A Visit from a Sister School

I have to admit that I didn’t think it would happen. I simply didn’t think it was going to be possible, but on Wednesday 13 March the high school girls’ basketball team from our sister school, ISK, in Afghanistan arrived at Kunming International Airport and thus began our week of hosting them.

This was a trip that our schools had been talking about for years and planning for months. ISK spent months fundraising and generating support for the trip. We spent months lining up outings, projects, host homes, meals, etc. But about a week before they were scheduled to fly to Kunming all of our hard work looked like it would be for naught. Their initial visa application was denied. We worked from our end to get special permissions but we were also denied. At this point I had written off the possibility of them coming and instead of planning on hosting girls from Afghanistan, I was planning on attending our high school service trip. Again, they appealed to the leaders on their end and at the 11^th hour were given approval. I received a call at 9pm on Monday 11 March that they were leaving the next morning. My first thought was, “O ye of little faith.” Why do I still doubt? I have seen amazing things in this place and yet the doubt remains.

We picked them up at the airport early on Wednesday morning. They had traveled all night and although exhausted, they were excited to be here. We jumped right into our schedule: brunch at school, an afternoon at the Minority Village, and a big pizza dinner at a host home. We got more comfortable with each other as the day went on and they started calling me Ms. Valerie (oddly enough this led to Eric being called Mr. Valerie when they met him later in the week).

Thursday we took them downtown and I watched as they happily wandered through the market located there. The girls grew up living in compounds, they were surrounded by grey concrete walls and barbed wire much of the time so the freedom of wandering was something of a novelty. That afternoon they played their first basketball game of the year.

Friday we drove them to the Stone Forest, a landscape totally unique and completely foreign to them. Again, it was the freedom of movement that seemed to capture their attention. We hiked for a while, stopped to eat a snack, and before I knew it the girls had begun an impromptu dance session. They are seldom allowed to dance in their home country and never in public. Freedom.

Their Saturday was spent playing more basketball games in an afternoon than they had in the previous two years. There simply are not enough girls high school teams in their country. By now some of the girls were feeling comfortable enough to forgo the long sleeves and full length leggings that they normally wore under their basketball uniforms. Freedom.

Sunday morning we drove up to a migrant center in the mountains and volunteered with their daily children’s program. The children ranged in age from two years old to twelve and they were all although Chinese nationals because of the system in place their parents are considered migrant workers. We helped serve the kids breakfast and then the girls were given a short presentation on the migrant worker situation in China. Afterwards we led a traditional Afghan craft. The girls loved it and the kids did too. I later talked to the director of the center and he said that the kids talked of nothing else for a week. We spent our afternoon doing something that I take for granted, but the girls loved- biking! They told me that they weren’t allowed to bike at home and many hadn’t touched a bike since they were very young. We bike everywhere here thus rounding up 11 bikes wasn’t all that tough. They spent an hour biking around our neighborhood, riding in circles on the pathways. Freedom.

The fifth day of their stay was spent more like any other week- at school. Our visitors were all assigned to a KIA guide and they shadowed them for an entire school day. Although this was not their favorite day (who really wants to go to school while on vacation?) they did tell me that they loved how students interacted with each other in and out of class and exhibited strong friendships regardless of nationality and gender. I thought this was an interesting observation.

Tuesday was their final day in Kunming. They said final farewells and hugged their new friends. I was surprisingly sad to see them go; after all, I had only known these girls for a brief six days, but I loved seeing their enthusiasm with each new outing and learning about how they view the world. I am hoping to reciprocate the trip this coming fall. This will, of course, require a lot of planning, and even more pr*yer, but I think that there is great value in learning about other cultures and ways of life and what better way to learn about other cultures and places than visiting?