In 2010, I visited Afghanistan for the first time. We traveled to Bamiyan

to get to know the projects the Jesuits had initiated, and to gather material for a fundraising campaign in Germany. I remember how amazed I was to find a country of such natural beauty. At the same time, we saw the hardship of life. When meeting families, we could feel a complex mixture of different elements: cordial hospitality and careful mistrust, the value of tradition and the longing to be part of the globalized world, incredible poverty and deep wounds inflicted by the war, scars of humiliation and a radiance of unbreakable dignity.

 

One encounter stayed with me. We had been invited for breakfast with the family of the woman who cooked for the Jesuits in Bamiyan. She told us about her life, the flight to Iran and the difficulties they faced there. A toddler was playing around and I thought it was her grandchild. But it turned out to be her child. She was much younger than I had assumed, and I said to her with a surprised smile: “Oh, we are almost the same age.” And she answered: “You still look so young. You must have had an easy life.” This touched me in a way I find difficult to explain.

 

During my visits in Afghanistan I was deeply impressed with the strength of women. It is so important to give them a space to follow their dreams and to satisfy their hunger for education. And it is so important to have women reaching out to other women. I believe that the Jesuits in Afghanistan know that. For me the Society of Jesus really walks with the people in Afghanistan. And that is something I admire and learn from for my own work and life.