Sylvia's Journal

The Kabul rotary club, in one fell swoop,may have increased its membership by 35% – the orientation evening netted, I think, two foreigners and two Afghans, a father and daughter combo; the percentage of female members would be increasing from 7% to 23%.

For all of us who are bombarded almost daily with stories about greed and carelessness, the stories from current and future members of Rotary Kabul about ‘service over self’ were more than a welcome distraction, truly an inspiration.

We learned a bit about the history of Rotary International and then talked about what we could be doing where, for whom and how. We ended up with some principles: local, continuing relationships and working through existing structures, government and/or traditional.

Through matching grants Rotary Kabul is already contributing to health and education activities of others but we were thinking small; about ways that would combine service with a sense of community of the members, a very small group right now.

Our host, a long time Rotarian in the US and now here, talked about the kinds of fundraising they used to do in her US hometown. One caught my fancy – duck races. I could just see it clearly in my mind: hundreds of numbered rubber duckies floating down the Kabul River, cheered on by people who would not normally hang out together, lined up along the river; lots of laughter in the air.

Some ducks would right away get stuck in the garbage and others on dirty mud flats. It would remind people that their river is not pretty and needs help. After that all things would be possible. Imagine, London has its Henley and Kabul its rubber duck races.