Some Thoughts on Afghanistan

Abstract

I spent a life-changing year in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the 1990s, a visit that formed my intellectual perspective and inspired my career trajectory. Thus, I have long been fascinated by other people – especially women – who have spent time amid other cultures, and then experienced mixed feelings on returning to their native countries. Lately I have been reading the work of two adventurous women journalists, a generation apart from each other: British Yvonne Ridley (born in County Durham in 1958) and Dutch Bette Dam (b. Leeuwarden, 1979)