Lance Dickie / Seattle Times editorial columnist
A nation's gritty resolve, a Seattleite's new calling

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Avert your eyes from the mess in Iraq, and draw encouragement from a small story in Afghanistan.

Remember the place that was once a safe haven for al-Qaida? Thirty months ago, coalition forces liberated the nation from the Taliban and scattered terrorist camps.

The country quickly became an afterthought for a Bush administration obsessed with Saddam Hussein. White House attention focused on Baghdad, and Kabul disappeared from the president's vocabulary along with the name of elusive Osama bin Laden.

Afghanistan surfaces but not because of any sustained interest in its welfare:

• Reports of prisoner abuse and a death in U.S. custody there are under investigation along with the Iraqi incidents.

• U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan are upset with neighboring Pakistan for granting amnesty to al-Qaida-linked militants who cross the border.

• Special Forces are scouring the Pesch Valley in northeastern Afghanistan for bin Laden. He might be hiding in the Hindu Kush mountains 20 miles from Pakistan.

These events rise above the raw feed of Iraqi news, then sink from sight.

Know that change is under way, coming incrementally and close to the ground with the help of people like Suzanne Griffin, dean of instruction at South Seattle Community College.

In December 2002, I wrote about her work for the International Rescue Committee. On a sabbatical leave, she was doing educational assessments around Afghanistan and helping train mid-level government managers.

Readers contributed money to ship a container of 10,000 textbooks collected by Woodinville High School students and the Northshore Rotary and Emerald City Rotary. The books filled empty shelves at Kabul University, high schools in Kabul and the Kabul Medical Institute.

Last spring, Griffin began working with International Medical Corps, at first as a volunteer on a distant-learning project to link medical schools there with medical schools in the United States.

By the end of the summer, she was asked to help coordinate a broader training project funded by U.S. taxpayers and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She was granted a year leave of absence from SSCC and rented her home on Queen Anne.

Now, the veteran administrator is coordinating training programs at Rabia Balkhi Hospital and development of IMC programs countrywide. Griffin is pursuing grants to train doctors, nurses and midwives and helping establish medical clinics and rural work programs.

She let me catch up with her and chat about Afghanistan in a series of e-mails.

Kabul is a city of 2 million swollen to 3 million with new arrivals from the countryside and beyond. Afghans are returning to home and families.

As a consequence, the water supply is strained, especially in newer suburbs where wells have to be dug. Electrical power is intermittent, and backed up by private generators.

Griffin describes an improving security situation that still requires a combination of cultural awareness and street smarts. Foreigners limit their movements during civic and religious events, but other days they go shopping, to restaurants, on picnics and visit back and forth with Afghan friends and colleagues with ease.

Women are free of the complete face-and-body covering of the chadri, but wear head scarves and long garments over pants. She carries a chadri for travel in conservative areas of the countryside. She speaks Dari, one of two principal languages, increasing her mobility.

Kabul has blossomed with businesses, including 40 Internet cafes, and the air is filled with music blasting from cars, shops and bazaar stands. The change in women's dress and the music punctuate the departure of the Taliban.

Food is plentiful, but so is the opium harvest. Lush poppy fields grow openly around Jalalabad and other areas.

Afghan and NATO troops and tanks move through the city and guard government buildings, a now invisible backdrop to busy city life. U.S. soldiers are rebuilding Rabia Balkhi Hospital.

Girls are returning to classrooms in greater numbers each year. Griffin reports girls' schools are being built all over the country, despite significant resistance in conservative eastern and southern provinces. Extra financial help is needed for girls' primary schools.

Afghanistan's path toward reconstruction and independence is powered in part by the likes of this Seattle educator.

She is amazed by the spirit of the people to succeed. She sees it up close. Her work takes her to villages a seven-hour, one-way trip by Land Cruiser and horseback.

"The (September) election is about self-determination and peace. What is at stake is the stability of Afghanistan, which it must have for development to continue."

Sharing a nation's resolve, Griffin has work to finish.

She is staying in Afghanistan, and will resign as dean of instruction at SSCC at the end of June.

Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com