Afghanistan's Chance to Heal

She continued treating patients under the Taliban, despite its severe restrictions on women's public activities. She also refused to wear a head-to-toe veil, or burqa .

"I told them, 'If you can show me where the Koran says I should wear the burqa, I will wear seven burqas,' " she said.

Initially, Wardak did not want to run for parliament. She worried it would take her away from her patients, but they convinced her she could do both jobs. After she won, though, some had second thoughts.

"We all trust her. Even the men trust her. That's why they send us to the lady doctor," said Bibi Jamila, a longtime patient in her fifties, who supported Wardak's run for office but is now worried about where she will get medical care. "She doesn't even want any money."

Wardak conceded that her decision to enter politics was a gamble: Can she do more for the people of her destitute province in the parliament than in her clinic? As one of 68 women in the lower house, she said she hopes to help protect Afghan women from abusive husbands and to get more public facilities built in her long-neglected province.

"We depend on the central government. If the center decides to build schools for us, we have schools. If the center decides to build hospitals, we have hospitals," she said. "But right now, students are sitting under the rain, the sun and the snow."

Breaking With the Warlords

Mamoor Shelgaray, 51, an imposing figure with jet-black hair and a long, bushy beard, has similar aspirations for his constituents in Ghazni province, an hour's drive south of Wardak on a dusty plain wedged between snow-capped peaks. But he is also realistic.

"I told the people, 'If I get to the parliament, you should not think that the next day I will build a school for you. It will take a long time,' " he said over tea in his home village of Ander. "Besides, the government doesn't have any money."

Shelgaray said he thinks a more achievable, and urgent, goal is to curb the import of racy Western television programming, which he believes is undermining Afghanistan's Islamic values. He also said he would push for a more severe penalty for Ali Mohaqeq Nasab, a Kabul journalist who was recently sentenced to two years in prison for writing articles deemed blasphemous by the courts.

The son of a tribal leader and Islamic scholar, Shelgaray was denied formal education because of the war with the Soviet Union that broke out in his country when he was a young man. Veterans of that war, known as mujaheddin, form the largest single bloc in the parliament. Shelgaray, who killed countless Soviet soldiers, sees his mission as much the same today as he did then: to defend Islam.

Shelgaray is a longtime member of Hezbi Islami, an Islamic militia that received large amounts of covert U.S. aid during the war against the Soviets. In more recent years, its leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has been hunted by the U.S. military as a terrorist. Shelgaray said he and the 40 other Hezbi Islami members in parliament have reluctantly broken with Hekmatyar.

"After a long discussion, we decided we should support the government. If I was supporting Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, I would not be here now. I would have a Kalashnikov and be in the mountains," he said.

Still, he questioned why Hekmatyar had not been invited to participate in Afghanistan's reconstruction. Shelgaray ran for parliament on a platform of national unity. He said that should mean reconciling with individuals who are now considered terrorists.

On that point, Shelgaray has a surprising ally in Wardak, who believes that in parliament she can stand toe-to-toe with commanders who once spread fear.

"The position of the warlord is much different than his previous position. Now he is the people's representative. According to the rules, there is no difference between him and me. Now we are equal," she said. "And today, or tomorrow, or maybe after a few months, he will learn that."

Each day for the past week, Wardak has been sitting with those commanders as all new members of parliament participate in training sessions. And each night, she has made the hour-long drive to her village of Shakhabad, in Wardak province, so she can treat as many patients as possible before morning.

But her absence has already been felt. An hour after Wardak left for the capital this month for the first day of training, a woman appeared at her gate. Crying and crouched in obvious pain, she asked to see the doctor. It was left to Wardak's brother to tell the woman that the doctor had gone to Kabul.