Young Scot helping rebuild Kabul

Scotsman:

IN THE old city of Kabul an upheaval is under way - buildings are being rebuilt, streets are being cleaned and jobs created.

Men bustle around clearing away rubbish, which in places is 7ft deep; architects scribble plans feverishly and builders, covered in plaster dust, set about their jobs with a harried enthusiasm.

The revolution is being led by one man, 34-year-old Scot, Rory Stewart, from Perthshire.

Mr Stewart, educated at Eton and Oxford, is a man with almost as many tales as the bullet-scarred buildings that make up the area of Murad Khane.

Despite his young age, Stewart, who has an OBE, is more than up to the job.

A former British diplomat, he had one aim when he arrived back in Kabul in March last year: to save Murad Khane, part of the old city, and its unique architecture, from ruin. It was not Mr Stewart's first trip to Afghanistan...

In 2003 he walked across the country and wrote the best selling travelogue, The Places in Between. In between that and his return to Afghanistan, he was the Coalition Deputy Adviser to Maysan province in Iraq. His stint in Iraq led to his second book, The Prince of the Marshes: And other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq.

...

"Afghans don't want workshops on gender issues, they want jobs and infrastructure."

...

He started Turquoise Mountain Foundation, a charitable trust, with the Prince of Wales, whose children Stewart once tutored, and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, as its patrons. "The project had three main aims," said Mr Stewart. "To restore the area of Murad Khane; to develop a centre for the arts; and to grow a business development."

Murad Khane, home to around 600 people, is the only area of old city remaining to the north of the Kabul River, but until recently it lived a perilous existence.

The buildings in the area do not date earlier than the late 18th century, with most structures being early 20th-century constructions. Their location within the surviving urban fabric and the style of construction, however, indicate much older patterns of occupation.

The charity Architects for Aid describes it as "an oasis of traditional architecture consisting largely of one-storey mud buildings, alongside a traditional Serai [a form of Muslim coach inn] and some of Kabul's best-known buildings - the minaret and shrine of Abu Feisal".

...

There is much more. Rory Stewart is an adventurer in the old tradition of Great Britain. Just getting people to clean up their nest is quite a chore in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Once that is done he can get a better idea of what he has to work with. Houses made from mud seem to be common in Afghanistan. I wish the article would explain why they do not turn to mush when it rains.