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Courage in Kabul

I'm back from Afghanistan now (a four hour journey from Kabul to Dubai, 6 hours in Dubai airport - the greatest crossroads in the Middle Eastern world - and then a 14 hour schelp to Dulles, and three more hours of waiting and flying to Philly.)

But looking back, I want to mention some more of the amazing people I met in and outside Kabul. None were more impressive than the girls in the 12th grade class in the Marefat school.

Swathed in white headscarves, light blue tunics and loose blue pants, they looked like nuns, but they talked with the assurance of young women who were aware of and ready to struggle for their rightful place in the world.

Most of them took part in the demonstration against a Shiite marriage law that would have legalized marital rape and kept women in the home. These young women were religious but they said this law was against their Shiite faith and the Afghan constitution.  I will write more about them in a future column.