“What can we do to help?”

I wanted to tell you about my visit to a clinic on my base here. The short version is that if you're looking for a way to give, people here could use it. If your charity budget is already stretched, I'd stop reading right about here.

I went to the Afghan clinic last weekend to see if I could help out. Health care in Afghanistan works like this: if you are rich, you can afford to travel to Kabul, the capital, to see a doctor who went to medical school. Hopefully you are rich enough to afford the bribe, the x-rays, and the medicines as well. If you are like most Afghans and just try to grow enough food in the desert to support your family, you trade food or money to be seen by someone that probably doesn’t read. Your knee arthritis may be treated with branding by a red-hot metal pipe, your stomach ulcer might be pronounced the result of your sin, or you may be told your child’s dehydration from gastroenteritis is the will of God and cannot be treated. Most likely is that any of your loved ones who are women or children will never get medical care because that is primarily only for men.

So, I was glad to hear about our little clinic at Forward Operating Base Ghazni. Every day, people from the surrounding provinces line up to be seen by the Afghan doctor, midwife, and nurse who staff the clinic, funded by the military. Say what you will about foreign aid money going to waste, I can tell you these people work as hard as anyone I know seeing 100-150 patients in a day. The idea is to have them become a self-sustaining operation by the time the U.S. leaves in a few years. However, they are not anywhere close to that yet.

I told the head nurse there that people from home ask me often, “What can we do to help?” I took it as a sign of her sincerity and desperation that she replied without hesitation, “We need winter clothes for children, and hygiene items for everyone. Most of the mothers that come here were either abandoned or widowed by their husbands. They have no way to keep their kids or themselves clean and warm.” I asked her to be specific, which she was happy to do:

*children’s hats, scarves, jackets or sweatshirts, pants, socks, and especially shoes.

*soap, shampoo, washcloths, combs, hair brushes, toothbrush and toothpaste, feminine hygiene products (all of these things are a little new to Afghans, but weekly radio broadcasts and clinic workshops by the doctor are helping to introduce sanitation into the local culture)

*Women’s underwear. (Apparently it’s hard to find here, because the laundry workers habitually steal it to take home to their families. It’s happened to some of the nurses I work with…)

Any items will be gratefully received. You can send one bar of soap or buy out Walmart’s panties aisle. When the clinic has all that it needs, they will send the extra to Ghazni City Hospital, where they have many contacts. If you want to feel good about the military serving a purpose in Afghanistan, please read the story about this hospital:

http://www.isaf.nato.int/article/news/launch-of-ghazni-city-hospital-and-orphanage-brings-hope-to-afghans.html

If your family, Scout troop, youth group or church is looking for a project, I have a great one for you.