Balkh university library

After my time with the students, I repaired like a homing pigeon to the university library on the ground floor, to the right of the burqa removal station. Libraries never fail to soothe my jangled nerves, and invariably appear familiar and homey places to me, wherever they occur, due to the fact that my father is a librarian, and I always loved going to visit him in his library, where I have spent many happy hours.
In this case too, I was welcomed warmly by the lady behind the glass porthole through which the students put forth their requests, and she ushered me in beyond the locked door when I stammered something about being an English teacher, curious to see their collection.

There were many notices and stickers attesting to the generosity of foreign donors clustered about the door, their odor of sanctity and righteousness mingling with that of dust and mildew emanating from the books themselves.

The female librarian gestured over to where the books in English were, and so I soon discovered that the backbone of the library consists of multiple copies (often as many as 20 or 30) of expensive hard cover McGraw & Hill volumes on Molecular biology, Management Dynamics and the like, still in their plastic wrappings. These are, as was clear even before the librarian laboured the point, quite useless to the faculty of these departments (admitting even that such subjects are taught) and likewise to the faculty of English, for whom they are much too advanced. Of course, donations of textbooks in Dari would be rapturously received, but donor agencies in their wisdom have provided overviews of the culture of the Southern States (of the USA) and guides to public speaking (patently aimed at US politicians) instead.

It is particularly distressing to note that the textbooks on Obstetrics and Gynecology are also only available in English – while the maternal death rate remains shockingly high and one in four children in Afghanistan do not reach their 5th birthday.

All in all, I got more joy out of the library’s English language holdings than most perhaps, and spent the rest of the morning happily browsing and sneezing in the dust, plied with cups of tea by the librarian, with whom I commiserated on the cramped conditions and inappropriate nature of his stock. And I found a great essay by Margaret Atwood.