Among the dozens of comments under the photo — most of them in Pashto, saying ‘welcome to our land’— two particularly stayed with me. “This means [sic] here’s peace. Fata’s voice can reach Karachi.”

In the days that follow, my friends from Landi Kotal post pictures nearly every day. Many of them are of a football match taking place at the Government Highschool Ground. The sidelines are demarcated by rows of spectators sitting in one large square on the loose, sandy bottom; an orderly sea of grey and white shalwar kameez. There are photographs of children and old men cheering for their teams; and a cheerful one of the victors.

It takes me back to their burning urgency to make Fata belong. To tell happy and sad stories that are not pegged to the war on terror.

This boys club in Landi Kotal is a drop in a savage ocean of tribulation. But, like Shinwari had said: A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.