We can hardly believe it’s already our last full day in Afghanistan. The time has flown by.
Jon and Ken had a filming assignment to accomplish out at Barek Aub today so the rest of us joined them and headed out to the village that was once an IDP camp similar to the one we visited yesterday just across the highway. Barek Aub was the first major worldwide project Flatirons undertook back in 2007 and only one other team member had been out there in the last four years. This was the perfect opportunity to see first-hand what their prayers and support have been doing since then.
After about an hour of driving and as Barek Aub came into view, I heard comments of “Look how green it is!” and “It’s so pretty!” – expressions I’ve rarely heard when referring to the village of Barek Aub. The elders aggressively planted wheat on every square inch of available space and winter rains and warm spring weather have turned the brown, barren soil into a blanket of green.
The filming assignment was to interview one of Barek Aub’s Community Health Workers… a group of 20 or so women who volunteer to receive training in basic health care and travel all over the community sharing their knowledge with women and their families living in the area.
Did you pick up on the “volunteer” part of that? They are not paid, yet they carry out their duties like paid professionals. They even offer their homes to function as small clinics in areas where it’s too difficult for patients to travel to the nearest medical facility. And when I say they offer their home, keep in mind these are one-room homes, so they are actually offering their ENTIRE home. They are truly remarkable women and play a key role in the sustainable growth and health of communities like this. They are true heroes.
As the filming was going on, the rest of the team visited the various projects that FCC and our host organization has supported throughout the years – the medical clinic, well and water distribution project, and the school. The clinic was recently upgraded to a Basic Health Clinic Plus, meaning it is now open 24 hours a day and has an ambulance on site to ferry emergency cases to a hospital in Kabul if needed. And the school, which had been closed for a time because of a shortfall in government funding, is open again on a limited schedule with a handful of classes available for boys and girls in grades 1-9.
There is much more work to be done in Barek Aub to make it a truly sustainable place to live, but it is gratifying to see constant, measurable growth every time we visit.