In Wartime, Finding Greener Pastures

An Afghan proverb says, "The potter always drinks water from a broken jug." And so it sometimes seems to be with veterinarians who, while busy tending to other people's animals, put off caring for their own.

I am a vet who's been working in Afghanistan for most of the past four years, helping set up a national network of veterinary clinics to provide Afghan farmers with reliable access to basic health care for their animals. So I was taken aback two months ago when one of the employees at our Kabul office told me that the newborn calf of his only cow had died. While we were working hard to set up clinics throughout the country's far-flung provinces, we had overlooked the fact that even our own office staff kept livestock that needed care as well.

The employee who lost his calf, Ahmad Nasir, is our office cleaner. He is a strongly built, middle-aged man who carries himself with great dignity; I sometimes feel as if I can read the rich cultural history of Central Asia in his round, lined face. He moves quietly and unassumingly through the office, bringing tea, emptying wastebaskets, wiping the Kabul dust from our glass desktops and taking our shoes, caked with mud, to the bazaar for cleaning.

Two weeks ago, Ahmad came to my office again, this time to tell me that his cow was sick -- a persistent cough, he said. Remembering the death of this cow's calf just two months earlier, I promised him I would go take a look.

Three days later, I headed off to see the cow with Ahmad, two Afghan veterinary colleagues and a driver. I had assumed that Ahmad lived in a nearby Kabul neighborhood, but I was wrong: We drove for a long time, past the bombed-out ruins of the massive Darulaman Palace and onward, out of town. The longer we drove, the worse I felt for Ahmad, picturing him making this long, expensive trip to the office every day on public transportation.

Eventually, the pavement ended, and we found ourselves in a village-like setting, with high mud walls on either side of a narrow dirt track. We passed through a gate into a large, enclosed field with a giant, spreading mulberry tree in the center. Something was shaking the tree's limbs and leaves, suggesting the presence of monkeys, but a closer look revealed three children moving nimbly over the limbs, collecting berries. They scampered down to inspect the new visitors. Under the tree lay a large Afghan carpet with pillows, tea pots and thermoses. And against one mud wall of the field, in the shade of a canopy of woven branches, stood Ahmad Nasir's cow.

Suddenly, rather than feeling sorry about Ahmad's long daily journey, I felt a surge of joy on his behalf: He was lucky to return each night to such an idyllic place, away from the heat, dirt and press of Kabul. He is a humble cleaner in our office, but at home, he is a man of incalculable riches. I suspected that part of the reason he had asked me to examine his cow was to let me see this side of his life.

My colleagues and I quickly determined that the cow was not seriously ill. Her eyes were bright, and she was chewing her cud -- both good signs. We did detect some abnormal lung sounds and recommended a three-day course of antibiotics.

The examination complete, we retired to the carpet under the tree for tea, hot milk and biscuits, all the while watched intently by our bovine patient. There was something charming about this cow. She conveyed a disarming intelligence and seemed confident of her usefulness to Ahmad's family. Seeing her under her canopy, with colored threads decorating her horns, I suddenly understood why the cow is venerated in so many cultures.

Sitting under that tree, I felt honored to know Ahmad and to have examined his cow. I was delighted to be drinking cupfuls of her sweetened, boiled milk, delighted to be out of Kabul in the cool country air, delighted to be in Afghanistan at that precise moment, experiencing such peace amid the turmoil of the times.

Ten more days passed, and I asked Ahmad about his cow. "Good news," he said. "The coughing is gone." During that same interval, the other news around Kabul had not been nearly so good. Three humanitarian aid workers and their driver had been murdered south of the city, and 10 French soldiers had been killed in a firefight to the east. The violence gathers all around us. But I try to stay focused on the work that remains to be done here, and on the reasons that our efforts are so important -- not the least of which are Ahmad Nasir, his hopes for his children and his charming cow.

shermandm@gmail.com

David M. Sherman is a veterinarian from Newton, Mass. He is the author of "Tending Animals in the Global Village: A Guide to International Veterinary Medicine" and works for an international NGO based in Kabul.