Back to school

I look, charmed, as a fragile girl in pink is writing her name on ablackboard in three different alphabets: Latin, Arabic and Sanskrit. I am in a two-storied building surrounding a courtyard, full of chicken and strings with drying clothes. In the middle of this mess there are dozen of fragile young Sikh girls, busy with their lessons.
It is my third day in Jalalabad. I am here because I promised to Inger from Save the Children Norway-Sweden to collect the material for a presentation of their job. For the organisation focusing on rights of children in Afghanistan, it is unavoidable to handle education problems. Because of this I have visited different schools around Jalalabad.
Sometimes I compare Estonia to Afghanistan; my homeland is more or less agricultural country as well. But there is at least one big difference: almost all our ancestors were already literate by the end of 19^th of century. It seems for me that the most important is general literacy: to read the text and to basic calculus. My grandmother managed to get through her life with only four years of village schooling in her tiny home island.
Literacy is not something self-evident in Afghanistan. For example, my husband’s project employs a friendly and hard-working cleaner, Muhammad Zaher. One of my his colleagues had an idea to send this nice guy to an English language course in order for him to have the better job possibilities in the future. But there is one obstacle: Muhammad is not literate.
PS. The PDF of brochure Fighting for Children's Rights in Afghanistan for Save the Children Sweden-Norway is available in internet: www.reddbarna.no/default.asp?HMFILE=103012