Jabal Seraj- The mountain of light-and a waiting palace

Mahbouba and I stopped before lunch to interview the local "Wali" or governor of the city. We were ushered into a narrow cool room and Mahbouba introduced herself. The Wali asked about her family and she described herself as King Habibullah's granddaughter and King Amanuallahs' niece...we rarely get into this in our work but our experience when we do is that we usually recieve a very warm welcome-and stories about her family. This gentleman launched into a detailed story and I was left on my own to translate for myself. The jist of the discussion was that King Habibullah built a beautiful palace in Jabal Seraj (which was intact when I was a child as I remember it). The war came and it was destroyed but he never let anyone do anything to the palace grounds as he has been waiting for the family to return to Jabal Seraj. He courteously welcomed her and asked if she would like to see it. The Wali's father lived to 106 and was able to tell his son many stories about Afghanistan and this royal family which was displaced in the 1930's.Mahbouba did not know this and it was such a treat to see her delight as she encountered this dear man and his appreciation for the contribution her family made to Afghanistan. Here are pictures of our tour.

Back on the road- North of Kabul-Jabal Seraj

Mahbouba and I are working with Equal Access Radio this week to finish up an evaluation and monitoring project we started a year and one half ago....Radio is an excellent tool to access the provinces and from our survey we are discovering that the Afghan communities are very engaged in the programming and interested in giving us feedback. This is Radio Peace at Jabal Seraj, North of Kabul. They say that they have an audience of 1,000,000 in three provinces. Their comments: The programming training people in their rights is going well with one exception-the country doesn't quite have the infrastructure to support these rights. An example given is that Afghans are now entitled to an required to have ID cards....should take twenty minutes -at the most 2 hours....The call-in radio shows are full of callers complaining about it taking a month to two months-and bribes to get what is their right and obligation as a citizen. (See closet of letters from readers) This station is doing a great job of setting up conversations between the citizens and elected political leaders. The journalist describes being "set up" by a group of religious leaders and sent to jail for a year for an unpopular article...but he is back and undeterred....this country is full of people with these stories of perseverance and wisdom as democracy begins to take shape.