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In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, David Brigham ‘00 M.A. (I.R.) reported for duty in Tajikistan as an aid worker for the International Medical Corps. Brigham and a colleague were handed two laptops, two satellite phones, and $30,000 in cash, and told to set off immediately for Afghanistan. They traveled on foot and hitchhiked for three days in the chilly November weather, arriving in the northern Afghan village of Taloqan just after the Taliban fled. Meanwhile three Afghan aid workers made their way from Pakistan to meet them. After spending a week as guests of local Afghan families, Brigham and his staff of four moved into a mud brick building with no electricity and an outside pit latrine. There, they established the area’s first medical clinic.

“Our workdays began and ended with the sun,” says Brigham, who was recently re-posted to the Sudan. In Taloqan, he spent workdays meeting with local officials and agencies, searching for staff, and conducting assessments -- all accomplished via “a tiny rented milk truck” or an official’s borrowed SUV or jeep. “A lot of time was spent negotiating for travel, and even more was spent waiting by the side of the road -- when there was a road -- in the middle of nowhere while the driver lay in the frozen mud trying to fix one of the several breakdowns we had each trip.”

Nights in northern Afghanistan were bitterly cold, Brigham recalls, and the house’s only heat source was buharis, wood-burning stoves “made of tin so thin that the whole stove glowed orange when hot.” Dinner was invariably “oily rice with flatbread,” with an occasional chicken “to vary things a bit.”

Yet despite daily hardships and frustrations, Brigham describes his three months in Taloqan as “magical,” thanks in part to the evenings he spent with his four staff members “sitting on the floor in the living room eating by lantern-light and talking for hours about Afghanistan, the U.S., bin Laden, the Taliban, 9/11, and Islam.” That experience, he says, was incomparable to his subsequent posting in Kabul, where he managed a $3-million, 500-staff healthcare program. Although Brigham’s standard of living improved in Kabul, he grew frustrated there by “the international circus of aid agencies, embassies, U.N. agencies, journalists, and U.S. and coalition troops.” In contrast, the people of Taloqan were “thrilled to be rid of the Taliban and to have a fresh start,” he says. “It was that rare occasion when aid work lives up to one’s dreams -- living among the locals in an exotic, spectacular locale, building programs from scratch, helping people directly.”

Brigham is not the only Maxwell School graduate to have worked to help the Afghan people in their country’s transition to democracy, nor is he alone in having found personal satisfaction in being there.

Although she has been in Afghanistan for almost two years, Deborah Alexander ‘82 M.S.Sc./’95 PhD. (S.Sc.) still has no plans to “go home for good.” After being posted to Bosnia to register voters in 1996, Alexander was selected by the U.S. State Department to monitor the progress of U.S.-funded reconstruction organizations in Afghanistan in November 2001. In 2003, Alexander began working on Afghanistan’s first presidential elections, which were held on October 9. Now the U.S. Embassy’s senior political attaché, she says she spends her days “in a blur of meetings,” waking before sunrise with the first call to prayer and going to sleep at midnight. Saying that most Afghans, men and women, treat her “warmly and kindly,” Alexander adds that her only personal regret is not being able to travel independently.

“As a diplomat, my movements are restricted. The first tour, I spent most of my time with U.S. military or with Afghan organizations involved in humanitarian and reconstruction work outside Kabul,” she explains. “I’m always invited to Afghans’ homes and to tea. I’m what I call an ‘international gender’ -- as a U.S. woman I’m accepted at male meetings, but I also get to spend time with Afghan women, which U.S. or other international men don’t get to. Being a woman is an advantage of sorts.”

Fellow U.S. Embassy resident Ranjeet Singh ‘98 M.P.A./M.A. (I.R.) was posted to Kabul by the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs in April 2004. Traveling frequently through Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat, Singh supervises police training and several programs designed to end the opium trade. Like Alexander, she interacts daily with the local population -- mostly men who don’t know what to make of her. Yet Singh remains unfazed.

“They’re accepting of me, but there’s a sense of ‘You’re a woman,’” she admits. “Some won’t shake my hand. I’ll walk in with my contractors, and the Afghans will talk to the guys who work for me, who’ll turn to me for answers. My contractors will say, ‘Sir, this is Ranjeet, and she’s our boss.’ The Afghans will tell my contractors, ‘We need six vehicles,’ and I’ll say, ‘Well, I think I can give you three,’ and they’ll look surprised, like ‘Oh, okay, so you are the boss.’ But they are gracious. I end up getting lots of flowers, even from hardened former Mujahaddin generals who run the border police.”

At first, says Singh, she was afraid she couldn't manage all of her responsibilities, such as briefing Congressmen, talking to Afghan ministers, and meeting President Bush and U.S. government representatives. “Donald Rumsfeld came out and I had to brief him. A month before, I would have said, ‘No way, you’ve got to be kidding.’ But I was thrown into the job. I just do it,” she says. “I feel a lot more confident. I’ve learned a lot about my abilities.”

At the U.S. Embassy compound, both Alexander and Singh live and work in “trailers” made from metal shipping containers. Singh says her living quarters are so small she “can lie down across the floor, but that’s it.” She has equipped it with some modern amenities, including a TV, DVD player, and fridge, but still feels like she’s roughing it because her tiny sink and shower only allow “about two to three minutes of hot water” daily.

Nonetheless, Alexander and Singh say they are grateful for any private space, however small. “Initially I shared the Embassy basement with lots of cots and Marines,” Alexander says. “We used a single toilet and took a cold shower once a week.” Recently, she decorated her “hooch” by putting “pink flamingoes out front -- just for a touch of style in this war zone!”

Alexander cites the range of dietary options available at the compound as also having grown considerably. “Food used to be lamb broth and rice; then the Marines took over the kitchen,” she says. “Now we have a regular cafeteria with fresh fruit. I still don’t get milk or many fresh vegetables, but I’m fine.”

Singh enjoys occasionally venturing into Kabul with fellow Embassy employees to one of the few designated-safe international restaurants. “We’ve actually got quite an international community here,” she says. “There’s even a Thai restaurant and an American bar. A lot of the local business owners have really tried to cater to us.”

A job’s a job in Afghanistan, just like anywhere else, even when it comes to security issues. When a car bomb killed three of Singh’s contractors at their company’s headquarters last summer, Singh admits, “That really shook me up,” but adds that exercising common sense makes her feel secure. “We stay away [from the Embassy] if there are rocket attacks while we’re out, and we have specific places to go. If we’re at the Embassy, we go into the bunker. We sign out when leaving the compound, go out in armored vehicles, and always take a radio. There are only certain points in the city that we’re allowed to go. I’m not afraid, but there are situations that could get out of control, especially if you’re a woman, like the marketplace, so I just don’t go there.”

Perhaps the early timing of Brigham’s service in Afghanistan spared him any security threats. While there, he says, he relied entirely “upon the honor and hospitality of the Afghans” for his protection and “never felt even slightly threatened. In a culture based on honor there is no greater shame than showing anything other than total hospitality to guests. We were guests who had come to help and were perceived as such.”

Although Alexander admits to worrying during “those rare times that a rocket comes a bit close” at night -- which shakes her trailer and once made a cup of tea crash to the floor -- like Singh she generally takes a business-as-usual approach to her work. Acknowledging “real concerns about person and auto suicide bombs in the city,” and having lost acquaintances -- ”several phenomenal humanitarian workers and soldiers” -- to assassinations as well as rocket attacks, Alexander still values the opportunity to work in Afghanistan. “I’ve chosen to be here -- not once, but twice. I can’t live my life in fear. I enjoy this country and these people too much to be afraid all the time.”

All in all, the life of a U.S. Embassy official is luxurious compared with that of the soldiers serving in Afghanistan. Soldiers like Patrick Pascall, a staff sergeant in the Army Reserves (currently pursuing his M.S.Sc.), tend to find life in Afghanistan considerably rougher than officials do, but still feel generally safe. In northern Afghanistan, Pascall lived in a “safe house” without a septic system or shower in Konduz, a city without electrical power. Amenities were basic: ready-to-eat meals and a portable radio as the only form of entertainment. Protected by Northern Alliance guards, Pascall traveled over Afghanistan’s rough terrain and Konduz’s single paved road via ATVs, rented SUVs, and horses. “Afghanistan was very much like 500 B.C., except some people did have vehicles,” he notes.

In contrast, conditions in Iraq, where Pascall was stationed after Afghanistan, were “excellent,” including fresh food and a cement-roofed trailer. Yet Pascall felt more comfortable in Afghanistan because Iraqi insurgents are “more organized, better financed, and have more lethal weapons.” In Iraq, he worried whenever he left the base. “Iraq is filled with transient people,” he says. “Most insurgents do not live in the areas they are setting bombs off in. They drive in from outside Baghdad at night and plant the bombs. They then sit in a car, unnoticed, and set off the bombs as convoys pass. They could leave the city unnoticed through the well-developed road system.”

Because Konduz lacked electrical power, U.S. troops stationed there kept watch for Taliban forces that might attack the military base’s unlit checkpoint, but Afghanistan’s primitivism actually improved security. “There would be one road in, and one road out. If someone drove into their city, they would hit a checkpoint, and be arrested,” Pascall explained. “The people were tired of war and conflict, and would inform us of any outsiders they believed would be a threat to their newly acquired peace.”

Serving as “the commander’s eyes and ears” in Afghanistan and a year later in Iraq, Pascall was responsible for finding out the local population’s needs and problems. This wasn’t always easy because Iraqis maintained a “cool relationship” with American forces, he says, possibly due to daily threats by insurgents.

Although Afghans were “more friendly and receptive,” only the children of both countries were consistently approachable. “They were the same in both places,” Pascall says. “They love us, and are always willing to come up to us and talk.”

For James “Scott” Taylor, getting to know children in Afghanistan was the highlight of his time there, and ultimately set him on a new career path. Taylor is a current Maxwell student, pursuing a joint M.P.A./M.A. (I.R.), who recently completed his second posting to Afghanistan. Upon completion of his degree, Taylor plans to teach American politics at the U.S. Military Academy. What he experienced in Afghanistan, he says, “was the same story that goes back as long as U.S. soldiers have gone off to war: We unofficially adopted children.”

During his second deployment to Bagram Air Base, Taylor manned the main gate each day; he also supervised triage and first aid operations for the victims of land mine explosions, gunshots, burns, stabbings, and frequent car accidents. He then went “home” every night to a “bombed-out Soviet barracks” with windows and furniture made of scavenged wood and plastic sheeting.

“On an average day the soldiers searched over 1,800 personnel and 200 cargo trucks. There was no room for error. If one improvised explosive device slipped past my soldiers, we weren’t doing our job,” he recalls. “I spent my entire day at the gate, observing the actions of my soldiers and the 11 locals who worked for my unit as interpreters, and making myself available in case there were incidents. We interacted with close to 2,000 people on a given day.”

Although Taylor’s job was routine, it was also stressful because hundreds of people approached the gate daily. Among them were 10 children who “came faithfully each day” to sell cookies and candy bought at the bazaar for resale to the Pakistani truck drivers waiting -- sometimes for days -- to be admitted onto the base. “For some of these children,” says Taylor, “it was the only source of income their family had.”

Taylor’s soldiers taught the children American culture and language, and gave them food and clothing sent from home; in return, the children taught the soldiers their language and customs. The soldiers also made sure the children attended school. “If anyone was found not to have attended school they weren’t allowed to hang around the soldiers,” he says. “It got to the point that everyone attended school, and if one didn’t, the others in the group would turn that person in.”

The soldiers’ and children’s friendship benefited both. “The soldiers would give the kids money to do simple tasks just to make them feel that they had earned a dollar and that they hadn’t had to beg for it,” Taylor says. “For us, it was a wonderful reminder of home and made us feel that we were helping these children in some small way. We learned from the children to value what we have because the poverty and lifestyle these children are exposed to is infinitely worse than anything in the States.”

Taylor believes his service in Afghanistan contributed in a direct way to the country’s future. “After almost 30 years of conflict the citizens have nothing but hope,” he says.

“Most of them live in abject poverty with the only chance for a better life coming through their own hard work. The children are the future of Afghanistan. Children attending school was a tangible result of our efforts.”

Like Taylor, the others who are in Afghanistan (or who were recently there) believe they are making a difference. “I love to see the ideas of the newly freed people come to fruition, and then see the look on their faces when they realize what they have done,” says Pascall.

“I have the expertise needed to build peace in the world,” Alexander says, “and experience in areas needed by my government in our war on terrorism.” But ultimately she, like Afghanistan itself, is being transformed. “I’m tougher than I realized,” Alexander says. “One of the most important lessons is that we actually need so little to be happy: a clean cot, your own toilet and shower, a fresh avocado, and occasional letters from home.”

Susan Piperato is a 1981 graduate of SU’s Newhouse School of Public Communications (magazine journalism) and College of Arts and Sciences (English). She is associate editor of Chronogram, an arts and culture magazine serving the Hudson River region.