I first set foot in Afghanistan in December, 2008. Traveling from Kabul airport in an embassy car, I felt as if I’d been transported back in time. The dusty streets were bustling with life: donkeys carrying fresh vegetables, men in traditional shalwar kameez  going about their day, and women in blue burkas navigating the markets. It was the year 1385 in the lunar Hijri calendar, and everything around me seemed timeless and enduring. Then I began to meet the people, and from my earliest days...

by Hassina Sherjan Community Voices Fellow Hassina Sherjan shares the most important lesson she’s ever learned in her quest for Afghanistan’s future. When my father was on his deathbed, he said to me, “Live as you want to because I didn’t.” I was shocked. All my cultural, familial, and educational conditioning up to that point had taught me the opposite: to do what was expected of me. After my father’s passing, I committed myself to search for what I really wanted to do in this life. Two...