Third Session- November 4, 2015

Today’s discussion topic was about peace. I started off the session by asking Saleha how a country can achieve peace. She gave me a very detailed response, which showed me that she was very passionate about this topic. She said that when a country has peace, they can improve and expand their knowledge. She went on to talk about how Afghanistan does not have widespread peace. The province she lives in is peaceful, however, a lot of war exists in other provinces. This prevents the people from receiving an education. She believes that peace is the most important thing for a people and for countries. She went on to talk about how people can go to school, study abroad, and learn new languages and skills when a there is peace. She thinks it’s important for people to improve their minds if they want to improve the country. Saleha then went into more detail about the culture in Afghanistan.  She said that in a lot of places there is violence, and women must live with men and oftentimes can’t decide things for themselves. It’s hard for them to have their own life. She talked about how grateful she is for her father, because he allows her to make her own choices. I wasn’t that surprised about the current state of Afghanistan’s culture, and imagined it would be something similar like that. I think it was great that she recognized that knowledge and education would help bring peace and change to her people. I asked her what needs to happen in order to achieve peace, and she said that first her people must work on themselves. When people can’t go to school or learn, they usually don’t let their children receive and education, and then those people disturb the peace. She had a lot of hope for her country, and believes that when Afghanistan finally achieves peace, a lot of people will want to learn from other countries and experience different cultures.