Disappointment and distrust in Afghanistan

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By Jill McGivering BBC News, Afghanistan

An opinion poll carried out in Afghanistan suggests that optimism about the country's future has fallen significantly over the past year.

Many people are angry at the slow pace of reconstruction and blame government corruption.

Abdul Hakkim is a tall, lean man, with a neatly trimmed beard, a beaky nose and a round, white prayer hat set back on his crown.

A country as devastated as Afghanistan cannot be rebuilt overnight He holds himself ramrod straight.

For much of his life he was the formidable headmaster of a Kabul boys' school.

Now, in the new Afghanistan, he has turned his attention from schoolboys to his village, Mushwani.

He has become head of the shura, or village council.

Mushwani is an hour's drive north of Kabul on the Shomali Plain, a vast expanse of brown, of dust and mud-brick houses.

Beyond there is a range of jagged mountains, the peaks covered with snow.

Party spirit

When we arrived, he led me into a courtyard surrounded by high mud walls.

The scene inside was all chaos, like a medieval painting.

The government is lazy; they do nothing for us. Abdul Hakkim Dozens of men, young and old, were shouting, laughing, jostling and hurrying to and fro, carrying large pallets and trays.

Down the centre of the courtyard long ditches had been dug, filled with burning charcoal.

Set over them on planks were a series of huge metal vats which men were straining to stir with ladles the size of spades.

I peered in at meatballs in tomato sauce in one, rice in another, cauliflower and spinach.

The smoke pouring from charcoal, mingling with the thick steam from the vats, made the air swim.

A wedding, Mr Hakkim told me.

Happy couple

This was the house of the groom's family.

The groom was brought to meet me - a smiling baby-faced boy of 22.

His short black hair was gelled and sprinkled with glitter.

He looked terribly nervous.

Yes, he was very happy, he said. As for the future, he hoped to work hard, to serve his country.

He scuttled off, beaming.

Once the men of the village had eaten, he could head for the bride's house to claim her.

Generations apart

The young groom was flushed with optimism but the older men of the village were in a much more belligerent mood.

Mr Hakkim took me to have tea with them.

A grave assortment of men, many elderly with deeply wrinkled faces that had seen decades of conflict.

They wore traditional Afghan hats and tribal blankets thrown round their shoulders for warmth.

In many ways, Mushwani has prospered since the fall of the Taleban, they told me.

Mr Hakkim pointed to the new clinic, freshly painted, with proper glass windows - paid for, he said, by an American women's charity.

A small ambulance parked beside it was a gift from Italy, he said.

Some boys were kicking a football in the dust.

Behind them stood a proud new school building. That had been built with money from South Korea, he said.

International aid

A lot of rebuilding is still needed.

An Italian government agency teaches various industrial skills to Afghan women

For decades, the village has stood on the frontline, a battleground for anyone fighting for Kabul, whether Communist, Mujahideen or Taleban.

Many of its old mud buildings are still in ruins, their rounded stubs of walls like sandcastles lapped by the tide.

All the recent generosity came in a rush in the first couple of years after the fall of the Taleban.

Since then there has been nothing, and as the country's new government has taken shape, the grumbling has begun.

"All the help we've had came from the international agencies," Mr Hakkim told me.

"The government is lazy. They do nothing for us.

They don't even know what we need." Heads nodded in agreement.

"They're completely out of touch."

Growing discontent

The conversation turned to the billions of dollars poured into Afghanistan.

Where has it gone, the men asked?

Their voices raised in anger as they accused government ministers of corruption.

"All these ministers have fancy cars," said one.

"They're siphoning money into foreign bank accounts."

"They've all built big multi-storey houses for themselves," said another. "They're not serving the people, they're serving themselves."

Government officials are well aware of the growing discontent in villages like Mushwani where hopes raised five years ago are turning to disappointment and anger.

Ministers I spoke to in Kabul admitted corruption has become endemic. They were looking for new ways of tackling it, they said.

Public expectation was unrealistic, said one official.

A country as devastated as Afghanistan cannot be rebuilt overnight.

Immediate threat

There is a sense too that the government has a more menacing and immediate threat to address - the bloody and powerful insurgency concentrated in the south.

The shadow of that fighting falls across the whole country, even across the dusty Shomali Plain.

As they tucked into their wedding food, the young people of Mushwani village seemed full of life and hope.

But the older men, like Mr Hakkim, watching from the sidelines, were clearly subdued.

They have lived through more than 25 years of instability and bloodshed here, long enough to make them believe peace rarely lasts for long.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 9 December, 2006 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the <a HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3187926.stm">programme schedules </a> for World Service transmission times.