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National Geographic : 1993 Oct
Contents
just sit, smiling and absorbing each other by the glow of hurricane lamps. "After all these years my family can be together again," Muhammad Amin says finally. "I have waited for this day for so long. I have prayed for this day. I have dreamed about it. I wondered if it would ever come." The night is punctuated with visits from friends and neighbors. All simple farmers and all men, they come one after another to hug Nasrullah and sit for half an hour or so to pepper him with questions. "Have you seen my son?" one asks. "What are those fools doing in Kabul now?" another asks. "Did they really release everyone from Pul i-Charkhi?" The next morning Ashraf and I go strolling in the hills. Two fat cows plod up a slope ahead of us. For the first time, the lad is not carrying his automatic rifle or the weight of ammuni tion. He stops and breaks off a piece of an aca cia bush, smelling its exquisite fragrance. We talk about what will happen to young men like him, a whole generation of Afghans who have known nothing but war. "I just want to come back here and work in the fields," Ashraf says. "I wouldn't care if I never see Kabul again. This is my country." Ashraf stares off toward Safid Kuh, the "white mountain" on the border with Paki stan that is mantled in snow all year. The val ley here is about a mile wide. Bowing poplar trees line the banks of the river. The floor ofthe valley is covered with square plots of farmland in differing shades of green. A gentle wind
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