Editor’s Note:This is the last of a three-part series on U.S. reconstruction teams in Afghanistan. Part I and Part II appeared May 8-9.

TORGHUNDI, Afghanistan — Sensing the party is about to break up, a man hustles over to the lead vehicle and falls to the ground. He is smiling, even cooing like a baby, so happy is he.

Eventually, the guy is talked into getting back on his feet, although that doesn’t dampen his enthusiasm, or anyone else’s. It’s safe to say he and the other residents of Chah Baghalak won’t soon forget the day the first Americans came to town.

“It’s the type of attitude we look for when we travel,” Army Maj. Sam Agag, the trip leader, says.

During a four-day road trip into the far northwest corner of Afghanistan, a provincial reconstruction team based in Herat visited more than two dozen settlements, several of which weren’t even on the map.

The journey covered 265 miles, lasted 78 hours and encompassed four districts. Led by a small civil affairs staff, the 16-member team met community leaders, explored remote areas and gathered information that could be of use in the future.

“We can’t do everything,” says Navy Cmdr. Kim Evans, who heads the PRT in Herat. “We are trying to act as a conduit.”

That means connecting with people and giving them some means to enhance their lives. The wish lists vary from one community to the next. On an earlier trip, leaders of one village wanted nothing more than shovels, axes and wheelbarrows. Other settlements might ask about water wells, or school textbooks, or seeds for their fields.

“We’re trying to expand their sphere of prosperity,” said Army Maj. Dave Johnson, a civil military operations officer in Herat.

Before the Italians took over in April, the U.S. team from Herat routinely ventured into the hinterlands to check on projects and meet with local leaders. The list of objectives would vary, but the itinerary always included free time to explore uncharted areas and cultivate new friendships.

“We call it ‘Semper Gumby,’ ” Evans says with a laugh. “Always flexible.”

That’s especially so when deciding where to spend the night. Usually, a team in the field will rest in a school or health clinic, Evans said. The night before the team arrived in Chah Baghalak, members slept in a renovated school for girls.

As Agag watched the people of Chah Baghalak run around like children on Christmas morning, he turned to Staff Sgt. Lawrence Lentz for his take. Lentz said he felt at home, even with a three- legged camel and a sea of mud huts before him.

“This would be a good place in the future to bed down for the night,” Agag noted.

Unlike the first day, when the team got off track, this last full day on the road went as planned, at least as far as the maps and roads.

What has changed is the terrain. The sands of yesterday give way to fields of snow as the six-vehicle convoy works its way down a beautiful but desolate valley that leads toward the Afghan-Turkmenian border.

At 10:40 a.m., the team pulls into the village of Kolow and confronts its first challenge.

“Good people like you dug a canal right down the middle of the road?” Agag asks a Kolow elder in jest and frustration. “That was the road, and now it’s a canal?”

On this trip, Agag chaired most of the meetings with local and district leaders. He likes to joke and make people laugh, but he also has an innate sense of timing and mood. Agag’s manner is modest, deliberate and slow.

Islam “is based on humbleness,” says Agag, who speaks Dari and Persian. “The more humble you are, the better you are. [Muslims] believe he who is in a hurry is driven by the devil.”

Agag’s and Evans’ philosophy is to empower local, district and provincial officials. They’ll tell elders in a village that the district governor asked them to go out and survey the area. That’s not always the case, but it works: District governors gain stature and locals feel their government is working for them.

The team leaves Kolow the way it came in, and starts to backtrack. It isn’t a bad move, because they soon arrive on top of a vista looking down a modest gorge. As the team presses on, it passes an area where the soil sprouts a light, barely noticeable grass. It looks like green peach fuzz.

Before the group reaches Chah Baghalak, it rolls past a string of hamlets that go by the name of Siakhawal. Like Kolow, this is uncharted territory. An elder tells Agag there are about 450 families in Siakhawal.

The towns are different, though. The people in one, for example, were accommodating, offering information on the town and its inhabitants. Another is more guarded.

When Sgt. Paula Adams tries to give candy to a child, she is shooed away by a man. She receives the same treatment when she attempts to approach the women to see how they are doing, as is her practice.

“There’s something wrong with a village that doesn’t let you hand out candy to children,” Adams says afterward.

In Chah Gorg, the architecture changes: The village has flat roofs, instead of the curved tops that have been part of the landscape for the better part of two days. The main speaker in this town is a young man named Shams-din who runs the modest health clinic.

Schooled by the Norwegian Project Office, he seems to be the brightest one in the settlement.

He’s asked if they get visitors. Not really, he says, occasionally a nongovernmental organization will swing by, but that’s about it. Information is taken, but nothing much ever comes of it.

Shams-din tells Abdul Qadeer Kazemi, the interpreter, that it’s the first time he has met an American, let alone 16 of them.

“Are we what you expected?” Agag wonders.

The man shrugs his shoulders and answers in the affirmative.

Within minutes of the Americans’ arrival in Chah Baghalak, the convoy is surrounded by scores of people, young and old. Adams spends her time passing out gifts to the kids and holding a couple of toddlers, while others in the group take turns riding a camel or inspecting carpets being offered for sale.

Meanwhile, one of the elders brings a brown sheep forward and is prepared to slaughter it before Agag and Evans implore him not to. Through their interpreter, the officers tell the villagers they can’t stay long because they need to reach the border town of Torghundi before nightfall.

Before the team departs, Agag tells the elders he will return sometime and spend the night. He also gives the villagers their first radios, with instructions, of course. As the group prepares to drive away, a man approaches the vehicles and passes out packaged cookies to the Americans.

“Here we are with everything in the world,” Spc. Justin Johnston says as the convoy drives away, “and they want to give us stuff.”

After stopping just short of the Turkmenistan border, the convoy turns east and gets into Torghundi with an hour of daylight to spare. In Torghundi, the team rediscovers the wonders of a paved road. The vehicles and their occupants look a bit spent. But after a night’s rest and a few more hours on the road, the team will be back in Herat, writing reports and plotting their next convoy operation.