We are All the Other: A Conversation with Denise Zabalaga

With a superb gift for languages, Zabalaga taught herself Farsi and traveled as a single woman in Afghanistan, Syria, Damascus, Iran and Tajikistan. She got into many tight situations, but with her faith that meeting a stranger is, "first of all, an opportunity rather than a danger," and with her uncanny openness and ability to connect with others, she always found her way out of difficulties. What was most important she said was, "the incredible generosity I experienced. Not only on a material level, but on a human level." Over and over she experienced, as she puts it, "being accepted and included as a full human being." Read more in this interview.

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