Word: bamiyan
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...First stop today is a village school in the hills above Bamiyan. The Taliban virtually destroyed the building during their occupation of the area; the local people, members of the Hazara tribe, were particular targets of persecution by the mostly-Pashtun Talibs. The Chiclets have already repaired and refurnished the school with chairs and desks, and now they have returned with nearly four hundred pounds of classroom supplies. When their military budget failed to cover the materials, team members asked for help from relatives back in the U.S. A Methodist Church in Texas raised the necessary money, bought the notebooks...
...Next stop: the building of a new bridge over the Fuladi River, at the east end of Bamiyan's ramshackle bazaar. When completed it will help revive Bamiyan's war-shattered economy, and Col. Walker is also using the project to provide employment for some of the dirt-poor landless refugees camped on a mesa north of town. But there is trouble: only a half-dozen men are working, thigh-deep in the cold water, shoveling out foundations for the concrete bridge abutments...
...proudly tells the Colonel his harvest was the best in years. Three more bridges, all of them recently collapsed and needing urgent replacement. A sit-down meeting with an earnest young Hazara who wants to know if the Chiclets can help him start up a computer training center in Bamiyan. (Col. Walker tells him to submit a written request...
...Even when the day is over, it's not over. Everyone in the little Bamiyan garrison takes their turn at cooking, housekeeping, sentry duty. Tonight it's the Colonel's turn to make dinner, and that means hamburgers, fries and salad for the troops and a guest list that includes two visiting journalists and a local warlord and his bodyguards. There are even centerpieces on the tables, with candleholders sculpted out of green peppers...
...hours later, at two a.m., the Colonel, his Chiclets and the rest of the outpost personnel are out on the Bamiyan airstrip for a resupply by parachute from a C-130 with A-10s providing air cover. And three hours after the eight pallets of supplies have been picked up and the drop zone policed, the Colonel is up again, at his desk, planning the Chiclets' next...