Preparing for an Exchange

As Constitution High School students eagerly await the visit of their Afghan counterparts—delayed several times now due to visa complications—they’ve begun preparing by learning Dari phrases. Many have commented on how similar "Salaam," a way of saying hello borrowed from Arabic, sounds to "shalom." Meanwhile, others, invoking a kind logic unique to High School Students, maintain that "Dari would be easier if it were Spanish."

While everyone is anxious to finally meet the people they have been collaborating with virtually since July, the delays have given everyone the opportunity to prepare and come up with more projects to do with their Afghan "brothers and sisters," as they’ve taken to calling eachother on the Shutterfly site. It’s also given us more opportunities for photo comparisons. As Philadelphia slogged through it’s fourth major snowstorm of the Winter today, an avalanche in Afghanistan earlier this month took hundreds of lives and trapped thousands more, and effectively cut Kabul off from the entire North of the country except by air travel. Though the official photography portion of the project has been closed, the students have decided these were important incidents to capture.

NCC Partner on Cover of New York Times

On Monday, the New York Times ran the this piece on the front page. The article exlpains the resurgence of the Hazara minority in Afghanistan through education and self-empowerment, drawing comparisons to the Kurds in Iraq. Marefat High School, the NCC's partner on the outskirts of Kabul, features prominantly in the piece, which includes a slideshow of photographs taken at the school. The article and its prominant placement in one of the world's most highly-egarded newspapers, is testamony to one of Being We, the People's primary purposes--exploring the role of minorities in different democracies.