I got some powerful reminders of what it was like to be a smallpox vaccinator in Afghanistan 40 years ago making a documentary about the group. None, however, were more dramatic and humorous than watching the Iranian movie “Secret Ballot.” Vaccinating Afghans against smallpox before more people suffer was our all female group’s assignment in 1969, following the women volunteers of Group Xl. In the “Secret Ballot” a young Iranian woman from the city is assigned to find those with ID cards on a remote island and get their votes in the national election before 5 o’clock.

The Iranian woman is just as passionate about her work, and almost as out of her comfort zone, as we were back then, and the work is familiar. First there is the skeptical but compliant soldier who dutifully protects the female whom he is certain should not be doing this kind of thing. Then there is her first encounter with a potential voter. He runs away in terror, and the ballot seeker has her soldier driver chase him down across the desert in the jeep.

Like us, she has her spiel about the importance of her mission. As with Peace Corps vaccinators, this is met with resistance limited only by the imagination. One old man nodding and uttering one syllable finally admits he doesn’t understand Farsi. Each response illuminates much about the clash of tradition and modernity, about country and city lives, about gender roles.

"Once in Afghanistan"

Seeing my youthful idealism, my bizarre exchanges with the women, my racing against the clock brought short bursts of laughter from me as I watched this beautifully told story. Long sighs, as well, at my bullying, at the irony of vaccinating people who don’t have enough to eat, with my despair that maybe this effort won’t count.

The ending is a comfort. As my friend Linda from Group XV put it, there is magic in those moments that resonate with our being more alike than different.

Many conversations with new friends center on family. “Do you have brothers and sisters? Are you married? How many children? Where do they live? “ My conversations with young Afghan women are about these also, and the picture of American family life is often not pretty.

My only son lives on the other coast most of the year. We miss each other, but that is just the way it is today in many families. My Afghan friends must think it very sad that my one child, my son, is so far away. My only brother also lives far away, so visits are rare. Fortunately, my siblings visited our parents’ home when our kids were growing up. Now, however, with our parents gone and the kids grown and spread out, it’s hard to keep family traditions and values alive.

Our divorce rate, our school dropout rates, our college graduates’ debt burdens, the warehousing of our elderly - these family topics also come up when speaking with my Afghan friends. In speaking of marriage traditions, a friend in Kabul spoke of the father’s right to give his approval or not to a prospective husband whom the women of the family have chosen. Men can judge men better than women can, as women can other women, my friend explains. Given such a context, I hesitate to pass judgment.

We can share our customs and beliefs with one another, but we need to keep in mind that Afghans do not want our sympathy, in spite of images of vulnerable-looking, veiled women in our mass media.

They seek our willingness to learn about them and from them. We must share our weaknesses as a society as well as our strengths. If, in addition, we can stand with them against tyranny in all its forms and provide some resources for re-building, we’re all winners.

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Twice within a couple of days on our road trip through Mississippi attempting to pay for coffee, I was told to forget about it, pronounced as one word. This was a new experience for me. The first time was on a warm, breezy afternoon in Jackson at Peppers. We wanted to stick around after lunch to use the free Wi-Fi on the patio, so we ordered two coffees. The African-American waitress brought large red mugs of delicious java and said, “Forget about it” when we offered the cash. A little later she brought us two more mugs!

The second time was when I was in a chain restaurant, Waffle House, outside Jackson in the take-out line. When it was my turn, the African-American waitress filled both travel mugs to the brim, asked me if I needed cream and sugar, and said, “forget about it,” when I tried to hand her a twenty. “Forget about it,” I repeated. One thing to have paid for a nice lunch and be “comp’d” coffees, but at a chain restaurant when it’s all I’m having, I thought. The African-American man at the counter chuckled at my reaction. The waitress repeated it so that I understood not to insist on paying. I thanked her and left.

That phrase stayed in my mind as I visited historic landmarks along our route to New Orleans. One was the mural depicting the famous eleven-year boycott of local businesses by the African-Americans of Port Gibson, Mississippi. The town’s main street retains the commercial scars of that time with empty storefronts and faded signs, but the Supreme Court ruled that the boycott was legal and many of the demands of those activists have been met.

African-Americans walking around today come from a line of ancestors who have survived generations of violence, injustice and agony. This part of our national story is so alive in Mississippi. Natchez, for example, a lovely river town of fine homes and gardens, had slaves bought and sold on most every corner of the downtown at one time.

At morning coffee on a fine spring morning, smile at your neighbor and give a stranger a cup of coffee to start the day right. I’m beginning to understand something about survival and the New South where, at least superficially, there is some harmony and mutual concern across the color lines.

Here at Tishimingo State Park on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi we had electric and could charge our laptops. Some friends would kid me about how much I care about staying connected, and it’s true, I do.

The next morning I was able to skype my friend in Kabul from the sumptuous Tupelo Visitor Center fully charged. Not that I couldn’t plug in that morning, but charging at a campsite meant I didn’t have to depend on such a source.

The Center featured Elvis Presley on the big screen at his many public appearances. Part of  my Afghan friend’s and my conversation that day was to introduce her to the King of Rock ‘n Roll. This is as much a part of who we are as Mark Twain, someone we read together a couple of weeks ago. Will it forge a lasting bond between our two cultures or create more tension? I’ll keep trying.

I set out from Vermont March 15 in car with husband, dog, bikes, and tent with an itinerary taking us to the Gulf of Mexico and back again over four weeks time. Nothing wrong with where I live except for the sporadic nature of spring north of Albany, New York. However, I longed for a change, the kind that needs forcing with warmth and stronger light. For that, heading south was the answer. Within a day’s drive we had a motel room close to the shores of Erie, PA. From the empty lot next door I heard the first of the spring peepers, a sure sign of the turning of the earth.

The trip meant a last scheduled talk with my friend in Kabul for a while. Hard to know when and where I can get online during the hours she is available. Before I left we discussed a radio interview on NPR’s “The Story” March 13th of an orthodox Jewish woman, Chani Ovadva, who described leaving her faith shortly after completing training to teach in a religious school. She’d had to find a different job, of course, and when she was ready to make the break she went from work to her new life in an apartment without telling them. Her decision to choose what life to lead in spite of the cost reminded me of my friend’s decision to leave her family and their country of refuge to return to Afghanistan alone.

How much my friend has changed since leaving home at about that same age. When under a different roof, how much easier it is to question the beliefs and assumptions of our elders. Religious leaders around the globe forbid adult children from leaving their home with anything less than their parents’ blessing knowing how transformative it can be. The experiences of young Afghans outside the strict parameters of how to be a pious Muslim, as interpreted by today’s leaders, will challenge and eventually change their society.

I shiver a bit in the early morning air of March in Pennsylvania. What subtle changes in myself and  huge changes in Afghanistan are coming?

The world sounds livelier, younger, awake. The snow geese are headed here on their way to Canada’s northern tundra for nesting. Spring is breaking through Vermont’s winter-lite.

It’s happening in Kabul too where the winter was severe. Yes, due to snowfall the power was off from morning till night yesterday where my friend lives, but it is not as cold, not as dark, and warmer weather is expected this week.

An American leaves his barracks after midnight, bursts into several Afghan homes and  kills 16 people in cold blood. It’s hard not to think of this as a sick reaction to the Afghan demand that NATO cease its night raids. In the wake of the Quran burning and the subsequent death of 30 Afghans in the protests, it’s not impossible. The unimaginable happens in war.

We dread the news, my friend and I. We talk of Nowruz (New Day), spring’s official arrival March 21 and the beginning of the new year. Traditions among Afghanistan’s peoples vary, but house-cleaning, making/buying of new clothes for the whole family, preparing or buying special foods, and visiting family and friends are common. More importantly, it is time to for making peace, reconciling with relatives and neighbors, and starting fresh.

All of us recognize the arrival of spring and renew our relationship with the natural world to some degree. In the spirit of this awareness, let’s remember that countries too go through cycles. This is not the first time that Afghan-American relations have been on the rocks, and it will not be the last. That’s doesn’t mean they will always be so. Change is in the air.

A college-age student friend in Kabul and I discussed the protests after word got out of smoldering Qurans at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul. With our different news sources, we couldn’t agree on why this had happened, only that it had. The student was certain NATO forces had intentionally burned them and had intended for Afghans to discover their holy books in the trash. I’d gathered that both the burning and the discovery were more a failure in judgment. The student had heard nothing of the use of Qurans by prisoners to send messages.

We turned to the protests plaguing the country. This friend experiences how they worsen security and speculates this as a motive for the burning.

“This is really stupid!” my friend declared.

“The burning?” I asked to be certain that was her point.

“No, no, Afghan protests. Six have been killed and thirty wounded. Three already dead today. The dead leave their families without a breadwinner, and that is very hard here.”

An Afghan who believed foreign forces had deliberately insulted Afghans, perhaps to set off protests, and yet who was more disturbed by the Afghan response. Why?

“Quran means human,” the student continued. “Quran is in your heart, not in a book. Mohammed taught that books are not Islam; I am Islam. “

What about flag burning? My friend reminded me burning the American flag is part of Iranians’ annual celebration of their Revolution. “This doesn’t affect my country one way or the other,” I suggest. My friend relays a family saying about such activities: “It may destroy the donkey’s saddle, but leaves the donkey untouched.”

We share a smile, and, inside our hearts and minds, we hold our deepest values safe from the masses that react impulsively and violently around us.

basmati rice

chicken thighs

onion

tomatoes

carrots

raisins

cumin seeds

almonds, skinned and split

pistachio nuts

olive oil

salt

garlic

A few RPCVs Afghanistan from VT and MA brought their memories of home-cooked Afghan meals and the ingredients to January gathering, and the Afghan students their cooking skills. An evening with study and work set aside to share the simple tasks of dicing, sauteing, tasting and of all the talk, if not a recipe for peace, surely one step toward it.

Returned Peace Corps volunteers Afghanistan

For part of one afternoon during the 50th anniversary, a little Peace Corps movie was just downstairs from the most treasured archives in the land. Once in Afghanistan screened at the National Archives, which is the permanent home of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The movie has been back and forth across the country from venues as large as the Starz Film Center in Denver to the tiny Back Hills Grill in Kentucky, and we appreciate every host. However, Programming Director Tom Nastick’s invitation to bring it to the Archives blew us away.

The documentary would not have been possible without the photographic and film archives of members of the group and their friends. Thank you, National Archives, for maintaining our national documents and for welcoming us to your sacred halls.

There were so many parties last week in Washington to commemorate Peace Corps’ 50th, I’m sure I missed many of them. I did get to one of the best, Youssou N’Dour’s free performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday evening.  Millennium Stage was the place to be when the Sengalese music singer and songwriter and his band appeared. The wait for free tickets in The Hall of Flags wasn’t a bad place either on that rainy afternoon. I did pay $9.50 for a glass of wine at the rooftop cafeteria, but I had that free ticket and a second one to give a woman in line with a West African national friend who was still at work.

My friends and I had a seat in the front with the hard core fans, RPCVs Senegal and Washingtonians from West Africa. There were about 1300 people in the theater behind us, but it was those in front of us and beside us who made it a party. These volunteers, Black and White, and those with family back in Senegal knew all the words, all the moves, and were dancing at their seats and in the aisles. Youssou’s music makes it impossible to sit still, and who’d want to.  A couple who looked a lot like us were seated beside us initially. Initially, until the music began, and they stood up shaking and clapping with every song. When we asked them when they had served, we learned they were just standing in for their daughter who’d served in Senegal some years back. That’s enthusiasm.

Midway into it, Youssou asked if there were someone who could speak with him in his native language. A white woman made her way through the pack at the edge of the stage to do so. Then he moved to the other side and asked again, perhaps this time for a different dialect. A short, blonde woman seemed to have a great time chatting with him. That more than any fine words said about Peace Corps last week at the 50th made me proud to be a part of it.

Youssou N’Dour’s music was originally a fusion of traditional Senegalese music and western sounds from the 70’s. He is part of Paul Simon’s album Graceland. Youssou’s music has evolved as he’s toured the world incorporating dozens of African-based and other traditions into his repertoire. This giant in the international music scene is also a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN. His introduction spoke of his work collaborating with Peace Corps Senegal on a not-for-profit Malaria No More, but to us he spoke more of “New Africa.” This movement strives to unite Africa as one and to hold each other, Africa’s leaders, and the international community accountable for inaction. There was a great sense of unity from the magic that music and dancing can create and from our shared humanitarian values.

Exhilarated by the rhythm of the drums, the singing and the clapping of the crowd and my awe of the place, I turned to the training director for Group XV Afghanistan to ask how is it that these volunteers apparently were dancing and singing with their new friends while serving as Peace Corps volunteers and we, as females in Afghanistan, were sequestered in our rental house or hotel rooms playing cribbage on Saturday night. She shrugged her shoulders making the very good point that she had had nothing to do with selection of trainees. No regrets on my part, just a whole lot of joy that I didn’t miss this dance party.