My room at the Afghan refuge camp in Peshawar

It was 1989 and I met two Afghan men on the street who were both back from fighting the Russians. One of them had been trained as a doctor in East Germany and he thought I was German. But he also spoke some English. I was invited to their home in one of the refugee camps. An older leader had some sort of stomach cancer, and they wanted my help in trying to get him a visa to the US.

I took all my stuff and lived for a while in one of the camps. I was able to help the old man get his visa at our embassy in Peshawar.