It has been many years now since my last visit to Afghanistan in 2014.  But I still get asked what Afghanistan was like. With mention of Afghanistan, one typically thinks of a country shattered by several decades of constant warfare, violence, and extremism. But looking back on my visits and works in Afghanistan brings a contrary set of images: images of Afghans who never get tired of asking each other how they are doing in ten or more different formal greetings, whenever they meet. If they are not satisfied with the first round of greeting, they won’t mind repeating it all over again. As if this is not enough, they embrace each other to express their warmth and love several times. This continues over several cups of tea. And they never depart without inviting the other to be their guest for dinner. And this starts all over again, even if they meet a few minutes later. This warmth and love is also shared with visitors and guests. Well, you can be a guest only once in an Afghan family. This might sound strange. That’s because, when you meet an Afghan a second time, you are neither a stranger nor a guest, but a friend. This is true to the Afghan saying, “Yag roz didi dost, degare roz didi bridar.”

It means the first day you meet, you are friends; the next day you meet, you are brothers. I can validate this without the slightest hesitation based on not my first experience but several years of personal experiences.

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My reminiscences of Afghanistan might sound trivial to some, but they reflect the driving force of resilience to counter the violence and hatred that are depicted in daily news. It is this warmth and passion that the people of Afghanistan, young and old, men and women,  bring to meet their daily survival challenges of uncertainties and turmoil, to their work place of dreams and development, to their insatiable quest for knowledge and wisdom, to their support of loved ones and strangers, and ultimately, to their traditional sense of honor and pride. I state this because it easily gets overlooked. These people are in fact human. They have lives. They are not just a face on a TV news clip of violence and extremism. They have hopes, dreams, and worries. Most have concern for others, even strangers. I am glad that JRS Afghanistan helped to shape their hopes, dreams, and concerns in a concrete way through its small but significant intervention of educational, capacity-building, and community development programs. More importantly, it helped me to appreciate not only these simple cultural gestures of warmth, love, and passion, but also to value people as they are no matter in what situations they are, and bring passion into my committed service.

 

I must also state that the efforts of JRS in Afghanistan might not have been large scale projects, but surely their impacts are significant. As an Afghan proverb says, “qatra qatar darya mesha”, meaning “drops of water make a river.” I strongly believe the little droplets of JRS Afghanistan have formed a new ‘river’ of transformation with new ‘currents’ of strongly formed men and women who readily take up leadership roles and have become agents of change in Afghanistan.

 

It’s time to look forward to the future mission with  a renewed spirit. I am very grateful for the wonderful opportunity to be one of those droplets in the rebuilding efforts of Afghanistan.