It's good to be back in Afghanistan.  This is my first trip back since 1999 when I left Afghanistan to take up a different posting for CARE, as country director in Ethiopia. But Afghanistan and its people never strayed far from my mind. I never stopped being impressed by the Afghan spirit  their willingness to go on, day after day, in the face of so much destruction and despair.  Strife has reigned in the country for more than 20 years, laying the country to waste and deepening poverty in what was already the poorest country in Asia.  Afghan children in the Shomali Valley. (Alina Labrada/CARE) Walking in the once-fertile Shomali Valley, I see vineyards shriveled and black from a three-year drought  the worst in 30 years. Half a million people fled the fighting here for Kabul, the Panjshar Valley and refugee camps in Pakistan.  Several people who used to live here accompanied me on my visit. They say what they need now from CARE is help rebuilding their homes and repairing their irrigation systems so they can start their lives anew. They tell me their villages were burned and destroyed by Taliban and more recently bombed by the American-led coalition.  Women Hit Hardest by Taliban Restrictions  When I was here as country director from 19951999, the era of warlord infighting, which had replaced the Soviet war, was in turn replaced by the Taliban and their unique system of "law and order." Fighting had continued to shift front lines, but increasing areas of the country experienced Taliban security. This security brought with it harsh new regulations and restrictions  a particular burden on people in urban areas. And most particularly on women.  Afghan society has always been conservative, with men and women playing strictly defined roles. Historically, these roles didn't change much even as different laws and decrees came and went. By the end of the Soviet occupation, women were well represented in the teaching and medical fields and were even holding such traditionally male jobs as municipal bus driver in Kabul.  Western clothing was common for both men and women in Kabul. Restrictions on the role of Afghan women in public were imposed by the mujahideen regime that replaced the communists. The Taliban restrictions took away yet more rights.  To a large degree women were prohibited from working outside the home, and girls were officially prevented from going to school. Women were supposed to be accompanied by a mature male relative when outside the home. One of the most important principles of humanitarian work is the right of men and women to receive humanitarian assistance. Taliban restrictions on women were in stark conflict with internationally recognized human rights.  I remember many, many hours of talks back and forth over this point, within CARE and in discussions with Taliban officials at many levels. How could CARE continue our work in Afghanistan? We had been operating projects in the country continuously since the 1960s, except during the decade of the Soviet invasion. We were determined to find a way for CARE to keep its work in the country going without compromising our principles.  Finding a Role for Women  Women in Afghanistan faced particularly severe hardships under the Taliban. (Alina Labrada/CARE) At last we came to an understanding that enabled CARE to continue helping women and men, by employing Afghan female staff to conduct key roles in our programs. Approximately 35 CARE women employees worked in our program to feed widows and their children in Kabul, surveying who was most in need, distributing food and monitoring and evaluating the program. Widows were in an especially precarious position, without a male relative to provide for them. There are approximately 30,000 widows in Kabul  yet another bitter legacy of decades of war. Many were reduced to begging on the streets for money to feed their families. Today, CARE's program helps feed 10,000 widows and their children  60,000 people in all.  I believe that by employing Afghan women to help carry out the widows' program, we helped keep a space open for women to have a larger role in Afghan society if they so chose. CARE's community education program helped to do this as well, by providing basic schooling for girls and boys. We kept those schools running with the support of communities. When the Taliban wanted to close the schools down, it was the leaders in the community, some of whom were also Talibs, who refused. So, we were able to expand the pilot program in Khost in 1995, from 10 schools and 300 students, to our current enrollment of over 23,000 students in five provinces  43 percent of them girls.  No Short-Term Fix for the Country  For me, it's wonderful to come back to Afghanistan and see how that work has progressed. Over recent years, this has been one of CARE's greatest success stories in Afghanistan. And, we have plans to expand that project much further, given the more open environment we expect in post-Taliban Afghanistan.  My biggest worry, however, in coming back to Afghanistan, is that the international community will walk away from the country again, the way they did after the Soviets were defeated. There is no short-term fix for Afghanistan. It took more than 20 years of war and three years of drought to devastate the country. It will certainly take at least 10 years and billions of dollars to rebuild it.  There's enormous need in Afghanistan. But there's also enormous hope right now. Music is literally in the air again, blaring from taxis and shops. I hope that the new interim government that's taking power in a couple of weeks will fully give voice to those hopes, setting an agenda for all Afghans that can carry the country forward. And I hope that it will have the sustained and patient support of the international community.
- The U.S.-led war against Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network has led to an increasingly severe refugee crisis in and around Afghanistan. ABCNEWS.com wants to share the stories of aid workers assisting refugees in the region. Here is a journal entry from Paul Barker, country director for CARE in Kabul,  Afghanistan.