Scholarship Essay

So...I filled out my FAFSA and submitted it today, which then led me to search out scholarships in a vain attempt to assuage my ever increasing debt from student loans. Unfortunately, even though I have no money I don't qualify for very many scholarships. About the only one I could find was from some random company of business consultants.

I'm not actually sure it applies to me, either, due to the rather vague description which reads:

"The A&F Scholarships are available to all high school juniors and seniors as well as all students currently registered in any accredited post secondary institution."

I presume that includes graduate students?

Well, I plan to enter anyway. All that it requires is an essay, written to answer this question:

"What have you done outside of the classroom that demonstrates qualities sought after by universities or other educational facilities? Of these, which means the most to you?"

My answer? Keep reading to find out. And please, let me know what you think!

The girls stared shyly at us, sneaking peeks whenever they thought we weren't looking. Our tour guide explained who we were and why we were there, then started asking questions of the class. When he asked what each girl wanted to be when she grew up, the answers surprised me. Most answered that they wanted to be a teacher, and many specified that they wanted to teach English. Other common responses were journalists and lawyers, and one particularly ambitious student even answered, “a politician.” The most remarkable part of these answers was that they were coming from young girls in Afghanistan, who for the first time were able to dream about having a life of their own choosing, instead of one chosen for them by their families.

In March of 2010 I spent ten unforgettable days in Kabul, Afghanistan as part of an educational trip to explore issues facing women there. As part of that trip we visited a school for girls run by an Afghan non-profit organization. There are 120 students at that particular school, with a long waiting list of parents who want an education for their daughters. Contrary to the opinion held by most people, Afghan parents want their children, including their daughters, to have every opportunity -- just like all parents the world over.

The main reason why I chose to go on this trip to a war zone was to see the other side of the story, to find situations like this. I knew there had to be more to the country than the war that is currently being waged there, and I wanted to see it firsthand. Everything I found in Kabul confirmed this belief. The Afghan people are the friendliest, most welcoming and gracious hosts anyone could imagine.

When I decided that I wanted to travel to Afghanistan, it was only after taking into account all of the risks associated with such a trip. Of course, it didn't help that there were two suicide attacks in Kabul a mere two days before we were supposed to fly out of the U.S. Making that decision, balancing the possible risks with the possible benefits, was quite possibly the most difficult choice I've ever had to make, but in the end I decided that the benefits definitely outweighed the risks.

Once I made the decision to go, then came all the details. And there were a LOT of details. I had to get multiple vaccinations, harangue the organization I was traveling with until they supplied me with all the necessary information needed to make all these arrangements, apply for a visa from the Afghan embassy in Washington, D.C., book my flights, including the flight from Dubai to Kabul that had to be booked separately from the rest of the itinerary, convince my family that this was the right decision and reassure them that I probably wasn't going to die, buy appropriate clothes and travel accessories, find travel insurance that would cover travel to a war zone, and ultimately provide for every contingency I could think of. Getting all of these done in less than a month was an almost Herculean task that required great persistence and efficiency on my part while sucking up all of my spare time.

However, once I stepped foot outside the airport in Kabul and actually saw the city and started to meet people, all of the effort and hard work it had taken to get there faded from my mind, as well as any residual fear of what might happen. I felt like I had come home. I adjusted to the different culture and strange city surprisingly quickly. If I experienced culture shock, it was mild enough not to leave a lasting impression. Before I went on this trip I had toyed with the idea of going into a career in aid and development work but wasn't really sure if it was a good fit for me. After visiting Afghanistan, I knew without a doubt that that was what I wanted to do. I love traveling, and I have no trouble adapting to new situations and cultures, not to mention extremely different living conditions from what I'm used to.

Every day in Kabul was crammed full of meetings with people, from women's rights activists to Members of Parliament to the director of a reconciliation organization that works to convince Taliban members to leave the Taliban and come over to the government. I took copious amounts of notes and tried to learn as much as I could. However, the most important lesson I learned in Afghanistan was that the more I learned, the less I understood. Afghan culture is complex and rooted in thousands of years of tradition. No outsider will understand it easily, or maybe even completely. There will be no easy solution to the situation there. But that doesn't mean that we should stop trying.

Photos from my trip to Afghanistan, March 1-10, 2010

Chai and Smiles

When I think of my trip to Afghanistan last year, these are the two lasting impressions that come to mind. Everywhere we went we were greeted with welcoming smiles, invited to sit down and warm ourselves by the stove, and had endless cups of chai (tea) pressed on us. Afghan culture is famous for its' hospitality, and with every visit we made it became more abundantly clear just how well deserved that reputation is. Afghanistan is a beautiful country, and the people are the friendliest, most gracious hosts I've ever had the good fortune to visit.

Before I left for Kabul, all my impressions of Afghanistan came from the news, and all of them were negative. Most news coming out of Afghanistan is about the ongoing war or terror attacks, such as the double bombings of a guesthouse and hotel two days before I was due to leave for Afghanistan (ultimately one person signed up for the trip ended up canceling after news of this attack reached us).

I'll admit, this bombing coming so soon before I was to leave and targeting a guesthouse very similar to the one I would be staying at in Kabul did cause me to stop and reconsider my options, but eventually I decided that what I stood to gain outweighed any possible risk. I left home and headed to Kabul as scheduled; now looking back I am more convinced than ever that I made the right decision.

I met up with the rest of my group in Dubai, and we finally arrived in Kabul after more than two grueling days of nonstop travel. There were twelve of us in all, ranging in age from 25 to 77 and in careers from botany to law. We had all come to Kabul for different reasons, but once there we were united by the unique experience of being strangers in a strange land.

Our welcome to this peculiar new world came when we stepped off the plane to go through customs and all the women donned headscarves before we even caught a glimpse of the city we would call home for the next ten days.

That headscarf quickly became the bane of my existence, as I quickly proved incapable of keeping it on. There is an art to it that Muslim women must spend their entire lives perfecting. I spent the first few days constantly rearranging it, pulling it back up as it slipped off, trying different ways of draping it, and eventually just holding it up. About halfway through the trip, however, I started to figure out some of the tricks to keeping the scarf up over my head, as well as a better way of wearing it. And by the time I left I had become so accustomed to wearing a headscarf that I would catch myself starting to slip it over my head every time I headed outside for several weeks after returning home.

Most Westerners see headscarves as a symbol of the oppression of women, forced on them by a heavily patriarchal conservative Muslim culture, but I think that there is much more to the issue than simply this. It might be naïve of me, but one thing I noticed is that in Kabul at least, a headscarf has many practical applications. There were times that I was actually grateful to have it on—and it also wasn't uncommon to see men on the street wearing a scarf draped around their head as well. Part of the reason for this is because Kabul is infamously dusty and polluted, and often both men and women on the street would be walking with their scarf held over their nose and mouth. By the time we left, the dust was getting to me and I unconsciously found myself doing this as well.

Learning the unfamiliar art of the headscarf would be just the first of many new and unusual experiences waiting for me in this vibrant and chaotic city, and each served as a reminder to me that other ways of living are merely different, not necessarily better or worse.

Swans

Buying Bread

The Burqa and the Butcher's Shop

The Kite Flyer

Afghan Girl

Broom Seller

One afternoon we were driving through Kabul in our little mini bus as always, and we got stuck in traffic in the center of this busy intersection next to a bazaar. As we always did when stuck in traffic, we opened the windows and were all leaning out taking pictures. This old man wheeled his little cart full of brooms/brushes up to us, set it down, picked up these two examples of his wares and held them up for a minute while we snapped away, then set them back down, picked up the handles of his cart and trundled off again.

It was classic Kabul.

Generations

Spinning a Web

Somehow Afghanistan has done this--spun a web and ensnared me. I've thought of nothing else since I got back a little more than a month ago. I love everything about it: the country, the mountains, the people, the culture, the languages, the chai, even the dust and chaos of Kabul. I hope to go back there someday, and to be able to do something to give back what I can in exchange for everything it has given me. Afghanistan is a remarkable country made up of remarkable people, and I just wish there was a way to share this insight with the people of this country who only have negative images of such a fantastic place.

Aschiana

Both of these photos are from our initial meeting with Mohammed, the manager of Aschiana ("Aschiana" is the Dari word for "nest"). I'm not really sure how to handle security/anonymity issues regarding the people we met on this trip; I don't want to put anyone in undue danger from a reckless blog entry, so even though it's probably not really necessary I won't use full names for anyone we met with.

The photo below shows Mohammed holding the 2009 Humanitarian Award which Aschiana won, beating out more than 4,000 entries from 35 different countries.



These photos were taken in the room containing all the handicrafts and art products that are made by the students at Aschiana and sold, providing part of the income used to run Aschiana. And all the art was absolutely beautiful.



This painting was my personal favorite.


This was the first classroom we visited, where an art class was taking place.









These was the special ed classroom. These women were wonderful with the students--very kind and gentle and supportive.

This cabinet we saw on the path between different buildings and stopped to look at. It contains a display of different ordnance, I believe the word is, that can be found everywhere in Afghanistan and particularly Kabul. This is meant to show the children at Aschiana what different bombs and grenades and various things that go boom look like so they leave them alone. Unfortunately it's not uncommon for children looking for playthings or scrap metal to sell to find something like this and pick it up, only to be killed when it goes off.

Afghanistan is also one of the most heavily mined countries in the world--landmines are everywhere. The HALO Trust is a mine-clearing NGO that locates and destroys landmines and other "debris of war," as their website puts it.



Students in another classroom. The big guy on the right is one of my fellow travelers, not an unusually large Afghan kid.

Notice the poster at the top left of the picture below, and the close-up below that. This type of poster was more common than the HALO Trust display cabinet and was prominently displayed at every school or children's organization we visited in some form or another.




More handicrafts in the woodworking shop. Aschiana also does vocational training, teaching people to make things like this to sell.


The dojo or whatever it's called where they teach judo.

When we walked in and they explained the gym to us, Jake informed everyone that he is a black belt in something or other and Mohammed asked if he would like to go one-on-one with this kid, one of their students in judo.

It was very entertaining--for us at least. We weren't the ones getting slammed into the mat:)






We kept huddling under David's umbrella while we were waiting for Abdul, the driver, to bring the bus over when it was time to leave.

It was cold and rainy the day we went to Aschiana. Aschiana is a program that provides education and vocational training to street children in Kabul, and they do great work.

Aschiana was developed to support street children, who are the most vulnerable in Afghanistan. It is registered/funded by the Ministry of Education. The center we visited is not the only center they operate; there are others in Kabul as well as in different provinces. They work with more than 9,000 children and also work with children from IDP camps, which stands for Internally Displaced People--or in other words, refugees from other areas of Afghanistan. Aschiana works with1,300 families from four IDP camps, which is about 2,500 kids total.

Their main goal is to integrate children from the streets to schools, and also provide vocational training for both boys and girls. School activities include art, literature, sports, health education, work with special ed/handicapped children, etc and vocational programs include carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, and so on.

It costs $20 a month for each child to go to school, and since most families can't afford that Aschiana has a school sponsorship program that finds private donors to sponsor a student and pay that student's school expenses.

Aschiana also has a foundation in the US, based in Washington, D.C. which helps fund Aschiana's programs and also helps locat and provide sponsors to pay the childrens' school fees. If you're interested in learning more about Aschiana or donating to their exceedingly worthy cause, you can find their website here.