“
WITHOUT EDUCATION A PERSON CANNOT SEE RIGHT OR WRONG .
THEY CANNOT SEE THE WORLD .
”
A Kuchi girl peers through a hole in a tent . The word Kuchi comes from the Persian word for migration , and is used to describe groups of Afghan nomads . the open air , shielding their eyes from the hot sun and their papers from the constant wind and the ever-present dust .
They are here because of their parents , who pour every ounce of hope into this next generation . “ All the students who are going to Lokhai , their fathers are laborers and farmers and uneducated . Currently they are suffering and they don ’ t want their children to suffer ,” explains Wakil Karimi , director of CAI ’ s partner organization Star of Knowledge ( SKO ).
Though Lokhai Primary School is a government school , CAI and SKO have provided support in the way of school supplies like stationery , books , uniforms , and blackboards . SKO donates temporary tents for classrooms to protect the children from the intensity of the sun and the unrelenting wind . In these harsh conditions tents sometimes last only four months , a necessary but temporary fix until stability improves and funding can be procured to build a permanent school .
On a visit to the village in 2016 , the walls of recently delivered tents were already full of pictures and the scribbles of students practicing handwriting . Earlier this year those tents , shredded by the weather , were replaced again , but by the middle of summer even those tents were gone . The tough canvas is no match for the sun ’ s bleaching rays and the wind , blasting the material with sand day and night until they are shredded beyond use .
The government can only support two teachers for the entire school , but they do the best they can to instruct their hundreds of charges . The headmaster left after last year and still has not been replaced . Each school day students arrive in shifts — boys in the morning and girls in the afternoon — take their seats on dusty carpets , and concentrate on their teachers . The conditions don ’ t bother them ; their only focus is on the lessons .
Last year the villagers were busy digging a well near the school to provide water for the students . A man in a Pakistani polo helmet with only a wooden rig and a rope was deep in the well , bringing up buckets of sand with the hope of reaching the water . By this year , the well ’ s sides collapsed inward . Not to be deterred , the custodian brings water for the children from the well across the village . There are no bathrooms , which puts the girls in danger of bladder infections from waiting to go until they get home , but they keep coming , notebooks at the ready .
The hope of education brings out a resiliency and determination that helps these children rise above the difficulty of poverty , harsh weather , and lack of resources . However , the villagers know if the conditions were improved and they had access to more teachers and a headmaster , even more children in the growing village could attend classes .
THE JIRGA AT LOKHAI
Last year during CAI ’ s visit to the primary school , a slow-moving group of men appeared on the rocky outcrop and made their way down to the school as the last classes were being dismissed . The men were the village elders and they had come to request a jirga , an official meeting , to talk with CAI about the desperate need for education .
Settled in a yellow tent , the elders began to tell the story of Lokhai , and the urgent need to educate their children .
The elders explained that they are the only old men in the village , all the rest died in the fighting , “ Each family has lost someone — a son , a brother , or someone disappeared , was killed , or disabled .” They are worried that , without education , the next generation of boys and men will have no choice but to follow their uncles and fathers , “ Without education children will go to the mountains and fight .”
32 | JOURNEY OF HOPE CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE