A New Day for Afghan Children

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — They walk arm and arm, barefoot down gravel roads, giggling at having their picture taken.

They frolic in canals to cool themselves in the midday sun. Their playgrounds are abandoned Soviet military vehicles.

They are the children of Kandahar.

This southern Afghanistan city of 500,000 people was the heartland of the fallen Taliban regime.

It was shrouded in oppressive social rules until the hard-line Islamic militia was driven from power in December.

“I want my son, Samiullah, to grow up and be a nonreligious teacher,” says Khalilullah, who sells small household goods at the bazaar.

The boy reads the Koran, Islam’s holy book, on the sidewalk nearby.

When the city’s children return to school in the fall, they will have a chance, many for the first time, to learn basic subjects and lift their voices in song.

“During the Taliban time, the children were only studying religious books. They had no future. Now they will have the chance to study subjects like physics and mathematics. They have a better future,” says Asadullah Hamfa, principal of Mir Wais Nekah High School.

Until school starts, some children are working in the fields outside town. Others shape metal at workshops next to men four times their age. Some beg in the streets.

At a stadium once used as an execution ground by the Taliban, youngsters stand reverently on the patchy turf as their heroes -- older brothers, uncles and fathers -- receive trophies or handmade banners for play during a soccer tournament.

Mothers in burkas bring their children to the Mir Wais Hospital for medicine, sitting patiently on the lobby’s dusty floor.

A girl pushes her sandals across the floor with her hands, back and forth, dodging the legs of passers-by.

Outside, groups of children follow after foreigners, some wanting their pictures taken, others offering small pastries for sale.