“Many Afghans have migrated to Peshawar in the last 20 years. They had learned to drive in Afghanistan using what they call ‘war-driving.’ ‘War-driving’ is driving very quickly from point A to point B, without paying attention to anything but getting there in one piece. Now everyone is driving like them. They continually have close calls with other cars, trucks, rickshaws, horses, people, dogs, wagons and huge potholes in the middle of the street.”

The counseling center
The clinic at Akora-Khattak is financially supported by the Columbia-based International Medical & Educational Foundation, which raises funds to support most of the MU center’s projects. The clinic is staffed with one psychiatrist, one psychologist, one person in charge of medication and one intake person. The camp once held more than 200,000 Afghan refugees.

The Afghans there have been so traumatized by war, displacement and general poverty that many are suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder. None of the other 200 refugee camps in Pakistan have any psychiatric services. So many patients, including those from other camps, are seeking help that the staff can only give a few minutes to each. Given the culture’s rejection of a psychological basis for disturbance, the doctors are relying heavily on medications to help treat the refugees’ emotional problems. Drugs are a high-budget item in the cost of running the center.

The interviews
Schools are segregated by gender, and Farina worked in a male-only school. She spent most of her time interviewing the boys, and though she had no time for therapy, it appeared they found her interest in them therapeutic.

She asked questions from several different research measures and had them draw pictures of themselves. She found the interviews overwhelming. “Even though I have read the things that children have been through and seen in Afghanistan, to sit in front of a small child and hear them speak the words is unbelievable.”

One group of 60 boys, all of whose fathers had been killed, lived in a hostel. If they had mothers, the mothers lived some distance away; but it was considered important that the child be in the school to get an education. There was also a girl’s school in camp, but many fathers didn’t want their girls to get an education.

It was expected, given the cultural attitude toward women, that the boys might resist being interviewed by a woman. To the contrary, they were surprised a woman wanted to know what they saw and how they felt about it. They told her they found it difficult to talk to their parents, who often admonished them not to think about what they had seen. They told Farina that, with her questioning, their thoughts had become words. It was calming, they said, to talk about it with a neutral person. They felt they could trust her and that she wouldn’t tell others.

Many of the stories of the 141 boys she interviewed were very sad, especially those of the 37 who saw fighting in Afghanistan.

Short story about a small boy
He lives in a camp with his uncles, three brothers, two sisters and his mother. His father was killed five years ago. His grandfather had taken part in “the war,” and the Taliban came to their home asking about the grandfather and father. The Taliban blamed the father for the grandfather’s actions in the past war, and this made the family afraid. They wanted to leave. One day his father came home late, badly wounded, and he died in the hospital 15 days later. Then the Taliban started asking the boy where his uncle was. Once he thought those asking were friends of his uncle’s, and he told them. Then he learned it was the Taliban and that they wanted to beat his uncle. That is when the family left their home and all of their “equipment” and came to Pakistan.