Adventures in La-la land

As the Coalition forces prepare to pull out, other Brits commit to real ‘nation-building’ — educating the next generation. Mary Wakefield reports from rural Afghanistan

Snow melts in the Hindu Kush, trickles through the foothills, sluices across flood plains scattered with pink anemones then runs noisily through Worsaj district down to the village of Qanduz, where it is drowned out by the sound of children shouting, ‘I love you!’ They’re either side of a dirt track, the children, throwing glitter, clapping, waving plastic flowers. In front of me, Sarah Fane, the object of their devotion, shakes hands and accepts so many garlands that soon only her eyes are showing above the frills.

This is the welcome Blair dreamt of in Iraq, I think, watching her; the welcome neither Obama nor Cameron can hope for now they’ve effectively given up here in Afghanistan. It’s the welcome our daft new Defence Secretary forfeited when he said last week that Britain was not in ‘this broken, 13th-century country’ for the sake of education, because education is exactly the business Sarah’s in. She raises money in England and then, with the help of the Swedish Committee in Afghanistan and local teachers, she builds schools. As the military makes for the exit, Sarah and co make plans to educate the next generation.

We’re fed tea, led to a table where we sit, decorated like Christmas trees, while the children’s headmaster makes a speech. This is, in fact, not a welcome so much as an ambush. The head heard that Sarah was in Worsaj, he’s seen schools she’s built further down the valley, ogled their cricket bats and computers. He has 1,700 pupils, most of them doing lessons in a field. They need classrooms. Can she help?