Kiwi forces bring aid to war-torn country

Darren Te Whata with Abos at the Bamyan orphanage. Picture supplied

Tough guys, all of them, by a playground swing outside the workshop of Kiwi Base, that little patch of Afghanistan that New Zealand has earned the right to call its own.

It has taken a few days to make the swing, and it's about as sturdy as a swing can be. Weight-tested by the backsides of a few solid New Zealand Army soldiers, the chains and sanded wooden seats aren't likely to give out under the weight of children at the Bamyan Orphans' Home.

It's not on the list of official aid projects, which is extensive. Instead, it's been welded together from scrap metal gathered from Kiwi Base, chains and piping, with the seats made from off-cuts of wood.

When the swing convoy leaves the concrete barricades and guard towers of Kiwi Base, it will also carry mattresses, clothes and bicycles. Some is donated aid, the rest has been bought with money donated by the 110 Kiwi soldiers based in the hills of Bamyan.

It's easy to dismiss the good works as more charity in a country that has a bottomless need. But Bamyan is one of the few places in Afghanistan where outsiders can actually reach out to those who live here. And at the orphanage, children who have rarely felt a kind touch have embraced the Kiwis. It's one of those places where love is more painful. It hurts, and makes you weep.

Lance corporal Darren Te Whata, 27, who was born the year the USSR invaded Afghanistan, fell for the orphans the first time he visited. "I'm the biggest kid there."

There's one young fella, aged about four, whose sun rises and sets with Te Whata. He missed him last visit, until Te Whata was about to leave. Little legs pumping, he pelted down one of the dusty, stone-strewn hills behind the orphanage and straight into his arms. "Little Abos, he's my boy," smiles Te Whata, pencil moustache under a Kiwi cap.

"I don't know how it started. I was running around doing the aeroplane, then holding him up and above my head, and he was giggling.

"It'll be hard to say goodbye to him. And the other kids."

Te Whata has taken a rough road to the army, even though being a soldier was all he ever wanted.

After leaving school at 14, he drifted through trouble for a few years before turning up at a recruiting office aged 18, not daring to hope the Army would take a Northland boy with no qualifications. "I figured the army wouldn't take me. As most young people did, I went off the rails."

Both his grandfathers, and his uncles, served in the armed forces, and he was told he could be an infantry soldier - there's always room in the Army for young people who will carry a rifle. He stayed in infantry through East Timor, then changed jobs to a supply company in Linton and worked as a quartermaster. "I'd seen the combat role side of the army. I'd never appreciated the logistic side." Here, in Afghanistan, his role is that of petroleum technician, looking after all fuel business on the base.

The convoy rolls through town, the Unimog truck a surreal sight with the swings upright on the back. They have been painted brightly in red, blue and yellow.

Bamyan town is a ruin slowly recovering from Russian and Taliban excesses, and the children at the orphanage at least benefit from some of the aid which has come into the area. But they have no parents and are across and out of town, almost as if their presence is a reminder of the worst years. They've been put where no one will see them unless they go looking.

Te Whata, who is navigating in the lead pick-up truck, has no trouble finding the way to the orphanage's flat section of featureless land, a barren playground of dry dust and broken stone for the 30 or so children inside. As Te Whata's truck pulls up, the kids spill outside. There's no waiting as they grab at hands and reach to be lifted. They all want to say hello, and for children with next to nothing, they're smiling large.

Te Whata: "From the first time I went there I loved the kids to death. It's not their fault their whole family was wiped out. All they've got is the orphanage."

They don't know what to make of the swings. One claims to have seen something similar before, but there's a puzzled look on his face that makes the claim doubtful.

They stand by, watching as the Kiwis dig four holes into the ground, and mix cement to fix the swings in place. Those that haven't got shovels in their arms have kids.

Te Whata: "They've already had a kick in the guts having lost all their parents. It's sad, knowing some of these kids have seen more war than I have, and I'm a soldier. Hopefully, with what we're doing down there - cleaning up, giving them swings - and the sense of security we're providing does help them. But it's like starting a race 20 metres behind everyone else."

The bikes come off the back of the trucks, and the kids are into it. There's a bit of a tussle over a green chopper-style bike which is quickly settled.

Te Whata has his arms filled with Abos, who has climbed up and doesn't want to let go. Another soldier lifts a kid up for a shoulder ride; although the boy looks seven, it must be the first he's ever had.

It's gravity that lands his legs on the soldier's shoulders; he hasn't got the slightest idea what to do himself.

Abos is flying, Te Whata providing lift, speed and momentum. He's sprinting, making growling aeroplane noises and holding the wildly giggling boy in front of him.

Every kid should have this much fun. The swings are in, and the concrete is setting. Inside, Captain Matt Gauldie, the army artist, has been roped into painting a mural on an inside orphanage wall.

The colourless plaster will give way to a Dr Seuss-like menagerie of donkeys standing on top of each other. There are a few other creatures in the sketch; they look to be the animals the soldiers call geep, having yet to work out if they're sheep or goats.

Te Whata reckons Afghan men don't play with kids like this.

"It was fascinating to them to see someone running around like a madman." They got the hang of it quick enough. Some things translate easily.

The English lessons he teaches at the local school have brought Te Whata even closer to Afghan life than many other Kiwis here get.

Te Whata says he likes helping kids that actually want help. "We've had some good discussions. There's obviously things that are bred into people. They want to know, do women in New Zealand do this, this and this? I tell them women in New Zealand are free to do what they want."

Warrant officer (2) Greg Mitchell, who also teaches, enjoys Te Whata's discomfort over some of the lessons. He asks them: "'If Darren wants to marry your sister, would he be able to?' and they say, 'No, I'd have to kill him'." Then Te Whata shakes his head. The boys quickly explain it would be okay for them to marry his sister, no killing required. "I don't understand the women. A religion that lets men walk all over them?"

One of the girls at the orphanage is aged 13, and there's some concern that she will be married off next year in the traditional way.

"Marrying at 14? It baffles me how she can be a woman. It worries me." But that's Afghanistan, Te Whata knows. He just hopes he doesn't see a man physically discipline a woman, not knowing if he could control his anger.

A few of the team have enquired about adopting the children here, which they know is a massive undertaking. But, watching them among the kids, it's easy to understand the impulse. Tough guys, all of them. If you ask about the children, there are many who can't finish a sentence. They turn away and clear their throats. Then they find something else to do. Te Whata: "You look at these kids and you know what's coming to them. As long as I'm here, I'd do everything I can to make them happy and make them smile. But at the end, I get to go home and I'll be happy. They'll still be here."