A few days after my story about thernefforts to reopen the Pir Mohammed School-closed by the Taliban in 2007-in the Kandahar province town of Sen-jaray was published, I received a jubilant e-mail from Captain Jeremiah Ellis, commander of the U.S. forces there. The school was now occupied by his troops and being renovated. "Huge groups of onlookers turn out to see what is going on," Ellis wrote. "Their initial questions are, 'Are you building a new coalition strongpoint?', 'Are you preparing to clear the town, one house at a time?' I tell them that we are here to clean the school, paint it, repair the windows and doors and place books, teachers, chalkboards and pencils into the rooms... They are ecstatic."
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