Diary from Kabul: Activists in Afghanistan Face Unimagineable Challenges

The following is the third entry from CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans' diary on the peace group's trip to Afghanistan. To learn more about CodePink's delegation to Afghanistan, click here.

I end this day feeling the total lack of possibility—a rare feeling as I live by the motto that in God all things are possible. I go to each meeting hoping to turn the rock over and learn what can be offered into the bounty of need and lack we witness with every step and breath. And yet…

What we do find are beautiful, amazing, passionate, heartful people doing work for those in need against all odds here—odds that are tremendous. It makes me feel so inadequate. These women and men are courageous beyond anything we can ever touch in the US. As activists working for the greater good, our lives are not in danger each day. However, here, the people we’ve met who are doing good work have had their lives have been threatened or they have lost members of and sometimes almost their entire family. The amount of patience and ingenuity they need to get even the most simple thing done is beyond my comprehension. They have all created something small and tireless, but with the quarter of a trillion dollars we have spent on Afghanistan in the last 8 years, it makes you want to cry with anger and ask if this if this is all there is to show for it? It is a strange convergence of so much need and so much waste.