My resolutions for surviving continuous lockdowns

I am struggling not to whine and get depressed. As a general personality trait, I'm neither a whiner nor suffer from moodiness or depression. Kabul has been a mess lately with multiple attacks with two of the recent ones close enough for us to instinctively duck for cover and dash for safety. This has resulted in being locked down for five weekends in a row with nowhere to go and to spend far too many hours in one's own room. I am a social animal and being cutoff from life outside the house and the office is draining my spirit.

My teeth are threatening to constantly clench, my lips feel tight, my gut tense and my breathing forced. My whole being is taut and tense, my shoulders feel hard as rock and my face frozen into something that is not attractive. I've just realized that I need to postpone my trip to India by a day and I still don't have my visa. Next week I have full day workshops and I'm scratching my head and trying to figure out how I will find the time to get the visa, and even more distressing is the nagging thought about whether I will be allowed to venture out to the embassy to process the paperwork.

I am sending out an appeal and a prayer to give me courage, fortitude, wisdom, humor, serenity, and compassion to remain flexible and to retain a sense of fun. I want the wisdom to believe that this too shall pass and to use the possibility of having to spend more time in my room to explore other avenues of serenity and fulfillment. I want to channel the courage of San Suu Kyi of Burma who has spent decades under house arrest and not blow this comparatively miniscule experience out of proportion. Instead of using this surge of energy that wants expression in being whiny and grouchy, I want my line to shine bright and perhaps even brighter. I don't want to this to get me down, but instead to lift me higher.

I don't want to feel as if opportunities are being lost but instead to feel as if this very negative situation is instead opening more doors for me. I want my soul to find even more nourishment instead of feeling as if it is slowly withering. I want my easy smile and laughter and sense of joy - gifts from my mother - to remain fully stocked and even overflowing instead of being drained dry. I want to channel my mother who under far, far more difficult circumstances managed to radiate joy and compassion so much so that people whose lives by all normal standards were more bountiful flocked to her to absorb some of that spirit. I want to channel the dauntless spirit of my Afghan friends who have survived decades of lives being on hold and have come out of it with their ability to be kind, to be compassionate, and to laugh intact. I don't want to wallow in self pity, give in to a pervasive sense of resentment and instead feel as if I'm free and swimming with Dolphins in open water.

I will not allow myself to feel imprisoned and instead make friends with the walls of my room, the walls of my compound, the barbed wires on top of the compound walls, the guard house, the sniper posts, the safe room and most of all with my spirit that is unique, and belongs to me and will not be destroyed by anyone else. This too shall pass.

Peace is not only marches and candles and vigils

I have signed petitions against war, I have staffed booths and encouraged others to sign petitions against war, I have ridden the bus from Minneapolis to Washington to march against wars, created banners, gone to speeches given by anti-war activists - and never stopped to think, "if I am against war, then what am I for"? When I joined the group called "Peace in the Precincts", a group birthed from the organization Friends for a Non-Violent World (www.fnvw.org), I caught a glimpse of what peace might look like and began to realize that simply being against war in the day to day reality of life does not mean that I stand for peace.

Right now, as troops draw down and I witness its happening sitting here in Afghanistan, I am appalled that aid for education, agriculture, and other economic development is also being randomly drawn down. What I suspected is true - the money that is cut for war is not automatically diverted to programs that will foster peace. Peace is not marches and candles and vigils of holding signs on bridges in sub-zero weather, peace also requires funds. Exponentially less than war, nevertheless it still does.

After much prodding from the donor community, the Ministry of Higher Education developed a well thought out 5 year strategic plan that balanced the need for improving quality while increasing access to higher education to a burgeoning youth population in Afghanistan. The five year plan asked for about $550 million dollars, one-fourth the cost of a B-52 bomber. The donor community applauded the plan and exclaimed about how little it costs to develop a decent higher education sector - a sector without which a country cannot develop. This was a year ago - today we have seen only $20Million of it and those of us that work in this sector are in grim despair.

The peace community is oblivious to this stunning betrayal of promises made and is no doubt thinking that the start of the withdrawal of troops is the first feather in their cap towards full withdrawal.

Sitting here it is interesting to see how when it comes to countries like Afghanistan - both the right and the left become machines of propaganda,with neither side doing the hard work of backing sustainable policies for peace. The right has never developed policies for making sure that in a certain number of years the country's police and army are skilled and trained to defend their country. The left has never developed a policy on what needs to happen side by side, so that when the troops leave and the aid is reduced, a solid core of skilled and trained citizens are left behind. Both simply wave flags - just the logos and fabric are different. After the ultimate sacrifices by our own sons and daughters - is this what support looks like? Simply withdraw from the country without ensuring that funds remain for its on-going development? Now that I actually know some soldiers, I want the peace community to know that they are devastated by the scaling down of development funds to Afghanistan. They are outraged and angry that this is how we choose to reward their sacrifice.

I love this country - a country of full of inexplicably welcoming and hospitable people, a country where 70% of the population is under 30 and whose eyes are wide with hope and an eagerness to reclaim their country and make democracy stick. I hope the soldiers who are leaving the country do not forget the country they have served and urge the government of the United States to continue aid. They themselves have seen the benefits of aid for development being the only thing that can hold the stability in an area that has been cleared by force. I hope those Americans who work in development organizations and are being asked to leave, take the time to write to their congressman about what we need here - even as they start looking for another job.

Most of all - I hope the extremely large peace community does the hard work of developing a policy with teeth that supports the building of peace, does the hard work of giving it a house and senate bill numbers, and does the hard work of seeing it pass - it may take years, decades of work - but I don't think anything else will ever really bring peace. The right sees the hammer as a tool for getting to peace, the left sees the absence of hammer - in reality the hammer needs to be replaced with a different tool.