Quarabagh in north-western Afghanistan. Fifty kilometres away from the nearest paved road. The burden of the present weighs so heavily on people’s shoulders here that the future barely seems to extend into the next day. We have come to this no man’s land with four young local reporters. They want me to show them how television shows are made.

Today’s schedule: sport reporting and football. First they have to move the cows from the penalty line, and then the men of the village come running onto the football field in faded Manchester Utd, Bayern Munich and Barcelona shirts. While my TV-trainees avidly follow the game from the sidelines, I sit down next to a group of teenage boys. They all giggle and only one of them dares to talk to me: “What’s your name?” He wears a worn-out European suit and looks at me, his eyes filled with curiosity. He looks like someone who has big plans, and I ask him what he wants to do later in life. He nods towards the football field. He wants to be a part of the team. Next year they will most likely be provincial champions, because of the new trainer, he says, nodding meaningfully, was in Germany for two years.

LITTLE GIRL AND ROSE BLOOMS

A few days later in the district hospital in Gulran, the reporters are making progress. They have formed an ENG crew: cameraman, interpreter and someone who hooks up the interviewees to the ten-metre-long microphone cable. The doctors in the district hospital are supposed to inform the out-patients or villagers about vaccinations, contraception and hygiene. Meanwhile I go outside and look for suitable locations to shoot. Over night, roses have opened along the walls of Gulran’s houses bringing unexpected colour to this grey desert region.