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"Fundacja PARVANE - Polska
alpinistka dla kobiet Afganistanu"
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Dzisiaj, 1 maja 2005 o godz. 3,30
ruszyła strona
www.parvane.pl strona "fundacji Parvane - polska alpinistka dla
kobiet Afganistanu". ZAPRASZAMY !
----- Original Message -----
From: Anna Pietraszek
To: narodowa@narodowa.pl
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2005 3:44 PM
Subject: fundacja Parvane
 Mnie
udało się odnaleźć przyjaciół, tylko dwóch, ale się udało ! w
Afganistanie, w Dolinie Panczszir, w r. 2002. Założyłam fundację "Parvane"
- polska alpinistka dla kobiet Afganistanu [tj. kobiet poszkodowanych
w konfliktach zbrojnych].
Możemy razem poszukać Najiby. A przynajmniej - próbować odnaleźć. Może
także pomożemy innym kobietom.
[za kilka dni ruszy strona int. fundacji "Parvane"]
Anna T. Pietraszek [dziennikarka,
alpinistka]
Fundacja „Parvane” – polska alpinistka
dla kobiet Afganistanu –
[Nowolipie 10 m.9, 00-150 Warszawa]
konto Bank PKO S.A. nr: 17 1020 1026 0000 1302 0098 4252
niesiemy pomoc kobietom poszkodowanym w konfliktach zbrojnych na
świecie
Gazeta Wyborcza 63, 2003-03-15 - Wysokie
Obcasy
REPORTAGE
KRZYSZTOF WYRZYKOWSKI
ANNA TERESA PIETRASZEK
Three rings
When I was about to leave, Holia said: “I’ve entrusted you with the
story of my life, so that you could tell about us – Afghan women.” She
removed the ring from her finger and started putting it on mine. I
protested: “But it’s all you have!” Holia: “That’s why I’m giving it
to you.”
It’s a tin ring with a star – says Anna Pietraszek, a reporter, who
four months ago came back from Afghanistan. – I got it from Holia, a
widow I met in bombed-out Kabul.
– This ring from lapis-lazuli – Anna presents a second ring – is the
only family heirloom, which survived in the family of my most genuine
Afghan brother, Azrad Gul, a highlander of the Hindukush, who saved me
on my first Afghan expedition. In August, I found him in the mountains.
It was a most touching meeting, at the end of which Azrad Gul gave me
this treasure.
– And this one – we look at the third ring – strange, well worn, with
a volcanic crystal (maybe it was a ruby?) I got it 29 years ago from
my first Afghan friend – the mother of a boy, who in a later dramatic
situation was saved by our expedition’s doctor.
And it was this mother and this boy whom I was able to find in August.
Afghanistan - twenty years later
In 1973, I traveled to Afghanistan for the first time with a students’
alpinist club expedition and ... I was captivated. This country is so
close to me – almost like Poland. After that, year after year, and
sometimes even twice a year, I would travel through the Hindukusz
Mountains or the Himalayan region, wanting more and more to make films.
And this, very soon, is what came to be.
My own repertoire of film travelogues, exploring films, sports films,
now numbers as many as 50. I had been to Afghanistan 12 times, but
most recently, following 23 years of war, I went there to find my old
friends.
I knew I had to reach the place. After a year of attempts, I managed
to convince the journalistic editorial board of Telewizja Polska for a
modest expense account, being assigned to the making of a reportage
from there. I also knew – since those were the conditions stated by my
employer – that I would have to go alone; that I wouldn’t get an
operator or a soundman, who could help me in my work.
Undzia mine! – Look out, mines!
I got to Kabul by plane via Dubai and Islamabad, laden with heavy
photographic and movie equipment. At first I lived in the base at
Bagram. With Polish sappers stationed there, I first began getting to
know the greatest danger in Afghanistan – mined areas. Officially –
according to the sappers' own estimates – there are some ten million
mines in this. In all probability, there are two or three times as
many.
This is something that is hardly possible to imagine. One should
simply go stand in a minefield. One should rub shoulders with death to
understand this. I have to acknowledge that I had never yet come so
close to the point of death until recently.
We had come back from a stressful trip and filming in the Hindukusz. I
was sitting in the back of the jeep, savoring the Afghan wind. I
prefer this, to sitting in the cab, in warmth and comfort. I arranged
with the driver that when I would see something interesting for the
camera, I would bang on the floor of the jeep. He would stop then, and
I could film. I had very little time for this. We had to reach Kabul
before dusk – if we would travel after dark, we could be attacked.
The driver was nervous because I kept stopping the car – still I
wanted yet another take, another “retake” and I was filming with two
cameras at the same time.
Near the town of Czarikar, I saw a full field of stones, with a
sandbank of post-soviet tanks and cannons on it. They looked new –
green, shiny with varnish, with their guns leveled at the Hindukusz.
There, the glacier covered mountains, symbolizing freedom, and here
stuck in the gravel, in the sand, those horrendous machines... I
couldn’t resist. I stopped the car. I caught the film and still
cameras and ran into the middle of this field. I made several splendid
takes. Everything was just right – the sun, light was in my favor, the
wind from the Hindukush played in my hair.
Suddenly children's voices reached me through the wind. Somewhere high
above on the hillside stood a small house. The children came running
and called out to me, but they wouldn’t come any closer.
I looked around – something wasn’t quite right ... Two of the kids
stood on the road, waving their hands, their weak voices trying to
pierce through the wind. Why didn't these children come running to me?
And finally I heard, what they were calling out: Undzia min! Undzia
min! (Look out, mines!). I froze, standing in the field; I had 100,
150 m to the asphalt. I had to go back ... And I understood that I
could not do as the sappers had taught – “If you walk into a mine
field, walk back in your own footsteps” – because my footsteps were
not visible. This field was covered with gravel!
I had once again to retrace my path – only this time consciously. With
the risk that every step could possibly be the last one! How will it
be? Will it hurt? – I wondered. In my head, memories flew by at a mad
pace; I saw those persons closest me ... I stood on the asphalt at
last, I jumped onto the back of the jeep, I banged on the floor for
the driver and we drove off.
Only after two days did it catch up with me. I was sitting in the
chaihan and could not bring the mug of tea to my mouth. My hands were
quivering. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. This was my day for
coping with a state of nervous breakdown.
To survive ones own salvation... I think that one is born again at
such a time. It seemed to me that I had emerged from there completely
new, feeling that I was someone from a different world.
Holia, my friend
Kabul reminds me of a photograph of post-war Warsaw – seventy percent
destroyed, the walls shot up, the stumps of houses. Among these ruins,
children, crying, poverty, dirt. At the beginning, when I approached
people in the ruins, I was a bit fearful. Obviously I feared that
mines were everywhere and that one had to be careful. But I also
feared the people, the wild looks of the women; their faces were tough,
obstinate.
I broke through my resistance, I approached them saying: Assalam
aleikum! Shumo hubasti? Shumo cheturasti, djurasti? (How you feel? How
are you? Is all well?). This is a typical expression; one should
always express this greeting. Nobody listens for the replies, which
are: A shumo? A honom hubasti? A cheturasti? A djurasti? – spoken with
a kind of nod. This is enough for our eyes to meet. To see in these
faces the desire for meeting with other people. We would sit on the
rubble. It sometimes happened that someone would embrace me, hug me
and cry.
Once in the Gozargoh district, I reached the ruins of a girls’ high
school (I went there once because I wanted to get to know Afghan women,
to make friends with them), but I saw in this place only shot up
houses, destroyed walls, shelled out interiors.
Suddenly someone waved a greeting, calling with a warm voice.
It was my newly found friend – Holia, a widow.
I took several steps and ... stopped numbed. I saw a smashed up
staircase suspended from a wire. How could one get through this rubble
to the second floor? There, behind all the barriers stood the women
and children. Amazed, that someone such as I – well dressed, with a
rucksack, well fed – would go to them. That I didn’t fear or abhor
them...
I was greeted as the closest of kin on entering their home. They
offered me the scrap of an old bag, saying: “Please forgive us that we
have no carpet for you to sit down on.”
Someone ran over to the neighbors. One could hear preparations being
made, as in the case of some long lost cousin's unexpected visit.
Someone brought a plate. Someone else had a remaining cup. Someone
found a teaspoon, someone came running calling out with joy: “Don’t
worry; I have tea! You can have her over.”
I was already a guest.
Two million widows
Holia... I think about her today as the closest of friends. She is a
typical Afghan woman, whose duty was to be a mother, to love her
children, husband and to serve them.
Afghan women like this role, and it poses no humiliation for them.
They see in their womanhood a great value.
The Taliban stood Holia’s husband against the wall and – before her
eyes, in the presence of their four children – they cruelly murdered
him. Holia and her children found themselves with no means of support,
without any help.
She told me her story – she has six children now. Two of them come
from rape. Following the death of her husband, she was raped at the
time of her journey to Iran and from Iran, because in Moslem countries
a woman without the care of a man is but an object – to be used. In
local morals, another man from the family, her husband’s brother or
cousins should protect a widow. However, she no longer had these
family members. They were made destitute, broken or simply
exterminated. If a husband was murdered, his brother would be murdered
along with him as would his brother and father. All the boys in the
family would be murdered so as not to allow the family to regenerate
itself.
Two million widows in a mined, ruined country – these are women who
have no road open to them. They have no professional skills either.
They don’t have anything whatsoever! And often they have to look after
children and old parents.
When I had recorded Holia’s conversation, and drank the tea, I was
getting ready to leave. When I was about to go, Holia said: “I’ve
entrusted you with the story of my life, so that you could tell about
us – Afghan women.” She removed the ring from her finger and started
putting it on mine. I protested: “But it’s all you have!” Holia:
“That’s why I’m giving it to you.”
Return to the enchanting valley
When I left the Bagram base for almost three-weeks of filming in Kabul
and environs, I dreamt of the impossible, that is, permission from the
Afghan police bosses for a lone entry into the Hindukusz, to the
Panczszir Valley, to the village of Daszt-e-rewat, where I had once
been twenty-nine years ago.
And I did get this permission!
Panczszir – enchanting valley. I have no better words to describe it.
When in 1973 I had reached the bottom of the valley for the first
time, I became a being of the Hindukusz. This so fills the depths of
my imagination, memory and heart ...
At the end of the valley, in the village of Daszt-e-rewat, there then
lived a seventeen-year-old boy, Azrad Gul – a handsome and jovial
young man. He accompanied our caravan as the youngest lad trained by
the older porters. Of course, for a young girl, his was the most
attractive company. We joked from morning till evening – so as to more
easily bear the difficulties of the expedition.
And then – after the conquest of the peak, on the glacial, extremely
difficult road – I managed to blister the soles of my feet in
uncomfortable climbing shoes. When I got down to the base camp, the
blood was flowing from my feet. These were open wounds. Three or four
days ago, we had ordered porters and had to go down to the valley.
There was no food in the base and we couldn’t wait any longer for my
legs to heal. This would have lasted weeks.
My colleague gave me his own shoes – five sizes too large for me. With
great difficulty, I forced my bandaged legs and dressing into them. I
took some painkillers to dull the pain. I tried to go downhill,
leaning on an ice axe.
Before me were four days of very difficult narrow paths, with
precipices sometimes reaching 300 m. The pain that I began to feel
then caused me to quickly run a high fever. In tears and screaming in
pain, I trailed along near the end, so that no one had to look at me.
I knew that I wouldn’t make it. The mountains had beaten me.
It was then that on the horizon I saw ... a blue angel with a horse.
A horse? In this place?
The tiny figure began to grow. This was not just an angel, but our
porter – Azrad Gul “Czopendas” – that is, a rider taking part in the
royal horse competitions in Buzkaszi.
The village of Daszt-e-rewat would pool their resources for such an
animal and provide for the upkeep of the heroic rider and his wondrous
steed. Azrad Gul was that very rider.
When the message had reached the village that I was so ill that I was
unable to go down from the mountains alone, Daszt-e-rewat sent Azrad
Gul with a horse in order to transport me down the slope. This was an
extremely expensive horse – yet they were prepared to risk his life!
I remember, when Azrad Gul took me by the hand and seated me on the
horse; and he then led me step by step, placing the horse's hooves on
the stone path, so that it would not lose its balance. And throughout
four whole days he continued joking.
When we reached the village, the people went out to greet us, happy,
proud of Azrad Gul that he had performed such a deed!
A pill, when the sun is in the sky
Several days later the village mayor requested that our expedition’s
doctor, Stasio Kurek (then a prominent surgeon, today a well-known
orthopedist) look at his seriously ill son. We went to the home of the
village mayor to see the patient. The boy was about six-years-old. He
was unconscious. The doctor diagnosed his state as critical.
I remember, what an inner struggle he went through – how to undertake
such a complicated operation under extremely primitive conditions? In
the light of an oil-lamp, almost under conditions out of the Middle
Ages.
He took the risk. He told me: “You know if I don’t try it, the child
will die in three days.”
I then agreed, in order to somehow show my gratitude to the villagers,
to assist in the operation. I managed to overcome my fears because
what I saw was terrible. The doctor had to cut the whole calf from the
knee to the ankle, to slash muscles and to remove the pus and cysts.
Following the operation, Staszek prescribed antibiotics, which he gave
the family from our medicine-chest. I explained to the boy's mother
how to administer the medicines.
I left her drawings: when the sun is in the sky, a red pill; when the
sun goes behind the mountains, then the second one.
When we were leaving the village, in remembrance, the boy's mother
gave me a ring with a ruby.
Two brothers
When I reached Daszt-e-rewat in October, I smelled the glaciers once
again.
It is as though I were returning home. After the war, everything was
bombed out, destroyed.
The fields were cratered by bomb blasts.
Tiny narrow paths (I already knew what that was all about), those tiny
passages between little houses, among the ruins, the only narrow paths,
which would allow one to avoid the mines.
Sappers tell of mines lying high in the mountains that could still
explode after a hundred years!
When I reached the village, its mayor – already a different one, a
modern Afghani – gave a welcoming dinner for me. I sat down on the
carpet and explained that I was unable to announce my visit and that I
am here for just a short time. I had only two days of permission to
stay.
– I wanted to find out about the fate of my friends – I said.
– Describe what they look like.
– One of them was named Azrad Gul.
– Ah, that’s right, he has just come back!
It turned out that he had been forced to emigrate. The Russians had
pacified the whole valley. They bombed it first, and then mined it.
The majority of people survived in hideouts under rocks, and in the
night moved into the Hindukusz on the Pakistani side of the pass. They
had survived many years there. Some were coming back just now. Azrad
Gul had come back a month before my arrival.
They ran over to get him. The whole village shouted: “Azrad Gul! Azrad
Gul! Rafiko az Puland!” (Your friend from Poland!).
A moment later, he appeared.
I will never forget this moment. I felt as if we were greeting one
another, having been saved from the war. I didn’t know how not to
relive it ... Now Azrad Gul was 30 years older! When he saw me, he
fell to the ground and cried.
And then we all began crying.
We understood that our worlds were connected once again, that this was
real! The village mayor brought refills of tea; we wiped our eyes, and
blew our noses in the napkins I had passed out to everyone. The
village mayor then said: “I hereby announce! Azrad Gul is the brother
of Ania!”
This is serious obligation. I am officially a member of a family in
Daszt-e-rewat. And it is not of the slightest meaning that we had not
conducted this in court. It is as if they had adopted me there.
In token of our brotherhood, Azrad Gul presented me this ring with
lapis-lazuli, which I couldn’t refuse to accept.
When we had gotten hold of our emotions, I said:
– Many years ago there was a certain village mayor here... I can’t
remember his last name.
– Describe him.
I went on to describe him.
– But of course! Certainly! That was Mister Mohammad Anwar Khan. His
son lives in our village .
The crowd ran out again. In a moment they were back leading someone. A
good-looking splendid highlander came in, extremely handsome. He bowed
to the village mayor. Surprised and on his guard – what could this
woman want from him? Some American? What was going on here?
It turned out that he had been a brave soldier, commanding one of
Massud’s units. Now, he was famous throughout the whole valley.
I didn’t wait for anything more.
I didn’t pay attention to the fact that the whole crowd was looking on
and what they would think of me. I ran up to this man’s leg in one
jump, and pulled up his trouser leg. It was there! The long scar on a
whole section of the calf, from the knee to the ankle.
I said:
– It’s you!
He said:
– It’s you?! Father said that the Poles had saved me!
So we all cried again, we were moved, we embraced one another.
Euphoria of joy!
The village mayor said:
– Ania, this is your second brother in Daszt-e-rewat.
– I had two brothers!
I sat between them and we were so happy as though there had been no
war!
How much does a house cost?
– In the winter I will take my whole family and we will go to Kabulu –
said Azrad Gul. – Maybe somehow we will survive there. Here we don’t
have the conditions. My house only has three walls. I don’t have the
money to repair it and to put a roof on it; we have no way to survive
this winter. We have nothing to eat. We won’t survive here. We have to
go to Kabul!
I tried to persuade: – Azrad, I have just come back from Kabul ! I was
there! I saw thousands, hundreds of thousands such as you. They are
fighting for their survival; they eat refuse from the canals; their
children are dying of hunger in the street, from diseases, without any
help. Don’t go there!
I saw in his eyes that he did not understand me, and I didn’t know how
to convince him.
He was never there so he probably thought: “It had to be better there
in the city!”
I was helpless.
I asked: – How much money do you need to rebuild your house?
He looked at me condescendingly. Since a younger sister asks stupid
questions, one has to answer patiently.
He closed his eyes and mentioned the horrible sum – 300 thousand
afghani.
This – at the current rate of exchange – was 60 dollars U.S.
In my jeans, I had exactly that much. I remembered that when I had
arrived here in 1973, I had ten dollars for the whole expedition .
From my pocket I took out 60 dollars and said: – Azrad Gul, swear that
you will stay here. I will give you the money.
I assured him that for me it was no great sum.
He promised before the whole village that he would build the house,
that he would not leave the valley.
And it waits for me now in Duszt now-e-rewat, my own house, to which I
can go with all my friends from Poland.
Beneath the Andżuman pass
On the next day, Azrad Gul came for me at dawn and even before the sun
had reached the valley, we went into the mountains.
It was cold. The wind from above the river wafted down the breeze and
scent of the glacier. We reached high under the Andżuman pass.
We sat down on a stone, saying nothing.
Our life was being fulfilled, it was closing, turning towards the new,
the good.
We looked down at the valley in silence.
KRZYSZTOF WYRZYKOWSKI
TEXT: KRZYSZTOF WYRZYKOWSKI
PHOTOS: ANNA TERESA PIETRASZEK
Anna Teresa Pietraszek, a film director and operator movie, TVP
journalist, laureate of many international film festivals. She
completed (so far as the only civilian woman) the Postgraduate
Operational-Strategic Research Institute at the Academy of National
Defense in Warsaw. From her last expedition to Afghanistan, she
brought back twenty-four hours of film and over 1500 photos. In
January of this year she set up the foundation “Parvane – a Polish
Alpinist to the women of Afghanistan” (parvane – in the Afghan
language – butterfly; the butterfly is also a symbol of freedom in
Afghanistan). The aim of the Foundation is to provide aid to Afghan
women in need.
Contact with the Foundation: parvane@hot.pl
or (0-22) 547 78 33
The Foundation’s Account No. is: 5810201026 122730862
Bank BP's PKO SA II / O Warszawa.
Krzysztof Wyrzykowski’s reportage won the Witold Zadrowski Award in
the All Polish Competition on Reportages and Radio Documentaries
“Poland and the World 2002.”
The program will be broadcast on Monday, March 17, at 20.10 hours in
Program I of Polish Radio
[photo caption]
Ann Pietraszek in a cassette shop near Chicken Street. Kabul, October
2002.
From the top: The Panchshir Valley
A minefield near the town of Czarikar. In Afghanistan today there are
officially ten million mines.
Outdoor lessons . The school is in the course of construction; the
reconstruction of the village was begun with its rebuilding.
From the left: Azrad Gul and Mohammed Khan. The village mayor of
Daszt-e-rewat officially proclaiming that they were Anna’s brothers.
Anna recognizes Mohammed from the wound on his leg.
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