A WELL IN AFGHANISTAN

In 2003, with refugees pouring back over the mountains into Afghanistan, an emergency intervention by the Brooke hospital was needed again. On crossing the border, the first city the returning Afghans reach is Jalalabad so the Brooke decided to set up a clinic there. Doctor x Twaissi went from his clinic in Jorden to see what the situation was like in Afghanistan. He reported that it was disastrous. The recent bombing had destroyed the water supply. How could he set up a clinic when the nearest source of water for this city of sixty thousand people was three miles away. People carried buckets for their basic water needs. Their working horses died. Three pipe wells were needed. Royalties from ‘The Enchanted Horse’ provided one of them. All three wells are now functioning and Dr. Ali Twaissi has set up a Brooke mobile clinic.

The Brooke well in Jalalabad

There is so much bad news still coming out of Afghanistan that there is something very moving about a piece of news which reached me from Jalalabad recently, something which affirms the perennial will to live and create a better life of even the even the most devastated people: as soon as the first pipe well was functioning last spring, someone opened a garden centre. The difference between war and peace, or the desire for peace, couldn’t be better encapsulated. Afghanistan was once famous for its orchards and rose gardens.

For more information: http://www.brooke-hospital.org.uk