Well sports fans after 14 months it’s time for me to leave Wonderland and move on to sunnier climes. Being here has been the toughest thing that I’ve ever done. I wish that I could say that I was leaving with a sense of renewed hope for Afghanistan and a stronger bond with my fellow man. Unfortunately, I just feel exhausted and happy to get out this place alive and with a few shreds of sanity. While I was here, the program that I managed distributed 3,000 metric tons of food, 70 metric tons of seeds and fertilizer, trained 400 community health volunteers, and pumped about a $1.5 million into the Afghan economy. It all sounds good on paper, trust me I know I write the reports, but after being here and seeing the desperate state of this country, the conflict, the poverty, and the corruption, doing development projects here kinda feels like trying to put out a California wildfire with a garden hose. If there is a way forward for Afghanistan then it is clearly beyond my four years of state college to discern.
Thanks for reading and taking this journey with me.
