Zen Peacekeeper.

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What Afghanistan Taught Me, Again (Part I)

Saturday, May 12th, 2012

When I sent this photo to my sweetheart, he wrote back: “I think you may have found your calling.” And I think he might be right. I learned a lot over the past three weeks, most of it not for the first time. I was reminded, for example, how much I love having an excuse to interview people. [...]

Posted in Afghanistan | 5 Comments »

Does Aid Need a 12-Step Program?

Friday, May 11th, 2012

“Let go and let God.” It’s a mantra of the self-help group, Alcoholics Anonymous. After spending a couple of weeks in Afghanistan, I’m wondering if it’s time for the international aid community to adopt the same approach.

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Posted in Development, Doing good, Letting go | No Comments »

Turning 40 in Afghanistan. In pictures.

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

 

Posted in Afghanistan | 10 Comments »

Birthday thoughts

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Yesterday was my 40th birthday. I woke up, for the first time in my life, thinking of all the people who I’ve loved who didn’t make it to 40. I was sad and deeply grateful at the same time. Is this what aging feels like? Am I going to wake on all my birthdays from [...]

Posted in Afghanistan | 4 Comments »

Ghor Day 3: Security, Security, Security

Saturday, May 5th, 2012

Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day. As with International Women’s Day last month, not everyone around here feels like celebrating. This morning I met a young journalist whose exposes on corruption in Ghor province have seen him arrested and jailed twice in the past year and led to a death threat from a prominent local [...]

Posted in Afghanistan, Story-telling | 5 Comments »

Ghor Day Two: Ghosts and Kuchi dogs

Friday, May 4th, 2012

When I was in Herat I drove past my old guesthouse several times. It is no longer a UN guesthouse, the guard box out the front is gone. Every time I drove past I wanted to stop, go inside and climb up to the roof where I used to practice yoga and breath in. Or [...]

Posted in Afghanistan | 5 Comments »

Coming Home to Herat: You have to feel it

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

Yesterday I returned to Herat. I haven’t been here in four years. I’m staying in the guesthouse where I lived when I first moved here in 2006. I was met at the door by the same house manager and cook who took care of me when I first landed. Two of the current house occupants [...]

Posted in Afghanistan | 3 Comments »

I’m (almost) 40. Which means it’s time for you to do some yoga.

Monday, April 30th, 2012

On 6 May, I’ll be 40 years old. I will be celebrating my birthday in a guesthouse in Herat, where the only people I know are highly well-behaved Afghans, and one (relatively, by Afghan standards) less well-behaved Italian. As you might imagine, my birthday celebrations are likely to vary considerably depending on whose company I [...]

Posted in 30 days of yoga, Yoga | 2 Comments »

Kabul Day 3: What’s really scaring me

Sunday, April 29th, 2012

I had lunch with an old friend today. Scott was one of the very first people I met in Afghanistan and during the six months I lived in Kabul we became close. Close enough that when I inscribed his book today I wrote: For Scott, who I like too much to have put in my [...]

Posted in Afghanistan, Story-telling, Writing | 3 Comments »

Revisiting Afghanistan: Day One

Friday, April 27th, 2012

As I type this I’m sitting in a quiet, almost entirely beige room in a guesthouse in Kabul. The muezzin just began the afternoon call to prayer. The sounds is soothing and familiar. Everything about Kabul feels more familiar than I had feared. People had told me the city had changed so much in the [...]

Posted in Afghanistan | 5 Comments »

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