Commencing the Journey

Close your eyes and begin to walk for a while. At one point, whether it is after 10, 50, or 100 steps, you will realize that you will just not be able to walk any further, not knowing what the world in front of you holds.

I have had some time to reflect on the commencement of my trip to Afghanistan, and it was in Dubai airport while waiting for my Kabul flight that I really began appreciate what lied ahead. As I waited in the departure gate, native Afghanis started trickling in until the gate was packed. We all like to consider ourselves open minded (at least I do), but I succinctly remember my feeling of discomfort amongst the 50-100 Afghans all dressed in traditional clothing with their turbans and long beards, none of them speaking english. Indoctrination clearly had taken its toll on me. And it is this struggle against this indoctrination, passivity, and the status quo that is worth fighting, as the false perception do begin to shatter, first with a smile, then with the waving hand signals of communication, and finally with the exchange of one work phrases like: "Canada", "Hajj" (i.e. some of them had come back from hajj).

A number of times on my way to Kabul I asked myself "Why am I even here?" It was my exchange with the Afghan man in Dubai that made me recall. The Afghan people are by and large good people with incredible resilience. By following their footsteps and learning their traditions, one can venture out of path of the closed eyed traveler.

In my time in Afghanistan, I'll mostly be working with the Women and Children's Legal Research Foundation (WCLRF). Their work will become more clear in the coming weeks, so I won't talk on it now. My plan is not to jump into the middle of the raging battles in the east and south. Unlike my trip to Palestine where resistance to occupation has develop over the some 50 years, hear the fighting is largely sectarian, tribal and amongst warlords. For now, I'm stationed in Kabul.