Airman wins trust of Afghans with Instant Camera

Published April 26, 2010
By 2nd Lt. Jason Smith
PRT Panjshir Public Affairs

PANJSHIR PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- Provincial Reconstruction Team Panjshir civil engineers visited five work sites and hosted two meetings April 19, but it was a young vehicle operator who created excitement among the local population at each site.

While the engineers were at the sites performing quality assurance and quality control measures, Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Greenberg, PRT Panjshir vehicle operator, used a Fuji instant camera to take and hand out pictures to local children and adults.

Breaking communication barriers, Greenberg used hand signals to communicate with a mujahedeen guard. The guard, who speaks no English, figured out what Greenberg was trying to do and relayed the message. At first, the kids wanted nothing to do with the American's camera, but the guard pulled out his instant photo from that morning and explained the idea to them in the Dari language. The kids hesitantly agreed, and after the first photo was processed, a line of children and adults formed.

"The kids are really happy," said Greenberg, who is deployed from Robbins Air Force Base, Ga. "It looks like they've never seen photos of themselves before. This is probably the event of the week, month or year for them."

Whether it was their first photo or not, people were quick to spread the word, and Greenberg ran out of film long before people ran out of picture requests.

"This is great," said Greenberg. "It's something you can hand them that is a lasting positive interaction between them and the PRT."

During the excitement at the trucks, the engineers visited the Anaba District Court construction site, Froj School, Kar Obdara School, the Pyawusht retaining wall and Bazark public restroom site.

"Last time we saw a couple of problems with form work of the rebar," said 2nd Lt. Jason Adams, PRT Panjshir civil engineer, about the Anaba District Court. "We have to see if they fixed that and check the forms for the ring beams."

The Kar Obdara School is about 95 percent done, according to Adams. He said his team needed to check the progress because of the potential for flooded tents.

"The kids are having class in tents down by the river now," said Adams. "The water level doubles in April and then again in May to June. If they don't hurry, they'll get flooded out of school."

Adams, who is deployed from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., said his engineers were able to accomplish everything they set out to do that day. He said the benefit of having someone like Greenberg interacting with the population while his team gets their engineer work done makes the mission more effective.

The PRT is waiting on more instant film to arrive. Once it does, the team plans to implement its use on most of its missions.