found a bigger goal, when he saw the poverty and lack of education there. Instead of talking, he started building schools. So far, he has built more than 100 schools in Pakistan and tens of thousands of children, including girls, are going to these schools.

[Greg and his Central Asia Institute] provide free educational resources and because of that poor people are benefitting.

By profession, Greg is a medical person, and understands that if one part of the body is paralyzed, the whole body feels sick. When people are hearing about a doctor in this country they touch their ears: Stay away from a doctor and jail. Greg brought awareness to the people that through education there is hope.

Sometimes the people in this country get a lot of publicity for talking about their work, but we do not see any projects, or know where the money is going, or for what purpose.

But for those who do work, and don’t walk much, that is what we should call the Royal Great Miracles. Quietly serve humanity, and do great work. In the name of Islam, this is what we should all support and appreciate.

A good thing about Central Asia Institute is that it works as a team, and with communities. There is no big boss, or “Yes, Sir” and “No Sir”. Just a team of common people serving humanity, and getting things done.

Greg stepped out in education and our Pakistan government gave him its’ high civilian award called “Sitara (Star) Award”.

We are surprised that here in this country big people have big houses, who hide their wealth by putting everything under their daughter’s name. And yet they still say, “We are working for our people.”

But what about the next generation? Are we really serving them? Time is passing by. What actions have happened? What are we waiting for?

— Zaighum Sohail Warsi for the Daily Azkar, Pakistan

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March 26, 2012 – Avalanche in remote Wakhan kills extended family

BROGHIL, Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan – An extended family that had gathered for an Islamic New Year’s celebration here last week was killed when a massive avalanche buried the family’s compound.

Twenty-one people died, Sarfraz Khan, CAI’s field director in NE Afghanistan, said in a telephone interview from the Wakhan Saturday.

Only one woman survived the slide. She was buried alive under the snow for almost two days before being rescued by nearby villagers and taken to a small medical dispensary in the Wakhan, Sarfraz said.

“Four brothers and their wives and children [had] all come together for making New Year’s celebration,” Sarfraz said. “That night, they were all in one house for dinner. But there is much snow and wind and at nighttime the avalanche came. Only one woman is alive. They got her out after more than 40 hours. Everyone else died.

“Today we found the final two and I helped carry them out from that area. Now all are out and all are in graves – 11 females and 10 males, all ages. Because there is much snow, it is impossible for single graves, so we put three or four to a grave,” he said.

Islamic customs call for the dead to be buried within three days.

The fatal “slide” is just the latest tragedy in what has been a dangerously harsh winter in Afghanistan, the worst in decades, according to CAI’s sources. See here, here, and here. More than 100 people were killed in previous avalanches this winter. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed and thousands of sheep, goats and cattle have also died.

The New Year’s avalanche occurred Wednesday night, Sarfraz said, but because the family’s four houses were up in the mountains outside the village, no one knew what had happened for a few days.

“There was much wind and snow and nobody knew an avalanche had come and finished one family,” he said. “When they heard, the people from all the area come and try to help, but all they could do was collect the dead bodies. Except that one woman, everyone died.”

Sarfraz was in Ishkashim, at the western end of the Wakhan, when he heard the news. He contacted CAI’s home office in the United States, then quickly loaded one CAI truck with food and blankets and made the long drive up the Wakhan to the village.

“We had that one truck and my smaller truck and all along the way people helped us,” he said. “Ten kilometers from the village, on the other side of the river, the trucks couldn’t go, the road is impossible. So we got out and went by foot.”

Sarfraz arrived in Broghil Friday night. On Saturday morning, he returned with the villagers to the scene.

“On Friday they found 19 dead bodies in the avalanche and [Saturday] we found the last two,” he said. “At least 60 animals also died.

“People are very upset. This is the first time 21 people in one family died. The people are much poor in that area and there is much suffering,” he said.

After the bodies were buried, the villagers and Sarfraz returned to the CAI truck and carried the emergency supplies into the area on their backs.

“I delivered aid for 15 families – flour, rice, oil, tea and blankets. Some people from Aga Khan Foundation and the Ismaili Council president were there, but they were just looking for the people. Only Central Asia Institute delivered this kind of aid. People are much thankful that CAI comes here and listens and helps.”

The Wakhan is a narrow, isolated region of northeast Afghanistan where the Hindu Kush and Pamir mountains tower over the Panj and Pamir river valleys. Read about the Wakhan in the 2011 Journey of Hope. It was a buffer zone between the British and Russian empires in the late 1800s. Its borders are now marked by Tajikistan to the north, Pakistan to the south, and China at the far eastern end.

In addition to heavy snow and bitter-cold temperatures this winter, depleted food and fuel supplies, and a rash of pneumonia and other potentially fatal cold-weather ailments have created desperate conditions in many villages. The situation is further complicated by last year’s drought, which left winter food stocks unusually low.

And spring may not bring relief from weather-related disasters. The Wakhi people of the corridor and the Kyrgyz nomads of the Little and Big Pamirs are worried about the potential for flash floods and landslides as the snowpack begins to melt.

— Karin Ronnow

At Least 16 Killed In Afghan Avalanche

Afghan avalanche kills 16

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March 19, 2012 –
CAI delivers emergency aid to hundreds of families in NE Afghanistan stranded by winter storms

Central Asia Institute has delivered emergency food and blankets to hundreds of families suffering from an unexpectedly harsh, and in some cases deadly, winter in the mountains of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province.

Mullah Mohammed, a CAI worker who lives in Khandud in the Wakhan Corridor, said this winter’s storms have been the worst in two decades.

Families in the Big and Little Pamir, the Wakhan Corridor, and Baharak and Warduj districts have been cut off from the outside world by deep snow, ice, and avalanches. The severe winter also comes on the heels of an extended drought that vastly depleted families’ ability to raise enough food to store through the winter. The resulting shortages of food and heating fuel have led to deaths of the region’s most vulnerable elderly and children, and contributed to a typhoid epidemic.

The deputy governor of Badakhshan province, Shams Ul Rahman, told CAI employees that several avalanches have struck in the region this winter, with the worst being in Shekai district, which killed at least 47 people.

The governor’s office asked CAI to help provide relief to the most-remote affected areas, where CAI has connections and access.

Although CAI’s primary focus is to promote literacy and education, especially for girls, CAI co-founder Greg Mortenson said, “Occasionally, when disasters like floods, earthquakes and avalanches strike the specific regions we serve, it is imperative we help them as much as possible, and bring their plight to the international community.”

For each family, CAI donated 50 kg each of flour and rice, 7 kg of tea, 10 kg oil and one large blanket. Locals estimated the aid could sustain a family of eight for up to three weeks, until the first spring thaw.

“Everywhere there is much thanks for Dr. Greg, for CAI,” said Sarfraz Khan, CAI’s NE Afghanistan program manager, who organized the relief effort. “People in these most remote villages are happy that CAI does not forget them, and thank Dr. Greg for his many years of help to our children and women, and they pray for his long life.”

CAI’s requests to the U.S. military command and Afghanistan Army Aviation for helicopter airlifts were turned down, due to the unrelenting bad weather, lack of fuel in the region for refueling stops and hesitancy to fly in the mountains under these conditions. “The weather is very bad and now again snow is coming,” Khan said at one point.

So Khan delivered all the aid by road. Travel was tedious and dangerous as road conditions varied from snow-packed and icy to impassable due to avalanches.

Getting aid to the Kyrgyz people, nomads who live in the Little and Big Pamirs in far northeast Afghanistan, was especially important to CAI.

The Kyrgyz face particularly difficult circumstances. Laws prevent them from crossing the borders into neighboring Tajikistan, China and Pakistan, but they get scant help from the Afghan government. This winter’s bitter cold, unrelenting wind, icy mountain passes and avalanche danger further complicate their already precarious existence.

“At least 20 people died in Little Pamir this winter,” Khan said. “There is much disease (pneumonia, typhoid and starvation) in Pamir and no help, no medicine during wintertime; only in summertime some NGOs help. The Kyrgyz say, ‘We have many people dead, old people and children, especially children. They have some disease, much coughing, no breathing and the children die.’ Also the pregnant women, because there is no doctor or nurse and have problems with (delivery).”

The Kyrgyz in Little Pamir also lost nearly 2,000 goats, sheep, horses and yak. “Animals die from cold, much wind and much cold,” Khan said.

Khan arranged to meet the Kyrgyz from the Little Pamir in Sarhad, at the eastern end of the rough dirt road through the Wakhan. At the request of the government, Khan also collected and delivered government-issued flour to the Kyrgyz.

The Big Pamir delivery was even more complicated. Khan and another CAI worker, plus two drivers loaded the goods in Ishkashim, Afghanistan, and then crossed the border into Tajikistan. Then, accompanied by Tajik government representatives and border security officers, they began the arduous journey northeast along the Panj River and then the Pamir River to the Big Pamir.

Particularly important in facilitating the relief to the Afghan Kyrgyz was Gov. Qodiri Qosim of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) in Tajikistan, who ordered snowplows and road crews to clear the way through southeastern GBAO province.

Khan said the journey was still hazardous and precarious. After two days, they reached the border of Tajikistan and the Afghan Pamir. There they met Kyrgyz representatives who helped shift the emergency supplies from the trucks to their yaks and horses. Then the Kyrgyz headed back into the Pamir and Khan and the others headed back toward Ishkashim.

In all, CAI’s humanitarian relief effort for all Badakhshan delivered 106 tons of food and blankets. Badakhshan Province is the most impoverished and remote province in Afghanistan, with one of the world’s highest maternal and infant mortality rates, and many of those deaths occur in winter.

Delivering this help required endless hours of logistical coordination and help from the provincial and district government leaders, as well as local shura (elders). Other NGOs providing winter disaster relief were the Aga Khan Foundation, FOCUS, Red Crescent Society, UNDP, and World Food Program.

This is the fifth time in the past decade that CAI ‘s Board has elected to help with disaster relief. The first time was in 2005, after the devastating earthquake in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan; the second followed a massive landslide in Hunza, Pakistan, in January 2010; the third was in response to the historic 2010 summer floods in Pakistan; and the fourth after a devastating flash flood in Baltistan, NE Pakistan, in August 2011.

— Karin Ronnow

For more information about Afghanistan’s deadly winter, view our World News links in left sidebar.

All photos by Sarfraz Khan, 2012.

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March 9, 2012 – CAI Delivers Relief to Villagers in Wakhan Corridor

	Man with food: A Wargeant, Afghanistan, man rests before returning home with the emergency food and a blanket provided by Central Asia Institute in late February. Wargeant, an impoverished village in the Wakhan Corridor in Badakhshan Province, has been hard hit by years of drought and an unexpectedly harsh winter.
	Villagers in Sarhad help unload a truckload of emergency food supplies for the Kyrgyz people of the Little Pamir. Five Kyrgyz men traveled three days on horseback from their high-mountain winter camp to Sarhad in the Wakhan Corridor to collect the food and blankets, which were provided by Central Asia Institute, according to CAI project manager Sarfraz Khan. Sarhad marks the end of the road in the Wakhan.
	Three Kyrgyz men stand with jugs of oil and bags of flour and rice provided by CAI in early March. The Kyrgyz – a nomadic people who reside in the Little Pamir, at the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor – are largely ignored by the Afghan government.
	Kyrgyz men stand behind two of the yaks that will help carry emergency food supplies back into the Little Pamir. Five Kyrgyz horsemen brought 35 yak and 20 horses to help deliver the load of emergency food to their isolated community.
	A Kyrgyz man pulls the strap to tighten the load on a yak. More than 20 Kyrgyz, mostly children, have died this winter as a result of starvation and extended exposure to bitter cold temperatures, Khan said. There are no medical services of any kind in the Pamir during the winter months.
	Hot tea and bread are served during a welcome break from loading food and blankets onto the yaks and horses on a cold, windy day in early March.
	With the Hindu Kush Mountains creating a majestic backdrop, a Kyrgyz man leads his sturdy packhorses toward the rest of his group.
	A Wakhi boy watches as the Kyrgyz ready their pack animals before heading home.

All photos by Sarfraz Khan, 2012.

— Karin Ronnow

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March 1, 2012 – CAI providing winter disaster relief in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province

Central Asia Institute is delivering truckloads of food and blankets this week to people trapped by brutal winter conditions in remote mountain villages of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province.

The humanitarian relief is intended to relieve the unprecedented situation created by extreme cold, deep snow, food shortages and cold-related sickness. Many people have died since the beginning of the year; children are especially vulnerable.

And the death toll continues to rise. Another 35 children “died as a result of pneumonia caused by severe weather” this past weekend, according to an Agence France-Presse report. Access to many of the remote districts where these children lived has been cut off by heavy snow, landslides and avalanches.

“The scope of the disaster is much more significant than reported,” CAI co-founder Greg Mortenson said during an interview in Pakistan. “The governor of Badakhshan is pleading with CAI to do something since the Afghan government has been unable to mobilize or do much so far. Aid from the large NGOS has primarily targeted the more accessible urban areas. That leaves the most remote areas with no help.”

The first need is food, “to keep them alive,” Sayeed Imran, a former district governor in Badakhshan, said Friday.

People were not expecting such a hard winter and were unprepared. Successive years of drought and skyrocketing food and fuel prices further complicate the situation.

“This is the first winter in the last 50 or 60 years that people see such cold and snow,” Imran said. “Many people have died. They do not have enough food and good protection in warm places, so therefore people die, mostly the children. For the moment, this is the big problem.

“Also there is not enough fuel. Gas is very high price and people are poor, they cannot pay this. Therefore people are compelled to cut their fruit trees for burning,” he said.

CAI’s Northeast Afghanistan Program Director Sarfraz Khan is orchestrating a relief effort intended to help hundreds of extended families from several well-situation distribution points in coming days. On Sunday he led a caravan of trucks carrying food and blankets into the Wakhan Corridor. The massive loads of flour, rice, oil and tea should be enough to help families for at least a couple of weeks, depending on the size of each household.

“We give 50 kg atta (flour), 50 kg rice, 7 kg tea and 10 kg oil, plus one blanket to each house,” Khan said Monday via phone from Wargeant. “Today is much cold and wind and snow on ground, but people coming here are much happy. Twenty-one households are here.”

Wargeant was hard hit by a polio epidemic a few decades ago and many young adults, who had the disease as children, suffered partial yet permanent paralysis, which handicaps their ability to work. Afghanistan is one of the few countries in the world where polio has not been eradicated. CAI has a health-care worker and a women’s vocational center in Wargeant.

From Wargeant, the caravan continued east, stopping in Goz Khun village, where CAI has one school, closed now for winter break, then on to the end of the road in Sarhad. At several junctures the road was so snowy or icy that Khan and those traveling with him had to shovel a path for the vehicles, or help the drivers navigate the slippery, uneven surfaces.

In Sarhad, representatives of the Kyrgyz people from the Little Pamir, the home of CAI’s Bozoi Gumbad School, met Khan and the caravan in Sarhad. On Wednesday, Khan intended to distribute the aid, which the Kyrgyz will take to their families via yak and donkey.

In coming days, Khan intends to deliver similar loads of food and blankets to the Kyrgyz in Big Pamir via Tajikistan; and then on to help people suffering in Baharak, Jurm, Shohadoh, Koran-wa-Minjon districts of Badakhshan.

Travelling in this part of the world during the winter is difficult and dangerous.

The rise in militant activity in Badakhshan and neighboring Nuristan Province recently add to the complexity of any mission.

Add to that the high risk of avalanches, which have killed more than 30 people in recent weeks, according to news reports from the region. Avalanches are common in the province during the winter, “but this winter there is much snow and it is much increased,” Imran said.

And there’s typically only one way in and out of most of these villages. “Badakhshan is the most inaccessible part of Afghanistan, with very few all-weather roads,” according to the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency.

And now a good many of those dirt and gravel roads are blocked by heavy snow.

“There are more than 11 districts closed, people cannot come and go from there at all because the roads are closed,” Imran said. “Even when the roads are open it is very difficult for cars because of the ice. There are two kinds of risk: slide off the road and into the river, or try to drive on roads made very rough by ice.”

Kabul’s nasty winter

About 200 miles south of Badakhshan, residents of the capital city, Kabul, are also dealing with an unexpectedly difficult winter, according to Wakil Karimi, CAI program director for central, southern and eastern Afghanistan.

“For the last 10 years we had no snow, this is the first time, so people didn’t prepare,” Karimi said. “They finished their entire winter supply of gas and wood in first month and because of the price, they can’t buy more. Nobody knew it would be so cold.”

Hardest hit have been refugees of the war, who fled their homes in other parts of Afghanistan and now live in crowded camps inside the city limits. More than 40 children have died, according to news reports.

Most of the children in the camps are dying from exposure to the cold and snow or related illnesses such as pneumonia. The New York Times reported that one 5-year-old girl “died of burns after accidentally spilling a pot of boiling water on herself while trying to stay warm.”

The camps are filthy, with no system for removal of trash or human waste and no access to clean water, sufficient food or firewood. Some families have tents or other patched-together shelter, but many do not, Karimi said.

“They sleep outside and when the rain and snow come, children die there,” Karimi said.

Kabul was built for 400,000 people, he added, but is now home to an estimated 8 million. Nearly everything is in short supply. Supplies of firewood and other fuel were exhausted long ago. People wind up burning whatever is available – trash, clothes, plastic – to keep warm.

“Some NGOs give food, but if it is cold, it is not enough,” Karimi said. “Warm at night is better than all kinds of food.”

Karimi said the drought in recent years, which has led to food shortages, had prompted concerns about another relatively warm and dry winter.

“During the first month of winter there was no snow, no water in the city,” Karimi said. “The mullahs said, ‘Come and pray for rain, because if this year goes like the previous year, there will be no water for drinking.’ Then all the people prayed for water and the snow started and didn’t stop.”

‘Most inaccessible’ province
But if things are bad in Kabul, at least the logistics of providing aid is relatively simple. In Badakhshan, everything is more complicated. Add months of bitter cold and heavy snow to the mix and life gets even harder to sustain.

An estimated 1.2 million people live in Badakhshan and most of them survive as subsistence farmers and herders. The economy is still largely cashless; most people barter for goods and services.

Electricity is scarce and unreliable. Only about 10 percent of people have access to safe drinking water and 90 percent must travel three hours or more to the nearest health facility, according to the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency.

People here have grown accustomed to government neglect. There is no official judicial system and the literacy rate among adults is thought to be in the single digits, although no formal survey or census has been done in decades.

Badakhshan’s maternal mortality rate (women who die in childbirth) is one of the highest in the world, with 6,500 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to UNICEF. By comparison, the rate in the United States is 12 to 13 deaths/100,000 live births, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

And now, “this cold winter, no one is giving the people any help,” Imran said. “They cut their trees to burn. They sell their goats and sheep to buy wheat. The government hasn’t done anything, hasn’t delivered any fundamental help on time. When the government does something, it is only for showing or for the media.”

CAI has worked in Badakhshan since 2003, establishing more than 50 educational and public health projects, according to project managers. Although the avalanches have not damaged CAI’s projects, the people are suffering and have requested CAI’s help as a long-standing community partner.

Previous CAI educational and humanitarian support efforts include response to: the devastating earthquake in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, in 2005; the massive 2010 landslide in Hunza Valley, Pakistan; refugees fleeing Taliban attacks on their villages in the Hindu Kush mountains of northern Afghanistan; and the historic flooding in Pakistan in 2010. Read about these stories in the 2010 Journey of Hope.

“This time, life-saving relief is being delivered in response to direct requests from the communities we serve, in consultation with program managers who zeroed in on special needs in the vulnerable villages that very few other NGOs serve,” said CAI Executive Director Anne Beyersdorfer. “Especially in light of the recent militant attacks and strife in Pakistan and Afghanistan, these remote villages are too often overlooked or forgotten.”

And even though spring is less than a month away by the calendar, the idea of warmer temperatures is not particularly comforting, Imran said.

“In the springtime this snow will become floods and again damage the houses, trees and we will have more casualties,” Imran said.

Janagha Jaheed, CAI’s field director in northeast Afghanistan said: “Usually it is getting warm in March and then comes the flooding. The snow melts and the raining starts – that’s more dangerous. At night you are asleep and when you wake up, you are inside a river.”

ARAB PROVERB: He who sees the calamity of other people finds his own calamity light.

— Karin Ronnow

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February 17, 2012 – Bhamber Girls’ School grew from one-room presidential ‘stage’

BHAMBER VILLAGE, Pakistan – Five years ago, Pakistan’s then-President Pervez Musharraf came to this village in Punjab Province to dedicate a bridge.

The president’s crews arrived early and quickly erected a one-room structure as a staging point for a presidential speech, according to Bhamber Girls’ Middle School Principal Farsana Kosar.

After the president had come and gone, the government declared the structure and an adjacent storeroom would serve as a girls’ middle school for the rural village.

But one classroom was not enough.

So, at the villagers’ request, Central Asia Institute built another two classrooms in 2007, followed by five more in 2011. CAI also provided pump water, installed latrines and erected a boundary wall around the growing school.

And Kosar told me in January that the number of girls attending Bhamber School had doubled in just two years.

“The number of students is increasing, from 111 in 2009 to 200 now,” Kosar said. “Half come here by foot from other villages because the education is better than other schools. The parents prefer to send their kids here. Also, in these villages, people are not allowing co-education, so it’s helpful to have a separate girls’ school. And the girls are eager to learn.”

Teacher Shefaq Raza, 28, has been teaching elementary-level classes here for two years. She is one of Bhamber School’s three government teachers.

“Here in this region, education is low, especially for girls,” she said. “There are schools, but for a long time people did not agree to educate the girls.

“But education is necessary to build a nation. If the mother is educated, the children are also educated. If a mother is educated, she knows about diseases and all kinds of problems she did not know before. People begin to understand this and send their girls to us. Thank you for these buildings,” Raza said.

I visited the school, located in Punjab’s Jhelum district, on a cold, damp January day. When I arrived, all the girls were seated in the courtyard, their blue school uniforms covered by the large red shawls they had wrapped around their heads and shoulders.

Behind them, on the redbrick building CAI erected in 2007, were the words: “The right to know is just like the right to live.”

The girls then did a presentation of songs, prayers and poems and we cut the ribbon on the 2011 addition.

“It is a special gift to the girls to get an education here and we are really strict, but they are able to give you this presentation because they are getting such a good education,” Kosar said.

‘People are poor here’
We had left Islamabad in a predawn rainstorm, headed to the Jhelum district in northeastern Punjab Province. Suleman Minhas, CAI’s operations director in Pakistan, oversees projects in Punjab and had organized the trip. The combination of wet roads and many cars with inadequate lights and windshield wipers created all kinds of slow-moving obstacles on the dark highway.

As Suleman, a former taxi driver, drove expertly out of the capital city, he told me: “You must always come and check our projects, buildings and teachers. When you see it is OK, my heart will be satisfied.”

Just before sunrise, Suleman stopped for a tea break at a Pakistani truck stop on the side of the road. In addition to a big pot of tea, he ordered a typical Punjabi breakfast: tandoori paratha (flatbread), beans (cooked garbanzo beans with onions, tomatoes, garlic and chili), boiled beef and tea.

Nourished and caffeinated, we got back on the road. The rain had stopped and as the sun climbed higher in the sky, I could see the increasingly flat landscape rolling out in all directions. We passed military-green Pakistan Army pickup trucks with armed soldiers in the back patrolling the roads; bakery delivery guys on motorcycles loaded down with dozens of loaves of fresh bread; and donkeys pulling carts of produce toward the city markets.

Near Jhelum, Suleman pulled off the highway onto a dirt road, only to find it blocked by a truck with a broken axle. So he turned his Toyota SUV around and took a side road, which was clearly the preferred route of men and boys riding bicycles to work and school, bicyclists who expertly dodged puddles, cars, and herds of livestock along the way.

I asked Suleman if he liked winter in his home district. “I was born here,” he replied. “I grew up here. I grow all my crops here. Many in my family are still here. Why would I say I don’t like any time of year? I like all 12 months.”

The coal-fired ovens at the area’s brick factories were spewing smoke and Suleman pointed out a couple of gypsy camps, filled with the colorful tents of families who migrate here from southern Punjab to sell handmade children’s toys. He said most people outside the cities are subsistence farmers and a lot of local men also go to work in Europe, mostly in the UK, and send money home to their families. Jhelum district is also known for providing many soldiers to the British during World War II; Suleman’s father, who died a couple of years ago, was one of them.

“Mostly, people are poor here,” he said.

Teachers are more important than buildings
Increasingly, parents understand that education is one of the best ways to ensure that their sons and daughters will have a better future. Yet for Pakistan’s rural girls’ schools, getting and keeping good teachers – especially good female teachers – is a constant struggle.

Suleman had told me that the Bhamber School’s principal was asking for CAI’s help to hire more teachers. “Now here, like everywhere, every school, they demand teachers. But I understand. Teachers are even more important than buildings,” he said.

And Kosar wasted no time getting to the point.

“The main problem is staff. We need more teachers,” she said. “We thank CAI very, very much for the extra rooms. But we request, please, CAI help us with two teachers.”

Even the students got on the bandwagon.

“Teachers come from far and it is very difficult for them,” said 12-year-old Hadija, a seven-class student who wants to be a teacher.

The problem is complicated by the fact that, in many cases, the students in school now represent the first generation of educated girls in these rural areas. And teachers from the city, who have more education, demand more money because they have to travel every day, Suleman said.

Kosar, 40, is unusual in that she has a bachelor’s degree in education and is working on her master’s degree in Urdu. She teaches different subjects, mostly English and Islamic studies, in classes two, five and eight.

Raza, too, has a master’s degree in Islamic studies from Jhelum.

“This is my passion and I want to teach my area, I belong here,” she said. “I know that the teachers did not come here and so I thought I should teach my village people, and especially girls.

“So we thank you for this building. This is a poor area. The people are very poor. The children are very poor. And this is a big problem. People cannot even pay for the notebooks. The government pays three teachers, but for 200 students, this is not enough. This is the main problem for us.”

Then, just as we were ready to leave, Tassa War, the district education officer, arrived at the school. She explained that it is hard for the government to get enough qualified teachers for all the schools, especially after the government lifted the ban on transfers last year and “many left the rural areas.” And she reiterated the Bhamber School staff’s request.

“If you can help, that would be good,” War said.

I promised to do my best.

Since then, I have gotten approval from the home office. When the new school year begins in April, CAI will be paying the salaries of two additional teachers at the Bhamber Girls’ Middle School.

QUOTE: “Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.” — Colleen Wilcox

— Karin Ronnow

Photos: Students at Bhamber Girls’ Middle School, Pakistan. Karin Ronnow, January 2012.

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February 7, 2012 – Badakhshan: Heavy Snowfall Brings Humanitarian Crisis

The death toll from the severe winter weather in Afghanistan’s mountainous northeast rose again over the weekend following another avalanche in Badakhshan province.

At least four people were killed and six injured when the avalanche hit villages in the remote Arghistan district Saturday, according to news reports. The district is 196 miles northeast of Kabul. Click here for map.

Central Asia Institute project managers in the region said Monday that the deadly slide coincided with the “third wave” of heavy snowfall to hit the region at the western end of the Wakhan Corridor.

A few weeks ago, 10 feet of snow trapped an entire village of 72 families in their homes in nearby Ishkashim district, according to news reports. Rescue teams were sent to the area, but a provincial government official told the BBC, “We don’t have any equipment to help people there.”

More than 40 people have died in Badakhshan this winter as a result of avalanches, heavy snow and freezing temperatures.

CAI has schools throughout this part of Afghanistan, although early reports indicate no CAI projects have been damaged.

Snow and harsh winters are not unusual in the impoverished province, where most people eke out a living via subsistence farming. Two years ago, an avalanche killed at least 171 people near the Salang Pass, the main north-south road through the Hindu Kush Mountains, according to the Associated Press.

But this year’s heavy snowfall follows a long-running drought that had already put tens of thousands of people at high risk of hunger. Government officials and humanitarian groups are worried that those people are now at further risk due to their isolation combined with the severe shortage of food for themselves and their livestock.

The United Nations has sent emergency food to the provincial capital, Faisabad, but in some areas of Badakhshan the deep snow – 7 to 10 feet in some places – has blocked many of the province’s rugged roads and made delivery a problem.

“If the snow continues to keep the roads to rural and remote districts closed and we don’t get any assistance, we would face a severe humanitarian crisis,” Abdul Maroof Rasekh, a provincial government spokesman, told IRIN.

— Karin Ronnow

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February 2, 2012 – Onward 2012

The giving season, overseas priorities, and the start of our annual CAI audit have kept all of us very busy the first month of this year.

First and foremost, thanks to each and every one of you for the encouraging and sustaining letters and financial support — especially over these past few months.

I want you to know that Central Asia Institute is stronger than ever. We remain focused on the work at hand despite the frustrations of having to resist, once again, inclusion in a purported class action lawsuit that now has been reformulated five times. Wild claims, however vexatious and illogical, are only that — “claims”.

Karin Ronnow returned from Pakistan two weeks ago. The first of her reports follows below. Greg is much healthier and working out of the public eye where he is most comfortable for now. CAI staff here in our Bozeman office and our overseas program managers are resilient. We will not be deflected from our great mission to promote education in remote regions of Central Asia and to inform everyone about the need to foster education in Pakistan and Afghanistan, especially for girls. Please see our Master Project List. It is a dynamic account of our projects. We update it regularly.

If you have any question or concerns, we are happy to answer them. info@ikat.org

Your encouragement to all of us has come at a time when we needed to hear from you. All my hopes and best wishes to you in the coming year.

— Anne Beyersdorfer

‘Bad days and tough times’ over thanks to CAI’s KP projects

PAHARPUR, Pakistan –Central Asia Institute’s first primary school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, “duly furnished and with a playground,” was successfully completed and handed over to government authorities on Christmas Eve.

Since then, enrollment at the two-classroom Sha Daoo Government Primary School – located in the southern reaches of the former North West Frontier Province – increased nearly 10-fold, from six to 55 boys and girls.

And it continues to grow.

“Already the number of students and the strength of the students has improved,” the head teacher told me in mid-January during my visit to “inaugurate” the school. “Thank you for making a school in this backward area.”

Paharpur is in the Dera Ismail Khan District of KP, on the west bank of the Indus River. The CAI-funded building replaces a government school severely damaged by the devastating floods that swept Pakistan in 2010.

Three different Pakistan TV news channels covered the story of the school’s demise, and the village’s subsequent use of an old shelter, but the government did not respond. CAI’s chief operations officer in Pakistan, Ilyas Mirza, saw the broadcasts and offered the community CAI’s help to erect a new building.

“We appreciate Central Asia Institute’s efforts here,” said Syed Feroz Hussain, DI Khan district education officer. “I know that this school will bear very sweet fruit in the passage of time.”

The reference to fruit may have been unintentional, but it suits. The area is famous for its date trees, which look like palm trees to the uninitiated. Farmers also grow sugar cane, wheat and other fruit. Said to be one of the hottest places in the world, where summer temperatures reach 120 degrees-plus, the area is green and lush, even in January.

But its proximity to Pakistan’s tribal areas – Waziristan’s mountains can be seen in the distance –and the presence of militant Islamists means the region is unsettled and dangerous.

Two days before we arrived, a group of suicide bombers attacked the District Police Officers’ headquarters in DI Khan, killed four people and damaged the building. News reports said Tehreek-e-Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. It was one of several recent militant attacks on security personnel in KP’s southern districts.

As a result, the extra security provided for my January visit was especially intense.

“Welcome to the land of hospitality,” Idrees Mirza, Ilyas Mirza’s brother and the man who handled the security logistics, said upon our arrival at the provincial border checkpost. He was serious, but also trying to make light of a tense situation.

“This is no problem. You have many guards,” he told me, gesturing to the half-dozen armed guards behind him. “They are my cousins.”

Family protects family in this region, which is largely populated by Pashtuns. But the local government also provided a police escort, just in case. And we moved quickly across the flat landscape, past date palms, camels and fields filled with families harvesting sugar cane.

At Sha Daoo School students, teachers, and village elders, including the man who donated the land, Ghulum Jilani, 59, greeted us.

“I do this for the education of the children, for their better future,” Jilani, a thin man with a long white beard, said through a translator. “Islam values education. This is something we must do.”

Jilani looks after property, with the assistance of other village elders and government officials – all of who were grateful for CAI’s work in the area.

“The services you delivered here are very good, especially for girls’ education,” Hussain said. “A woman plays a pivotal role as a mother. Men are dominant here, but women should take their own place and play a role in the country’s development.”

The kids said they liked the new school, but they were particularly fond of the new playground.
“Such parks are scarce here,” Mirza explained. “There are no others in a radius of about 100 miles.”

But there will be a couple more when CAI completes its other projects in the area — a new primary school in Matwala Shah, and repairs to two “existing, dangerous buildings” in Jabbarwala, Mirza said.

When we arrived in Matwala Shah, we found the students sitting in the dirt under a piece of propped up canvas practicing their ABCs. They’ve been studying outside ever since the villagers deemed the old school unfit for classes in 2006.

“Nobody took care of the building and it is dangerous,” said teacher Allah Nawaz. “For five years the children have been sitting on the ground. We used to have 136 students, but now some have gone because of the situation.”

The new school, similar in size to the Sha Daoo School, should be finished in March, Mirza said.

“These students are lucky to have been discovered by CAI team,” he said. “Bad times and tough days are nearly over. Soon they will be on chairs in a new CAI building, with books and uniforms, thanks to CAI.”

Persian proverb: “Thinking well is wise; planning well, wiser; but doing well is the wisest and best of all.”

— Karin Ronnow

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December 22, 2011 – To be of use

Happy Solstice.

As I sit here in the predawn darkness, a light snow falling outside, my mind is in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the people whose stories are included in the Journey of Hope.

If it is dark and cold here in Montana on this, the shortest day of the year, I can only imagine what it is like in places like Korphe, Kipkut, and Barswat – high in the mountains, where there is no electricity and people have only dung-fueled fires and heavy blankets to keep the cold at bay.

Like many Americans, I take for granted that I can turn on a light, turn up the heat and fill the teapot with clean water every morning. I expect my newspaper on the front porch. And I count on my down-filled jacket, warm socks and good boots to keep me warm when I head out the door.

But the neglected corners of the world where CAI works are my reality check. Traveling in those regions has taught me that my “modern conveniences” are actually more like “daily miracles.”

CAI’s partners in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan must work really hard to get through the winter. Even the simplest things – getting water, warming a room, or feeding a child – are real chores that require people “do what has to be done, again and again,” as poet Marge Piercy says.

They do the hard work on these dark, cold, snowy winter mornings because they have to. They do it together. And they do it because, for many, it is all they have ever known. Their “daily miracle” is their own survival.

Their persistence and determination are my motivation. And so I think of them today, on the winter solstice, as we celebrate the victory of light over darkness.

Perhaps it is a strained analogy, but I believe that CAI’s work promoting education is also about hope for a brighter future.

Persistence and hard work pay off (see Piercy’s poem below).

Better – and brighter — days are ahead.

We at CAI believe that.

So from all of us, Happy Holidays. May your days be merry and bright!

— Karin Ronnow

To be of use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
— Marge Piercy

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December 15, 2011 – Afghan women helping women

Literacy won’t solve all the problems that plague women in Afghanistan.

But it’s a good place to start, according to the women who manage Central Asia Institute’s women’s literacy and vocational centers in Kabul.

Only 15 percent of Afghan women are literate, according to UNICEF.

Three decades of war are a big factor in that statistic, said Safiya, 30, CAI’s women’s program manager in the capital city.

“So many years of fighting makes big problems for Afghan women,” she said. “The Taliban period for Afghanistan, especially, was very dark. Women couldn’t go to school. Some were not allowed outside. There were so many problems. Now too many Afghan women don’t know how to read and write because of Afghanistan’s wars.”

But the fighting is not entirely to blame for women’s oppression, she said. Her life experience has taught her that.

Although Safiya married an open-minded man after she finished high school, she quickly learned that his family did not see the world the same way he did.

“When my husband was young, he went to Russia for 13 years to study and get education. Then he came back and his mind was completely different from his all his family,” she said. “After marriage, we lived in Khost Province with his family. My mother-in-law, she was very strict. She wouldn’t let me continue my education and she made me wear burka. His younger brother is illiterate and doesn’t approve of women getting education either.”

After the Taliban was overthrown in 2001, Safiya was optimistic. Her husband got a job working for the Afghan government and they enrolled their older daughter in school.

“But then my husband was killed by the Taliban because he worked for Afghan government, and his brother, who is Talib, said I could not work and my daughters could not go to school,” she said.

So Safiya fled to Kabul, where she and her two daughters live with her parents. With the help of a CAI scholarship, she earned her accounting degree. Wakil Karimi, CAI’s central, southern and eastern Afghanistan program manager, hired her last summer to oversee CAI’s women’s programs in Kabul.

“This is my favorite job because this work is very important,” she said. “And Wakil is a very good boss.”

Sabiera, 38, who assists Safiya as supervisor of CAI’s women’s programs, graduated from class 12, but also ran headlong into a new reality once she married.

“My father’s side are all educated – doctors, engineers, all are professionals,” she said. “But my husband’s family is uneducated and when I married I had a very bad situation with this family. I saw this problem. My husband, he is educated, but because of his family he didn’t allow me to go outside without my burka.”

But she has an inherent strength, a characteristic strengthened by her life in war-torn Afghanistan.

“After Taliban took control, my husband escaped to Pakistan. There was no work here and he fought for mujahidin, so it was not safe for him. But I stayed here with my children. I said, ‘I don’t want to leave my home.’ The Taliban would come to the house and try to stay here. I told them Massoud [the mujahidin who led the anti-Taliban resistance group the Northern Alliance] would drop a bomb on our house if they stayed there and we would all die together.

“My husband came back after about one month, but in Kabul there was just so much fighting. We moved to north of the city. We went during the night, in the dark. We took a lantern for light. We went to an area controlled by Massoud.” [For more information on Massoud, click here and here.]

After the Taliban were overthrown, the family returned to their home in south Kabul. “I decided to work for the education of women, because education is a right for all humans,” she said.

Not everyone feels that way. Women’s rights are still far from universally accepted in Afghanistan.

“Many Afghan families have enthusiastically enrolled their daughters in school, but most Afghan women wear the burka and either cannot exercise the rights that they are guaranteed by the constitution or are not aware that they have them” the Washington Post reported March 6. “With or without the Taliban, Afghan society is deeply conservative and patriarchal and it will take years of patient effort before it becomes less so.”

Key to that effort is literacy, Safiya and Sabiera said.

“So many women, they can’t read and write, so they can’t solve their basic problems,” Safiya said. “And they have no opportunities for education. But when they learn, they are stronger. Also, they will encourage sending their own daughters to school.”

CAI’s literacy programs operate in private homes, usually those of the teacher. Students range in age from 9 to 50. The centers are neighborhood based so the girls and women can walk to class each day. “We go to the poorest neighborhoods and put the classes in the houses, not far from where they live,” Safiya said.

The classes meet for two hours a day, six days a week, for nine months.

“We control the classes, observe the students and teachers,” Sabiera said. “We check students, how much they are learning, and the attendance sheets, to make sure they are coming to classes. We provide books and notebooks. Also, we help the women describe to their families how [the classes are] useful, how to talk to their husbands.”

By the time the women have finished the program, they are educated to about a fourth-grade level.

“Before, for us education was not possible,” student Bibi Maria, 50, said in September. “Now we must take advantage that you made this. This is the first time we have these kinds of classes in houses, the first time our families will let us come.”

Bibi Niamatta, 45, whose family moved to the city to escape the fighting in Kunar Province, agreed with her classmate. “It is never too late for education, because education is important for old or young, man or woman,” she said.

For girls like Zainab, 14, the centers open a world of possibilities. Until CAI opened a center in her neighborhood, her parents insisted she stay home to help them with the family carpet-making business.

“They didn’t let me go to school,” she said. “But when I got information about the center, I got permission to go. And now I am happy. My big hope is that parents should let their daughters go to school and improve the country and help Afghanistan. I want to take the opportunity for this. After I complete this class, I want to go to school and get more education.”

Safiya and Sabiera are also responsible for operation of CAI’s vocational centers – which are also home-based and offer a three-month training in sewing skills.

“After women learn to read and write, then they want skills so they can get some money and get their own income,” Safiya said. “That is very important. Most Afghan people don’t take care of women and wives.”

And they manage the additional English, math and computer courses CAI offers at several Kabul high schools, Karimi said.

All of these programs are free to participants, Sabiera noted.

She got involved with CAI’s programs about two years ago. After her own children had reached school age, she began looking for a way to help other women. She heard about CAI’s women’s literacy program and set up a “classroom” in her own home. A year later, she was hired to help Safiya run the program.

“Now my daughter is running the school in my home,” she said. “My children know people must have education – that is the source of all improvement and the only way women are going to get their rights.”

— Karin Ronnow

For a more detailed story about CAI’s Vocational Centers, read our 2011 Journey of Hope.

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December 5, 2011 – Guest Blog with Randi Pritchard

Randi Pritchard heard about Greg Mortenson “and his amazing dedication” – her words – years ago. She read his books, went to hear him speak and finally met him earlier this year at a function in her home state of California.

But that was not enough for the curious 66-year-old supporter.

“In July, I was off to visit his Wakhan schools,” she said of the Central Asia Institute projects in the Wakhan Corridor in remote northeast Afghanistan. “My sister, Kari Nielsen, and I travelled by ourselves through the Wakhan. At each of the schools we were met with fantastic, welcoming smiles from students and teachers when I mentioned Dr. Greg. I promised that I would bring their ‘thanks’ and ‘helloes’ and to say that they were doing great!”

I met Randi for coffee during CAI’s Building Bridges of Peace Conference in October. Although she has a finance/marketing background, she works as an assistant teacher for children with special needs. She has traveled extensively, she said, and was not intimidated by the dearth of basic amenities or infrastructure for travelers in the Wakhan.

She then pulled out a stack of photos from her journey and told me the stories behind them.

I asked her how she was able to spot the CAI schools.

“Since the CAI schools were the reason for my visit, I already had a pretty good idea what the schools would look like – at least in theory,” she said. “Sure enough, the modern blocks of schools with their almost-shining stars stood out starkly against the gray, rugged hills. Our driver was fully aware that I came to this part of the world just to see the CAI schools and was prepared to stop by each school. I would of course have loved it if he had been able to speak English.”

But the intrepid traveler persevered and her reward, she said, was the trip of a lifetime.

Here is a transcript of my subsequent interview about her trip.

— Karin Ronnow

KR: How much did you know about the CAI schools in the Wakhan Corridor before you embarked on your journey?

RP: I was probably one of the first ones to read Three Cups of Tea. Stories set in the developing world and stories dealing with education interest me passionately. Subsequently I read Stones into Schools and I was hooked. I felt I needed to go to see these schools that an ordinary man had decided to build for children in remote villages without any money, nor any previous building, educational or political experience. His only prerequisite was his big heart and to follow something he believed in. When Greg Mortenson came to give a talk close to where I live, I was quick to buy a ticket. I wanted to meet and greet this amazing man. It was beautiful to learn that Afghanistan has another side to show – not just the one about war and death.

KR: What were your first thoughts when you saw the first CAI school building, and the fifth, and the tenth?

RP: When I saw the first CAI school building standing so proudly and majestically along the Wakhan’s sole road, I knew I had reached my goal. I had made it! I felt utterly privileged. What I had only read about and seen photos of was real, right there in front of my eyes.

And what a bonus it was to be able to go inside the school to greet all the students – boys and girls together in the same classroom – and the staff. It was such a joy to watch their faces light up even more when I mentioned Dr. Greg. It was a gloriously emotional feeling to be able to share my admiration for the man who built the school.

By the second school I had learned the hand-over-heart greeting while bowing my head and saying, Asalaam Aleikum. As I visited more and more schools further up the corridor my respect and admiration just intensified. How could an individual accomplish such a huge job in such a remote part of a war-torn developing country?

It was an inspiration to experience these children’s almost desperate need to learn. Dedicated teachers were proud to show me around. The students showed me their textbooks and their writings. A few children proudly counted in English while others were able to say a few sentences. I remember in particular the one older boy who was working so hard trying to pronounce and grasp the meaning of the word “who.” Great joy when he at last succeeded!

I had brought boxes of pens to share. I wish I had brought tons of paper and journals to write in. As it was, the students used every bit of space on their papers to write on – so different to the world I work in.
It was quite a humble experience when all the children came outside, waving goodbye as I left each school.

By the tenth or eleventh school, I was tempted to say, “Just leave me here.” The satisfaction of seeing, feeling, and hearing what education really should be was an incredible inspiration to me.

KR: Where else have you traveled and how did the Wakhan compare?

RP: I’ve lived in Norway, Denmark, Iran, South Africa, Japan, the UK, and now in the US. I’ve traveled to Canada, Australia, Europe, Turkey, and the former USSR. In Asia, I’ve been to Japan, China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, India, Burma. In the Middle East, Jordan, Syria, Israel, and Egypt. In Africa – Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Morocco. And in Central and South America, I’ve traveled to Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico.

Compared to other places I’ve visited – so far! – the Wakhan was the road less traveled, no other tourists. It is the most remote place I have ever been. It was also the most inspiring destination because of what CAI is doing there. I have never before been met with such genuine kindness and pure curiosity in spite of language barriers.

KR: You mentioned that you met Sarfraz Khan in the Wakhan. What were your impressions?

RP: Running into Sarfraz Khan in Khandud village was a huge bonus. At first I had no idea who this horse-riding, handsome, English-speaking man was. He told me he had just come down from the Pamirs, where he had been working at the Bozoi Gumbad CAI school. He was so full of life.

This incredibly energetic man seemed so familiar to me, but why? He probably introduced himself, however, I didn’t hear it – I was so taken with his charismatic charm. Then, when I sat down, I realized that I knew this man through Stones Into Schools.

He took the time to share his experiences with me and show me the beautiful photos he had just downloaded to his computer of the outstanding work done to create a functioning school environment for the Kyrgyz nomad children.

Not only was a school built, but also a hostel for the students, their teachers and cook. Seeing the photos of those smiling, proud children all with backpacks and uniforms was touching. And I later saw those photos on the CAI website.

Then, before I could think about taking a photo of him, he was gone – off to Tajikistan to build more schools.

I’m pretty energetic myself, but he definitely beats me!

KR: What role do you think education of the Wakhi children will play in the future of Afghanistan, and the world?

RP: Seeing what transpires in these remote schools gives me hope that no one will interfere in their further education, and particularly that girls will continue to be educated into the future. The Wakhi educated children will benefit the development of the Wakhan Corridor. Furthermore, the education of children in the Wakhan and in the rest of Afghanistan will hopefully ensure there may be a peaceful future for Afghanistan without wars.

I am so happy that these children have been given a chance to change the world by a man coming from so far away equipped with a big heart and an idea. And I hope that CAI can continue to facilitate the building of new schools after the Americans leave Afghanistan. And I particularly hope that the Taliban will allow this to happen.

KR: Thanks, Randi.
RP: I also wanted to say that my sister, Kari, was the only one who would join me on this adventure and she is very happy that she went!

QUOTE: “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – American author Maya Angelou

All photos courtesy Randi Pritchard

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November 30, 2011 – 2011 Journey of Hope

The 2011 edition of our annual Journey of Hope highlights Central Asia Institute’s accomplishments that I would like to share with all of you who make our seemingly “impossible” mission a possibility.

Our communications director and author of this journal – Karin Ronnow – has eloquently chronicled, with stunning pictures by the photographer Ellen Jaskol, some of the milestones that we have reached in our journey from Pakistan to Afghanistan to Tajikistan.

The focus of Central Asia Institute’s mission is the same that Muhammad Iqbal, the internationally honored national poet of Pakistan, so movingly captured in his famous poem “A Child’s Prayer.” I have translated that poem for you from Urdu. This poem epitomizes the universal voice of children. I hope you will enjoy this poem because it will bring you a step closer to understanding and appreciating our mission.

With gratitude for your faith in Central Asia Institute.

— Abdul Jabbar, Chair, Central Asia Institute Board of Directors

A Child’s Prayer
My desire rises from my lips like a prayer:
O Almighty, may my life be like a lamp.
May my presence dispel the world’s darkness.
May I be the source of light everywhere
May my breath beautify my country
The way a flower beautifies a garden.
May my life be in the form of a moth
In love with the lamp of knowledge.
May my life’s goal be helping the poor
And loving the compassionate and the weak.
O Allah, save me from evil deeds.
Make me tread the path that leads to virtue.
— Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938)
(Translated by Abdul Jabbar)

NOTE: The original poem in Urdu is very musical because it uses rhyme and meter. My translation is in the form of free verse, just an attempt to express the poem’s meaning without rhyme and meter. AJ

Click here to view 2011 Journey of Hope

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November 23, 2011 – Attitude of gratitude

Asalaam Aleikum (Peace be with you).

And to all our stateside readers and supporters, Happy Thanksgiving.

As we count our blessings here at Central Asia Institute, it has been noted that some of them have arrived in strange packages this year. But blessings are sometimes like that. It’s what happens next that matters.

And at CAI, we opted to turn challenges into opportunities to learn and grow. After all, CAI is all about education and adaptation, about listening and growing, and, when necessary, changing. Every new project, new relationship, and new geographic region teaches us valuable lessons. We learn something new every day. We never stop learning.

So we are grateful for our teachers, who come in all shapes and sizes.

We are grateful for our supporters, who continue to believe that it is possible to make a difference in the world, one child at a time.

And we are grateful for the ties that bind us all together in our mission.

Our annual Journey of Hope publication is CAI’s attempt to document that mission with words and photos. And assembling this year’s edition has truly been a journey of hope. The process, the people, and the places – they all combine to leave me with an unshakeable attitude of gratitude, just in time for Thanksgiving.

I’m grateful for our hardworking, multitalented project managers who guide me and photographer Ellen Jaskol down so many roads less traveled. They introduce us to amazing people who entrust us with their stories and treat us like family, people whose open hearts, hospitality, and honesty leave me humbled and inspired.

I’m grateful, too, for the teachers and students. They are the heart and soul of everything CAI does. Their creativity, passion, and determination to make a better future keep me focused on what’s important.

I am also grateful for the hardworking, multitalented individuals at CAI’s headquarters in Bozeman. What a team. Layout, photo selection, proofreading, fact checking – the Journey of Hope is an enormous project and it takes all hands on deck to get it done. Shukria. Tashakur. Manana. Thank you!

And of course I am grateful to CAI’s cofounder Greg Mortenson, for his capacity to articulate the principles that continue to guide CAI into the future – take time to drink three cups of tea, listen to people, empower those you are trying to help, respect the elders, don’t rush, don’t be afraid to fail, and believe that education is the key to a peaceful world.

It takes a village, as the saying goes, and on this Thanksgiving we are filled with an attitude of gratitude for all who are part of CAI’s mission.

Thank you for your continued support.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

QUOTE: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein

– Karin Ronnow

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November 11, 2011 – Ten principles toward building peace

After recent CAI staff outreach at the Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival, and our “Building Bridges of Peace” conference, we were made aware of an article written about an evening with co-founder Greg Mortenson that produced a list outlining Greg’s ten principles toward building peace. Tony Mussari gave us permission to re-post it here:

Ten principles toward building peace

1. Use books not bullets to bring peace to our world.
2. Harness the power in the wisdom of grandparents and elders.
3. Listen more, have respect, and build relationships.
4. Get youngsters unplugged from their digital devices.
5. Get youngsters into playgrounds with their friends where they can be children again.
6. Harness the power of a penny.
7. Understand that when girls are educated they build communities.
8. Don’t be afraid to fail.
9. Trust and believe that our children will make a difference in the world for the good of humanity.
10. Celebrate our constitutional right to happiness, and export it throughout the world.

Greg Mortenson: A Face of America Commentary
By Tony Mussari
Copyright 2010
The Face of America Project
Mussari-Loftus Associates, LTD

The seats in the Kirby Theater are empty. The room is dark, the books, pictures, graphics and all the other external trappings of Greg Mortenson’s visit are packed away. The letters on the marquis announce another event, but the memory of this magical moment will forever be recorded in the hearts and souls of the 1,800 people who filled the Kirby Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday last.

Among those memories are ten statements and five quotations that, if applied, can change our world for the better: Use books not bullets to bring peace to our world; Harness the power in the wisdom of grandparents and elders; Get youngsters unplugged from their digital devices; Get youngsters into playgrounds with their friends where they can be children again; Harness the power of a penny; Understand that when girls are educated they build communities; Don’t be afraid to fail; Trust and believe that our children will make a difference in the world for the good of humanity; Celebrate our constitutional right to happiness, and export it throughout the world; Listen more, have respect and build relationships.

On the dark days of adversity and challenge, when nothing seems to work, remember these quotations that kept this passionate man moving forward:
‘When it is dark, you can see the stars.”
“The greatness of America is in its diversity.”
“People can be empowered to control their own destiny.”
‘There is a big difference between helping and empowering.”
“You cannot plug in democracy in a country like Afghanistan; you must build it with the help of elders and the education of children.”

Greg Mortenson has been celebrated in many ways with many different words of praise, but nowhere have I found the word that in my mind’s eye best describes this good and decent man from Montana, this force for change, this living monument to determination, this giver of the gift of hope, this builder of schools for the dispossessed, this beautiful Face of America.

I watched him carefully before, during and after dinner at Wilkes University. I listened intently to his words at the 29th Annual Max Rosen Lecture Series in Law and Humanities, and I took copious notes during his presentation at the Kirby.

For me, the word that best describes Greg Mortenson is teacher. Teacher in the academic sense, we are all his students. Teacher in the human sense, he fills our hearts with hope. Teacher in the biblical sense, he sanctifies the places he visits with the good news of education, enlightenment, equality and enrichment.

If you spend an evening with Greg Mortenson, you can not help but become a better person, a more thoughtful person, a better citizen of the world and a better American. The price of admission to Mortenson’s classroom is a caring heart. The consequence of participating in his classroom is a belief that tomorrow can be better than today. The benefit of implementing what he teaches is peace and progress for everyone. It doesn’t get any better than that in any classroom anywhere in the world.

I saw the face of America today. It belongs to a big man, with a big heart who is not afraid to go where his heart leads him. May your journey continue. May your dreams be fulfilled, and may we realize that you are doing more than building schools in some of the most remote and dangerous neighborhoods on this planet. You and your work give witness to the heart and soul of America on its very best days.

Please provide feedback to:
tmussari@gmail.com
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- Anne Beyersdorfer

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November 9, 2011 – Earthquake hits NE Afghanistan and NW Pakistan

A moderate-size earthquake shook the remote mountains of northeast Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan late Monday afternoon, Nov. 7.

Wohid Khan, Afghan Border Security commander in Badakhshan Province, said Tuesday in a phone call with Central Asia Institute staff that no deaths had been reported so far. He had received reports of only minor damage to a few earthen homes in the Jurm and Baharak areas. Southern Badakhshan was the epicenter of the quake.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department reported that the earthquake occurred about 130 miles below the earth’s surface, with an intensity of 6.3 on the Richter scale, although the Associated Press reported it as a 5.5-magnitude quake. It happened at about 4:30 p.m. local time.

Earthquakes are common in the Hindu Kush, Pamir and Karakoram ranges where CAI’s school projects are based. The affected areas, however, are often quite remote and have limited communication with the outside world. As a result, it is sometimes weeks before the full impact of an earthquake is reported.

“The primary earthquake-relief NGO in the region is FOCUS, which does significant and important work in disaster situations here and with whom we have collaborated in the past,” said CAI co-founder Greg Mortenson, who is traveling in the region. “Our ground staff is in touch with local leaders in these communities to determine if additional help is needed.”

— Karin Ronnow

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November 8, 2011 – Avalanche in the Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan

We have heard and read the news being reported that three CAI employees have been killed by an avalanche in the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan.

The Pakistani media reports were incorrect. A CAI program manager has confirmed that no CAI employees perished in the recent avalanche in Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor.

CAI staff abroad, and here in the US, send our heartfelt condolences to the families and communities of the three men lost to the avalanche.

- Central Asia Institute

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November 3, 2011 – Building bridges to coexist

Rudyard Kipling famously said, “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” People are often defined by what divides us — language, culture, race and religion — and Kipling was alluding to the cultural gap between the British and the people of their Indian empire. The rest of his verse is mostly forgotten, “But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,” where he underscores that to coexist peacefully people must see beyond those labels.

This idea is central to Central Asia Institute, which strives to help those who are different but alike by building global bridges. CAI’s two-day “Building Bridges of Peace Conference” in Chicago, Oct. 28-29, attracted hundreds of people, including some from as far away as China, Pakistan and Tajikistan. The event was an extension of CAI’s platform to promote “peace through education, and convey the importance of these activities globally.”

Jerene Mortenson, Greg’s mother and Pennies for Peace ambassador, headlined the event. Other speakers included Jack Shaheen, Bapsi Sidhwa, Zarqa Nawaz, Faran Tahir, Abdul Jabbar, Ethan Casey, Salahuddin Khan, Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad, Robert Renteria and comedian Maz Jobrani.

Friday’s session included two panel discussions, with speakers tracing the trajectory of peace in their personal lives as well as in their creative output in areas of activism, publishing and philanthropy. Topics included “Stereotypes in the Media” and “Philanthropy through Education.”

Jerene Mortenson made everyone laugh with her stories of children collecting pennies for peace. CAI’s Board Chairman Abdul Jabbar spoke eloquently about war and its penalties. While educating girls remains CAI’s primary mission, educating Americans about the areas where it works with outreach events is equally important. Building bridges is a two-sided process.

Students from the College Preparatory School of America in Lombard and Eastern Middle School in Indiana said afterwards that the panels, which helped them see tolerance and coexistence in a new light, inspired them. And attendee Professor Steve Duchrow of Elgin Community College said he was “moved at the various layers of context and meaning to be derived from peace by the panelists.”

The conference resumed Saturday evening with an exposition fair. Some 700 attendees visited the booths set up by 25 international nonprofit organizations, colleges and causes.

“We were honored by CAI to be included with such a stellar group of community-minded professionals and organizations all working together to make the world a better place,” said Serena Chen Low, executive director of APNA Ghar, an NGO that aids abused women.

Students from Illinois Science and Math Academy also thanked CAI for the opportunity to participate as “a youth voice for ‘The Girl Effect,’” a nonprofit organization focused on the importance of educating and empowering females. “This weekend CAI had a profound impact on our perspectives and motivations,” the students said in an e-mail.

The conference’s finale was a Saturday dinner. In spelling out why CAI opted to hold this outreach event, I credited CAI’s Co-founder Greg Mortenson with inspiring the dialogue of peace. I told the crowd: “The world is on a lexical impasse: no two people different in race, religion and culture seem to agree anymore. However, CAI gives people an opportunity to hear the voices of those [who] are silent and destitute.”

Karin Ronnow, CAI’s Communication Director shared stories of her recent trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan, highlighted by Ellen Jaskol’s stunning photography. Anne Beyersdorfer, CAI’s Acting Executive Director, talked about peace through storytelling, by sharing perspectives, and introduced Jerene Mortenson, who spoke about kindness and regaled the audience with her unique Minnesota humor and wisdom.

Rockford P4P supporters Jim Keeling and Karen Bieschke said afterwards that they “were inspired all over again by the diversity and thoughtfulness of CAI’s wonderful speakers and participants.” The event “made us proud and sparked ideas of how we can spread this message of peace, kindness and education. We can’t afford to be silent.”

Numerous people pitched in before, during and after the event, including: CAI Database Manager Michelle Laxson, Reema Syed, Roohi Younus, Brian Seredynski, and a team of volunteers who helped make this event high in impact and low in draining resources.

“This night was one of the best-ever events I’ve been to and it reminded me what Greg Mortenson said, ‘The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with people,’” said Naazish Yar Khan, a public-relations specialists who attended Saturday’s dinner. “And that to me is what building bridges is all about.”

— Sadia Ashraf

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November 1, 2011 – Guest Blog by Sgt. Sherrill

EDITOR’S NOTE: Poetry is a lot of different things, but perhaps more than anything else it is one way of telling a story.

Abdul Jabbar, chairman of CAI’s board of directors and a professor at City College in San Francisco, shared this poem Friday during a panel discussion on education and philanthropy in Chicago. The panel, which also included author Bapsi Sidhwa and educator Jerene Mortenson, was part of CAI’s “Building Bridges of Peace Conference: Dialogue through Philanthropy, Education and Storytelling.”

CAI co-founder Greg Mortenson gave Abdul the poem after he received it from Sgt. M. Douglas Sherrill, Jr, a U.S. soldier serving in Afghanistan. Sherrill wrote the poem after he read Greg’s first book, “Three Cups of Tea,” and gave Greg permission to share it with others.

Storytelling has become an integral part of how CAI communicates the depth and breadth of its work in the world. We are grateful to Abdul for both calling attention to this poem, and for reading it aloud to us.

— Karin Ronnow

Behind the Wall
by Sgt. M. Douglas Sherrill, Jr.

I hear the voices behind the wall,

While my weapon lies beside my gear, I do not fear,
These voices are small,
And even though their language is not my own,
I understand,
For they laugh,
They squeal, and shriek with delight.
They giggle and yell, and maybe even fight.
A little girl screams with glee chased by an older sibling.
No, I do not fear these voices, and
I do not to my mates call, “Stand To!”
No,
I do not fear the universal sound of children playing.

But,
There is another Voice behind that wall.
It cannot be heard, only sensed,
Its source cannot be seen, it has no form,
Cannot be touched,

And yet, we wrestle with it every day.
Yet even without form, In the hands of my Enemy,
It is a weapon.
This Voice, though not heard,
Calls out and recruits legions to my Enemy’s ranks.
This Voice,
This Weapon,
This Evil that thwarts my efforts for Peace,
Is Ignorance and Illiteracy.
My M16 cannot dispatch it,
My machine gun cannot pin it down!
Bombs dropped from planes and artillery shells
Cannot dislodge it from its entrenched positions!
Despondent and depressed I thought,
“If my weapons are of no avail, then how can this war be won?”
“What weapon will defeat my Enemy?”

Then,

I heard another Voice behind the wall.
“Hear Me, Use Me” it said
“Put down your guns, bombs, tanks and planes,
“Pick up a hammer, saw, nails and a Carpenters Square,
“Build Me schools!
“Fill them with books, pencils, desks, Teachers, and Children,
“Then, invite me in, for I am Knowledge.
“Only I can disperse the Darkness of Ignorance and Illiteracy.
“Only I can silence the Voice that recruits legions to your Enemy.
“And,
Then
“Slowly
“Over
“Time
“Your Enemy will be a memory”
So,
What Voices did you hear behind the wall today?

— Sgt. M. Douglas Sherrill, Jr.

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