Sylvia's Journal

In the middle of writing, emails, concept pieces, reports, I find my thoughts wander to this place deep into Afghanistan where the Noor Eye team was killed. I can’t focus or concentrate and can only see a picture of these incredibly committed souls as they were lined up for execution and realized they had come to the end of the road. It takes my breath away and leaves me gasping for air; the letters on my computer screen become useless symbols. “What’s the point?,” I wonder, and “Who cares?”.

Afghans around me are as stunned. Some feel a personal sense of failure – these people did things that few Afghans would do. Some call it stupid but I think many are ashamed that this happened here. Afghans have a very strong sense of obligation to care for those who are guests, foreigners and locals alike. This is why I feel so very safe here in Kabul, in our office compound and in our guesthouses.

We would never have been allowed to go on a trek like the Nooristan Eyecare team did; we aren’t even allowed to walk down the street. Sometimes we get overconfident and we walk in certain parts of town where our security guards consider us safe. But never in mountains of Nooristan, a place that is the eastern version of the Wild West. Everyone knew the risks. Sometimes people take risks and are lucky; sometimes they are not.

This morning, in our own small universe at the office, the conversations that needed to happen took place, one private and one with a small group of people over lunch. We talked about stress and the reptilian brain, about cultural and gender divides, about forgiving but not forgetting, about remorse and being sorry. There was much grace in these conversations that were highly unusual in this Afghan context: with a senior and male owning up to errors made to others, mostly female and mostly young.

I had hoped to model that good things can come from bad things. I wanted to show how hurt and anger can be transformed, yet doubting very much that this could be done here. It is hard to gauge whether I was successful; such shifts are not simple or quick. I cannot know yet whether the words spoken are only words, time will tell, but I was told by one of the young women involved in these conversations that sometimes words are more; they can be harbingers of shifts that, though small through one eye, are enormous through the other.

Still, a small seed was dropped that could grow into a decision that this place is not for me. For now the seed is laying dry and cold on the ground. In its current condition and location in cannot germinate, but something can change so it does. There are things that cannot be undone, like certain words spoken in anger. They fly out of the mouth with wings. They can never be put back. For now my heart is light enough that I can work again.