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First things first. The girls are no longer playing soccer in sandals. Click here for the full story and here for the inspiring video made by Liz Schwerdtle in Sun Valley, Idaho. The girls preferred tennis shoes.
They were fitted with tennis shoes purchased in Kabul and shin guards donated by the Sports Basement. The shoes cost $12 a pair. Being China's neighbor is a mixed blessing. Everything is inexpensive, but it is extremely difficult and often impossible for Afghan businesses to compete. We know too well about the impact China can have on an economy.
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How many generations will it be before the girls play in shorts and jerseys? It doesn't matter. They are openly playing soccer outdoors and loving it! The villagers of Qallah Loqman are paving the way for others! Is FIFA World Cup Soccer for Women in 2011 a possibility? No. 2015? Probably not. 2019? Why not? Crazier things have happened, like the Rolling Stone article.
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Drilling for a Gurgle
Previously I wrote about the construction of a classroom on Wahid's property, that was completed last December. For the new folk, home schooled classes taught inside villages are very popular as solution to girls obtaining an education. There may not be a school for girls and even if there is, it may not be safe to attend.
Inside the new classroom. Who wants to take computer classes?
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Homes are proving to be too small to meet demand. Villages have asked for and we are providing the materials needed to build stand alone classrooms that can also serve as community centers. Adult education will not be far behind. For the full story about the classroom on Wahid's property click here. Check out the scaffolding!!!!
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Once they moved to the new classroom, the old one (pictured below) became available.
Add paint, new carpet, twenty desks, computers, a teacher, and voila, a computer program was born in April. Computer classes are taught four times a day six days a week, each lasting an hour and a half. 80 students (40 boys and 40 girls) are enrolled and the waiting list is long.
 
Boys and girls studying together, an indication of how important computer classes are.
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Computers, as we all know, can remove the barriers learning. They don't have access to the internet yet. There are technical difficulties as well as filtering challenges that will be addressed over time. We look forward to the day these children are able to communicate directly with the thousands of American children who have been supporting them over the past several years.
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While visiting we also learned Wahid didn't have a well. As a consequence the children didn't have ready access to water. There are a couple hundred children passing through every day. Keeping them supplied with water became an impossible task. The donkey went on strike. Drilling a well was added to the wish list and authorized following our return.
Well contracts are challening. Just as they do here, drillers bid jobs based upon how deep they must dig and how difficult the soil turns out to be (rock vs sand). There is of course no guarantee that they will find water and drillers take no responsibility for their estimate of how deep they will need to dig. A neighbor's well can be 50 feet down and 150 feet later you're told they haven't found water and may need to start digging somewhere else. Been there!!
The advantage for us is that the villagers monitor the digging and know that whatever they save will be used for other "wish list" items. That's one of the major advantages of being perceived as a partner.
They haven't
struck water. But, so far, so good. I haven't received a change order
request and the contractor isn't BP.
Have a great weekend!
Budd
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