(photo: Danfung Dennis for The New York Times)

Yo GBD!  Remember the Mirwais School for Girls?  The reporter, Dexter Filkins, got back to me about the feasibility of sending letters or some show of support other than money.  This is what he said:

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Thanks very much, Kathy. That is really nice of you. Please understand that everything is 2,000 times harder here than in the U.S. Kandahar is very, very dangerous. I’m not exaggerating. It’s great that your girls want to write them letters, and while I might be able to collect them, translate them, and bring them out to the girls, that would very likely take me several months. 

All best,
Dexter

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So several months!  We can wait several months for our stuff to be delivered, right?  Who’s with me?

If enough of y’all are with me, I’ll collect submissions and assemble them into one convenient thing so that it’s easier for Mr. Filkins to take with him.  Maybe I’ll make a big card?  I was also thinking that whatever we give him, I’ll save it on of those small USB drives that can hang on your keychain.  Or a CD.  Something that’s easy to transport.

The other idea I had was that we could make a single message of support together and sign our names…just like a card.  If you guys can send me images of your signatures somehow, then I can easily piece them all together to make it look like a signed card.

I’m trying to make it so that it’s not too complicated for you to participate, while at the same time making it as easy as possible for Mr. Filkins.  I don’t want him to have to translate too much material.

I’m also trying to figure out an easy way to collect online donations from everyone instead of people separately mailing checks to The New York Times (from the previous update).  I think it would be nice to collect what we can and send a single check on behalf of GBD, to show our solidarity, both among us and with the girls in Afghanistan.  What do you think?

If anyone else has any ideas, please let me know.  If we really want this to happen, we can make it happen.  :)