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FROM THE PAKISTAN/afghanistan BORDER Debra-Lee Holman is a nurse from Cairns. This is her first mission for Medecins Sans Frontieres and now she is living and working in Chaman on the remote Pakistan/ Afghanistan border about 200 kilometres south of Kandahar, the traditional heartland of the Taliban. There are two camps on the Chaman (Pakistan) side of the border; these are called Roghani and Landee Karez. Both of these camps are classed as refugee camps because they are in Pakistan and are full of Afghan refugees. In Spin Boldak, inside Afghanistan, there are also two more camps that MSF is working in. These are Wamy and Al Medina. There is also another called Al Aktar but we do not have a BHU (Basic Health Unit) there. These camps are IDP camps (internally displaced people). One lesson I have learned during my time here is that you should always cross a border if there is a problem as refugees are entitled to a lot more than IDP's. The border is only five minutes away from where I live however by the time we go through the border formalities, it can often take over an hour to get to the other side. The camps are mostly full of Kuchi people, who are nomadic Afghans. Uneducated, illiterate and very conservative but very interesting to talk to and learn about their culture. Amazing to hear what they have lived through and it is obvious they are a very strong race of people. The Kuchi are a very colourful group of people - their clothes, even though dusty and dirty, are made from the brightest colours and have sequins or beads all over them. The women also have attractive tattoos on their faces. Mostly they have moved from their homes due to the war and the drought. The ones that have permanent homes in Afghanistan complain that it will be difficult to return as their houses are either partially or fully destroyed and it costs lots of money to rebuild. All that I have spoken too are keen to return as soon as fighting stops, but they may be in for a very long wait. I was originally upset that the refugees sometimes do not want a better life for their children by sending them to the school that is set up in the camp. However I was reminded by the project coordinator that most are struggling to survive each day therefore their thoughts do not go to the future but centre on today. There is little time for school when you have to collect firewood, food and supplies everyday. The Basic Health Units are tents surrounded by a fence made by twigs. They are all similar with a separate tent for the nurse, vaccinator, medication dispenser, registration (of the people attending), doctor, oral Rehydration and outreach workers. The lunchroom in all of the camps is a semi-permanent structure made from dirt, straw and water. One of them is actually built in to the ground with twigs as the roof and the roof being only 1 metre above the ground. The women and men eat separately however as expat women we are allowed to eat with the men as we are not really classed as women - we are like a third sex. I am going to be flying off again tomorrow for a trip to Herat, in western Afghanistan near the Iran/Turkmenistan border. My main reason for going is to see how the SFP (supplementary feeding program) is run there. I will be opening a SFC (supplementary feeding centre) here in Chaman next week and as I have no experience with this (although the national staff do) it was decided to send me to Herat. I fly to Islamabad and then change to a UN plane that lands in Kabul before stopping in Herat. November 2003
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