Walking the precipice

the long version

"In 1990, sixty-five year old Barbara Bick joined a peace delegation for what she thought would be her last great adventure, a trip to Afghanistan. Instead, Bick forged an intense commitment to the country, particularly after the Taliban came to power with its fiercely anti-woman policies. She returned in 2001, when most people her age wouldn't dream of trekking through the desolation northern regions of Afghanistan. And there, on September 9, she was a guest at the compound where Al Qaeda operatives assassinated the Taliban's main opponent just before their attack on the US. Bick returned to Afghanistan one last time, in 2003, for a women's constitutional convention, the culmination of the hopes and hard work of thousands of Afghan women"--Jacket.