Precerpt from In with the East Wind: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life (Leaver) - Afghanistan, Part 1
Precerpt (excerpt prior to publication from the forthcoming memoir, In with the East: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver
Acton and Afghanistan are not far
apart alphabetically, but in space—and in my life—they are about as distant as
two places can be.
I was already sixty years old when
I first landed in Afghanistan. Most people assigned there were much younger.
But I wasn’t going as a soldier or diplomat. I was going to Camp Julien, just
outside Kabul, to better support the Af/Pak Hands program—a U.S. military
initiative designed to train select service members in Afghan and Pakistani
language, culture, and regional expertise for long-term assignments. I had been
leading the language and culture training for the Hands stateside. Now, I
needed to see the learning environment on the ground. I needed to understand
what support they still needed once deployed. And I needed to understand it
firsthand. So, off I went, accompanied by a National Guard major who served as
my assistant.
Pashto
But before departing, I knew I
couldn’t go in ignorant of the language. Afghanistan has two main languages:
Dari and Pashto. With only a couple of weeks' notice, I had to choose one. I
chose Pashto—the language more commonly spoken by the everyday people of the
country—though that turned out to be the less-expected choice once I arrived.
Still, I’m a linguist. At that point, I had learned 18 languages. Pashto became
number 19. Language learning wasn’t just something I supervised; it was
something I did—and did well.
I had time to study 2-3 hours a day
and asked one of the Pashto instructors—someone without formal teacher
training—to help me. (I often prefer teachers without pedagogy degrees; they’re
more open to teaching me the way I prefer to learn, not the way they’ve been
trained to teach.) On the first day, we covered greetings—always essential—and
how to talk about my schedule, which gave me a solid grasp of the present
tense. The rest of that week I focused on how to share a simple biography:
where I lived, that I had children, what kind of work I did, i.e. the kind of
informal, personal talk that inevitably surfaces during off-hours, no matter
how formal the meetings.
Then, I moved into expressing my
purpose for being in-country and what I’d be doing when—welcome to the future
tense! Luckily, that’s fairly simple in Pashto.
At the beginning of the second
week—my last—my instructor was called away on a mission. As luck would have it,
I ran into one of our most experienced Pashto teachers, a woman with a PhD in
the field. I greeted her in Pashto, which surprised her—and pleased her—since I
was technically her supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor. When I explained that
I’d lost my instructor, she offered to take over.
She asked what I still wanted to
learn. I told her I was comfortable with present and future, but now I needed
the past tense to round out my story. She looked at me wide-eyed.
“Past tense is for second
semester,” she said.
“For students, sure,” I replied,
“but for me, it’s for second week.”
She hesitated. “It’s very
complicated.”
“For students, maybe,” I said.
“Just tell me how it’s formed. I’ll decide if it’s complicated for me.”
It wasn’t. Within a half hour, I
had what I needed and could comfortably talk about the past.
So yes—after that—I packed my bags,
including my pot helmet (which, true to form, still came down to my nose just
like it had when I was younger and wore an Army uniform) and my heavy
lead-lined protective vest, along with my freshly acquired Pashto skills. And
then, off I went.
Kabul via Terminal D
Our travel, of course, was not
without incident. Our flight to Reagan National was delayed, and the two of us—the
major and I—ended up sprinting the full length of Terminal D, flat out, racing
to catch our international connection We ran full tilt, dodging travelers and
wheeled suitcases, breathless by the time we reached the gate just as the doors
were about to close. United Airlines had already assumed we’d miss the flight
and rescheduled us, but there we were, defying expectations. We made it onto
the plane. Our luggage, however, did not.
We arrived in Dubai, our transfer
point, without bags. So, we waited.
A Night and a Day in Dubai
We couldn’t proceed to Kabul
without our bags—not just because they held our clothes, but because they
carried our protective gear. No helmet, no vest, no entry. And we certainly
couldn’t let U.S. Army gear travel alone. So, like it or not, we were stuck in
Dubai.
That meant I got to discover
another new place, even if just for one night and one day. The major was Middle
Eastern by heritage, and I had recently spent three years living in Jordan, so
in some ways, Dubai felt oddly familiar. The language was known. Some of the
culture was known. It was an unexpected stopover, but not an unwelcome one.
We spent the evening in a hookah
lounge, unwinding, washed over by the smell of apple and peach smoke curling in
the air and then uncurling in our lungs as we inhaled gently and slowly from the pipe, doing our
lungs no favor, I am sure. The ritual was calming, meditative. The lounge hummed
with occasional quiet conversation and music that charmed in the very special
way of Arabic melodies. For a moment, war and logistics slipped into the
background.
With time on our hands the next
morning, we played tourist. We rode the famous rapid elevator to the top of one
of Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, with a shimmering glass façade
that soars to a height of 828 meters (2,717 feet). From inside the elevator, we
soared up past those 124 in just one minute! The observation deck offered sweeping
views of the desert and sea; we spent some time in spellbound wonder and then,
back on the elevator, we experienced a dead drop from the clouds to the ground
floor in seconds. I half-wondered if my stomach would catch up with the rest of
me by the time the doors opened.
Of course, nothing in Dubai is
cheap. As the Russians say, ne po karmanu—not within my wallet’s reach.
But what the heck. We had per diem. What we didn’t realize, however, was that
our allowance was based on our destination—Kabul, not Dubai. Kabul has one of
the lowest per diem rates in the world. Dubai? One of the highest. We took
quite a financial licking on that little layover. In this case, ignorance was
definitely not bliss.
Still, I’m glad we got that
interlude. The contrast between Dubai and Afghanistan would soon be stark.
Having this glittering, modern pause before entering a war zone turned out to
be a gift—if not one we had asked for.
Eventually, the call came. Our bags
had arrived. We headed to the airport to retrieve them and continue our
journey.
But there was one more bump. Since
we were now physically separated from our luggage, Customs had seized the
opportunity to inspect it. That meant two civilian-looking people were now
faced with the awkward task of explaining why we were bringing combat gear into
Dubai.
Fortunately, the major handled the
situation masterfully. Arabic was his native language, and his quiet command of
the situation carried us through. As for me, I sat there and tried to look
pleasant. Sometimes, “pleasant” helps. Certainly, being quiet does—especially
in delicate situations, and at any age.
Not long after, we were finally
sitting on a plane to Afghanistan. I was so relieved I didn’t much care that we
were flying on a regional airline that likely had no equivalent of FAA
oversight. At that point, anything with wings would do.
Getting to Camp Julien
We landed at Kabul Airport without
further incident. Passport control was surprisingly smooth, and our combat gear
raised no eyebrows—this was, after all, where most U.S. military personnel
arrived. A young Pashtun man working at the airport met us outside baggage
claim to help with our luggage and guide us to the car waiting for us beyond
the gate.
As he lifted our bags into the
vehicle, he made polite conversation—likely some kind of small talk, a standard
exchange of greetings. And I didn’t understand a single word of it.
Panic flickered in my brain. What
had happened during those two weeks of study? Had nothing taken root? Was I
truly unable to pass the time of day or respond with a basic greeting? Then,
the young man paused, looked at me with curiosity, wiggled his hand at waist
level, and asked, “Bachai?”
Ah-hah! Deduction to the rescue.
I’m a woman. He’s being polite. This is a culture that places great importance
on family. He’s asking about my children. Bachai must mean “children.”
But the word wasn’t Pashto. It had to be Dari.
That’s when I realized what I was
about to hear repeatedly: I had studied the “wrong” language.
Dari was the official language of
government and the one most often used in formal contexts or with foreigners.
Even Pashtuns switched to Dari when speaking with outsiders. But that wasn’t
going to work for me.
“Awloodena?” I asked him, using the
Pashto word for “children.”
His face lit up. “Ho, ho!”
he affirmed in Pashto, beaming. His delight was unmistakable. An American—no
less a woman—who had learned his language, not the government language.
That reaction, as it turned out, would repeat during my time in Afghanistan. My
choice had, in fact, been the right one.
Our bags secured, we began the
tense, hour-long drive to Camp Julien. A military vehicle led our convoy, and
another followed behind—both locked and loaded. In our own vehicle, the major
and I sat in the back. Up front, a sergeant rode shotgun—literally—with a rifle
across his lap. He explained the rules: what to do if we were attacked, which
code word to use if he was killed, what to do if communication signals were
jammed. Then he fell silent, scanning the terrain nonstop. His eyes moved
constantly—window to mirror, left to right, front to back. He never spoke
again.
Our driver’s hands were locked on
the wheel, white-knuckled. He didn’t adjust, didn’t flex, didn’t shift. He
simply drove. The major and I sat silently, each of us watching, thinking,
alert to everything yet saying nothing.
When we finally arrived at Camp
Julien, the atmosphere shifted completely. Some of the Pashtun instructors I
had worked with back in the States came rushing out to greet us. They helped
with the bags, made sure we were settled, and—most of all—were thrilled to
discover that I had picked up some Pashto since they'd last seen me.
They were so pleased, in fact, that
they didn’t even want to speak English with me. Of course, they had to—two
weeks of part-time language study only gets you so far—but their enthusiasm
meant everything. Every minute I had spent learning the language was already
paying off. And it would continue to pay off, in ways I couldn’t yet imagine.
Book Description:
From the barefoot freedom of rural Maine to the diplomatic halls of Central Asia, from rescuing a dying child in Siberia to training astronauts in Houston and Star City, In with the East Wind traces an extraordinary life lived in service, not strategy.
Unlike those who chase opportunity, the author responded to it—boarding planes, crossing borders, and stepping into urgent roles she never sought but never declined. Over 75 years and 26 countries, she worked as a teacher, soldier, linguist, professor, diplomat, and cultural ambassador. Whether guiding Turkmen diplomats, mentoring Russian scholars, or founding academic programs in unlikely places, her journey unfolded through a steady stream of voices asking: Can you come help us?
Told through an alphabetical journey across places that shaped her—from Acton, Maine to Uzbekistan—this memoir is rich with insight, adventure, and deep humanity. At its heart lies the quiet power of answering the call to serve, wherever it may lead.
Like Mary Poppins, she drifted in with the East Wind—bringing what was needed, staying just long enough, and leaving behind transformation. Then she returned home, until the next wind called.
From the forthcoming book:
In with the East Wind...A Mary Poppins Kind of Life
Volume 1: ABC Lands
by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver
For most posts about this book, click HERE.
for more posts by and about Betty Lou Leaver, click HERE.
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