Shoes delivered to refugee camp.

Posted on | December 8, 2008 | 2 Comments

We had a pre-mission brief the night of 2 December, where we received Intel, went over the security brief, travel plan, etc. Then later that night we loaded pre-sorted boxes of clothes, coats, shoes and school supplies on a large military trailer and in the back of our armored vehicles.

Then we met the morning of 3 December and assembled with our security teams. We took four armored vehicles, each vehicle had a three man security team consisting of the driver, a guard and a gunner. The rest of us were passengers — the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, their doc, Col Scott Jones and myself. But of course, we also were armed and required to wear full protective battle gear.

We drove out about an hour to the foot hills where the refugee camp was located. The landscape was brown, barren and dusty… no vegetation at all. The camp consisted of various spaced mud huts — square structures about 6-7 feet high with walls constructed of mud mixed with straw. There were openings that served as doorways and windows. A few had blankets acting as curtains for the doorway. Some of the ‘nicer’ buildings had a thin metal roof that was then covered with mud and a few had metal doors.

The medical building was a little nicer. We were led to a central courtyard that was a square area surrounded by 6 foot mud walls and a metal gate. The Afghan National Police was already there to provide additional security. Our security teams dismounted first and set up a defensive perimeter. Then we dismounted and were led into the courtyard where we met with the village elders and several Afghan government ministers representing their Department of Refugees and Repatriation. We learned that the camp consisted of 250 families that were displaced to a refugee camp in Pakistan during intense fighting years ago. They had since been repatriated to their current location for a year or so.

The elders told us how very grateful they were that we had come to visit and how grateful they were to the American people for providing these donations. They stated that the refugee families were desperately poor. None of the men had jobs nor way to earn an income. They had a few goats around the area but no crops. A few wells provided water. They were in desperate need of firewood for heat, food, and of course, clothing. None of the children had shoes, few had pants, and most were wrapped in robes and rags. They huddle together at night in the mud huts for warmth. The adults wore cheap plastic sandals and only a few had shoes. The village elders had prepared for our arrival days in advance. They had assembled a list of all the families and rank ordered them with the most needy receiving the highest priority. Everyone knew we couldn’t carry enough supplies to outfit everyone. The families crowded outside the courtyard anxiously waiting and the children massed the gates, peering in at all of us strangers.

Then the elders called out family names one by one from their list. A family representative would be let into the courtyard with their children in tow. Chief Zincone had organized the boxes and we had them all opened so that we could easily see their contents. The Chief and I and all the interpreters would meet the family, rummage through all the boxes and hand out what we thought was appropriate for each family — according to what they said they needed and how they looked to us. Keith Brown, Mike Slater and Tammy Moore captured it all in pictures and on camera. One by one the families came through. The process was overall very organized, completely run by the elders and watched by the Police.

The adult males were very friendly and very grateful. They seemed a proud people, not ashamed of their situation — this was just what life had dealt them at this point in time. But you could see that they had nothing. The desperation was more in the tone of the elders and the refugee families just seemed delighted to have us. The women were more reserved, talked very little, and kept themselves covered. They seemed to be more intense on finding what their families needed and a few squabbles erupted between them, apparently over items that several wanted. The Police were quick to step in between the women and disperse the squabbles. The children were by far the most interactive. They were all ages but there seemed to be more girls than boys. They were happy, smiling, curious… some of the bolder ones would call ‘mister, mister’ and point to something that they wanted. We handed out toys, school supplies, coats, clothes and shoes. With everything we gave them their faces would light up! They seemed to love everything and got so excited. The biggest hit by far was the shoes — every one of them needed shoes. The children would laugh and giggle as we fitted them with their new shoes. They were precious. They were gorgeous. And all I thought was that these children could have been mine. There wasn’t much different between us and them… they just had the unfortunate luck being born into a war torn country, bypassed by the modern world.

We ran out of supplies with a very long line still outside the gates. We knew this would happen but still felt horrible. All we could do was assure the families and the elders that we would be back. Chief Zincone and the PRT teams had already made plans that they would be back in two weeks. They were obviously moved by the project and decided that they would try to make this a regular event and try to get as much supplies out as they could before the very cold months of winter hit. We said our good-byes and loaded back up into the armored vehicles. As we drove out of the camp, the children ran after our vehicles waving.

Be sure to take a moment to look at the photos here.

Tom Knolmayer

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