The Foreign Service Journal, March 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2013 31 A Bad Winter BYWILLIAM SCHOFIELD T he news reports back in January 2005 about Afghanistan’s coldest winter in 12 years were heart-wrenching. People were starving because trucks carrying food couldn’t make it through snow-clogged roads in themountains, and helicopters were socked in by the weather. Wolves were attacking people in remote areas. In Kabul, a community of about 200 returnees from refugee camps in Pakistan had sprung up in an open field on a main road not too far from the largest mosque and the presidential palace. Everyone was sick, withmost suffering from respiratory ailments. Parvez and Khalil, my Afghan colleagues at the embassy, and I drove to this field one gray morning in January 2005 to assess howwe could help. The ground was icy and bare. Shelters cobbled together fromplastic tarps, cardboard boxes, pieces of wood and tin cans beaten flat were scattered about. Smoke curled from a few fires, over which several women were cooking. Their worn faces and battered hands and fingers made them look 60, but they were probably much younger, judging by the ages of their children. A few latrines were dug into the icy ground, into which children could easily slip. Back at the embassy, I called the reporters whose stories had appeared that day. I explained that the Afghan government, the United States and other donors, and theWorld Food Programand UnitedNations HighCommissioner for Refugees were all providing nationwide assistance. But to emphasize that the Afghans themselves were leading the effort, I noted that theministers of refugee affairs and rural development were energetically coordinating the aid. The reporter thankedme for the information, but seemed skep- tical. I can’t blame her for feeling that way: I recognized how hard it was to claimour efforts were effective when people were freezing to death down the street fromPresident Hamid Karzai’s office. Later that morning I attended a meeting chaired by the refugee affairs minister. The Red Crescent had found buildings into which tomove the people squatting in the field, but needed some sup- port. After the meeting, I called the Bureau of Population, Refu- gees andMigration back inWashington. A quick conversation secured agreement to transfer $25,000 to the Red Crescent office in Afghan refugee children warm themselves up around a fire at a refugee camp in an abandoned office building in Kabul in February 2005, during one of the coldest winters on record. SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images