Opinion: Numb From Afghanistan's Losses

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/21/ [login to see] /opinion-numb-from-afghanistans-losses
"Zalmai Yawar showed me the stars one night. We were in the mountains of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, in 2002 — just a few months after the war began. We had spent the day reporting on the mass graves of Hazara people the Taliban had murdered after blowing up the ancient statues of Buddha carved into the nearby cliffside.

Zalmai held a hand up against the deep night sky to point out the different, dazzling shapes Phoenicians, Greeks, and Egyptians had seen in the stars. He was our translator in Afghanistan. When the Taliban emptied libraries to burn books, Zalmai picked up a salvaged copy of The Godfather, and used his father's old English-Pashto dictionary to read it. So we called him — still call him — Zally, after Sally Tessio".