Afghanistan > Haiti > Somalia > Liberia AFGHAN MAN Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 In Afghanistan almost every adult male has fought someone, somewhere at sometime. He is a warrior and a poet. And, also a father, a son, a husband and a grandfather.   ALBINO AFGHAN GIRL Peshawar, Pakistan - 2002 Rahilla Ayaz has spent her entire life in this refugee camp outside Peshawar. Her brother and three sisters are also albino, and she and her brother dye their hair with henna to avoid attention. Within a year she will be required to wear the traditional chadri, but it will save her life by preventing the inevitable skin cancer.   ALBINO GIRL'S FATHER Peshawar, Pakistan - 2002 He fled with his family from Afghanistan to this city over a decade ago in order to avoid the war with the Russians. His blind, albino son sings the Koran while his daughter Rahilla sits outside waiting for her father who has worked the past ten years as a day laborer stacking bags of cement, wheat and rice at the market.   BOY SELLING ICE Khyber Pass, Pakistan - 2002 The war to drive out the Taliban is over and several million refugees are returning from Iran and Pakistan back to their homes in Afghanistan. It is over 120 degrees. This boy has carried a block of ice to the last point before the travelers enter the pass and is selling pieces to provide them their last cold drink.   BOY'S CLASSROOM Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 Their school has just reopened after being closed for years under the Taliban. It is Spring and the rough, window framing is left open. In the Winter it will be covered with plastic sheeting. The boy in back with the stick is "class disciplinarian", and he is free to wack his fellow students in order to maintain discipline.   CHANGING DIAPERS Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 The two women and their children have stopped beside this alley to attend to an ordinary, domestic task that seems strikingly unordinary in this battered city. The baby needs his diaper changed.   CROWDED BUS Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 The Taliban have been gone for a few months and women can again travel unescorted. Essentially all of them, however continue to wear the traditional blue chadri. Many prefer it, since it not only keeps them hidden from men, it also keeps their husbands from looking at other women.   GIRL IN RED SCARF Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 She is standing with a large number of children who are playing near a bombed out building in the center of the city. The others are shabbily dressed and rowdy, but she is quiet and beautifully dressed in red. She neither moves nor blinks as as I step forward, take her picture and leave.   GIRL'S FIRST CLASS Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 When the Taliban took over Kabul seven years ago they eliminated all schooling for girls. Now they are gone and the schools are reopening. This young girl is reading from her handwritten notebook in the first class to start back to school. Someone has obviously tutored her over the past few years.   BEGGAR Sarobi, Afghanistan - 2002 The man with one leg is begging alongside the road that runs from Jalalabad and Kabul. There are tens of thousands of others maimed like him over twenty years of war; so many in fact, that the absence of a similar group during the return trip through Pakistan is noticeably apparent.   Jalalabad, Afghanistan - 2002 This city was the major, eastern Russian base during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This man, a member of the dominate, local clan's militia now patrols the streets where he fought the Russians and the Taliban. His appearance is fierce, but his role is that of friendly, neighborhood cop.   MOTHER AND DAUGHTER Bagram, Afghanistan - 2002 Mother and daughter wait together outside an UN refugee processing camp. They are among two million refugees returning to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan. After being processed they are given a blanket, a bag of wheat, a plastic tarp, a medical check-up and $20. Then, they return to their home villages to start their lives over.   NOMAD GIRL WITH SCAR Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 She, her father and her severely disabled little sister are sitting alongside a road in Kabul. They are surrounded by the remains of war. The buildings are all collapsed and the cars riddled with bullet holes. They have a bag of fresh apples with them and are traveling to their home, which is most likely a tent in the desert.   OLD WOMAN REFUGEE Jalalabad, Afghanistan - 2002 Millions of refugees have returned home to Afghanistan after being gone for many years, only to find their homes and often entire villages destroyed. They sit, like this old woman surrounded by both the rubble and the remnants of their lives in exile: beds, cookware, bicycles and clothing piled in the dirt.   OLD MAN IN RUINS Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 This area of Kabul has been almost completely destroyed by years of fighting. First the militias fought the Russians, then the militias fought each other, then they all fought the Taliban, and finally the Taliban have fought the Americans. In the midst of miles of destruction this man sits in the rubble of a house.   ORPHAN Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 Her parents were killed two years ago during a fight between the Taliban and a local militia. Now she and her brother live with her uncle and his wife and six children. To her uncle it is only an obligation. The little girl and her brother know this, and the sadness of her life shows in her eyes.   REFUGEE GIRL Bagram, Afghanistan - 2002 The little girl nervously pulls on her finger as she waits at the UN processing camp. Her family is returning home to a country that she has never seen. Their belongings are piled onto a huge truck which is taking them to an uncertain future in one of the numerous, destroyed villages that dot the countryside. So, she is worried.   REPAIR SHOP Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 Mechanics like these keep cars and trucks on the roads using only a handful of tools and virtually no spare parts. They cannibalize wrecks or improvise repairs from whatever is available. Their inventory consists of a few fan belts. The young boy probably works long hours. Many children begin working at even younger ages.   SCARRED WOMAN Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 She was injured a few months ago during the final days of the fight to oust the Taliban from Kabul. She lived with her family in a refugee camp and was seriously burned when their tent caught fire. Now she lives with a dozen relatives in the remains of a destroyed building.   GIRL WITH PARASOL Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 The young girl walks through the deserted and destroyed streets of the Kabul suburb of Zabul. Her attire is that of a pre-pubescent Muslim girl, although her purse and seriousness make her seem much older. Only the cartoon puppies on her red parasol suggest her young age.   STREET SWEEPER Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 He is a famous militia fighter who fought the Russians and the Taliban. Now that Kabul is under UN control no militia are allowed to operate inside its borders, and he has no profession. But his fame has gotten him one of the few public jobs in the city. He sweeps the streets.   THREE MILITIA MEN Sarobi, Afghanistan - 2002 They guard the road to Kabul at the edge of their clan's territory, as their ancestors have probably done for centuries. They have been driven away by the Russians, other clans and the Taliban, and each time they returned. This time they will have to join the new government or they will most likely lose.   TWO GIRLS AND DOOR Peshawar, Pakistan - 2002 Both girls are Afghans, although they have probably never seen their country. They live with their parents in the oldest section of Peshawar, on a street of 500 year old houses in this city at the edge of civilization. Their parents left Afghanistan during one of the many wars over the past 20 years and have prospered here.   WATER GIRLS Kabul, Afghanistan - 2002 The three little girls have spent the day selling water by the glass out of the plastic bottle they are carrying. They have earned enough money to buy and share an ice cream cone. The sun is out, the weather is warm, and the wars are over. Their neighborhood lemonade stand has been successful.