Trip to Afghanistan

I’m preparing for my trip to Kabul. My Swiss co-trainer and I will teach a five-day course in Nonviolent Communication to people wanting to learn conflict management and mediation. The Bureau for Reconstruction and Development is sponsoring the workshop. My fundraising efforts have brought me great encouragement and help. My community has shown its generous heart to me and I’m deeply touched by the love and support I’m receiving.

I read blogs from Afghanistan for hours. An Indonesian embassy employee, an American woman working with a UN mission. I learn that even in 90 degree weather women must wear leggings under skirts so no bare skin shows.

The Indonesian blogger says the Korean group the Taliban in Kandahar took hostage included 18 women. He also says this is not the first group of Christian Koreans traveling to Islamic countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. He writes that in response, the Afghan government has declared that “Foreigners, de facto, are banned to travel outside Kabul overland. Any foreigners wishing to travel by land must submit first an application to police two days in advance of the trip. To enforce the travel ban, new checkpoints had been instituted at all of Kabul's main roads.”

In Kabul, women stay indoors. Men witness violence on the street.

I shut down my computer, lace up hiking boots and head for the Pacific Crest Trail.
It’s late afternoon. I’m alone on the mountain thinking about my upcoming trip to Kabul.

I can count the sounds I hear. A plane on its way to San Francisco, a breeze moving through the forest, the steady rhythm of my steps on the path, a stellar jay announcing my presence. My only concern is for the safety of the enormous trees, firs, pines, cedars that are in danger of becoming planks or paper.

I wonder if any Afghan woman in Kabul has experienced such a quiet, solitary, easy moment in nature watching shafts of light traverse the landscape.

To my right, the bank slopes down to a meadow. Indian Paintbrush and lavender Asters blanket the hill. Deep blue Delphiniums rise above them at random. I could pick a bouquet if I wanted to without a thought about land mines.

In less than a week I’ll be in Kabul. So much is at stake in this tattered, wounded country. I hope we’ll be able to give something useful.

I’ll keep you posted.