Suraya Sadeed = someone I would like to buy chai some day

Wow - Just finished reading Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse.

from her website

about Suraya:

Few people reach the stage in their lives that Suraya did in 1993 – one wherein a secure lifestyle in the USA is abandoned in preference for a knife-edge existence running bundles of cash dollars, aid and, most crucially of all, hope, into some of the most remote and war-ravaged villages on earth – in Afghanistan. Suraya Sadeed reached that point in her life by accident; she was propelled to take on her life mission by circumstances beyond her control. Yet at the same time her education, business acumen, rebellious nature, and her innate generosity of spirit meant that she was uniquely qualified to take on the punishing, yet extraordinary fulfilling humanitarian work. In her words: “I had never received the kind of welcome as I did in the craggy mountains and wind-blasted plains of Afghanistan, from people who had so little to share with me. It took my very breath away, and humbled me beyond words.”
Suraya was born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan and immigrated to the United States after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. In the US she became a successful business woman. During the height of the Afghan Civil War (1993), Suraya returned to Afghanistan and was shocked by the horrific conditions of children and the destruction of her homeland. That same year, she established a non-profit organization; Help the Afghan Children, Inc. Since then, Suraya's courageous efforts in providing humanitarian aid, medical care, education, and hope against seemingly insurmountable odds in some of the most inhospitable conditions imaginable, have directly benefited an estimated 1.7 million Afghan children and their families.