Flora MacDonald, the well-known Conservative cabinet minister from the Mulroney era, turned 81 earlier this year but looks at least 15 years younger. While others her age, and younger, slow down, Ms. MacDonald keeps moving. She's just returned to Canada from her eighth trip to Afghanistan in the past seven years.
Flora, as everyone calls her, goes where few Westerners go.
Arriving in Kabul, she is met by the Afghan leader of the group she supports, Future Generations. They drive 12 hours west over "roads that you might not call a road" to the Shahidan valley in Bamyan province. There, she sleeps in villagers' huts and continues to work on small projects, financed by Future Generations and Care Canada, that make life better for humble people - solar and wind power to provide villages' first electricity, schools to educate youngsters for the first time, access to clean water.
Canadians hear much about Kandahar province, where Canadian soldiers are fighting (and dying) and where $40-million of Canada's $140-million in Afghan aid is spent. But we hear nothing about provinces such as Bamyan, where the Taliban blew up the historic statues of Buddha carved into the mountainside.
The people in Bamyan are largely Hazaras, whom the Pashtun majority often deride. In addition, the Hazaras are Shia Muslims in a majority Sunni Muslim country. There is a Hazara diaspora in Pakistan, Australia, the United States and Canada.
The writ of Afghanistan's national government in Kabul barely runs in the Shahidan valley, Ms. MacDonald says. Hamid Karzai might be the elected president of Afghanistan, but, in the valley, he "is known as the mayor of Kabul because his influence doesn't extend much beyond Kabul."
Little aid reaches this corner of Afghanistan. Ms. MacDonald believes most of the international assistance is going to four large cities. "Unless the rest of the country sees some money, their hostility and alienation will increase," she says. "People get discouraged when they hear about all these things that are happening in Kabul and Kandahar."
She adds, "There still isn't stability in the countryside. People are still feeling alienated, and if the Taliban moved strongly into other parts of Afghanistan, those places might fall. People don't want the Taliban back, but if they are going to help them climb out of abject poverty, then they might have them back."
Ms. MacDonald made her first attempt to enter Afghanistan in 2001 but was rebuffed for lack of proper documentation. She made it into the country later that year and saw a frightened society under the Taliban. "You didn't see people on the streets, and certainly not women."
Today, Kabul is bustling. But, in the villages of the Shahidan valley, progress is slower. Ms. MacDonald recounts that 72 of 75 villages have elected local councils. The valley's central council is headed by a woman. It even decided to outlaw guns and poppy cultivation - anyone who tries to grow poppies (Afghanistan's largest crop) has the plants pulled up and receives a fine.
"I see tremendous things happening in the places I visit, tremendous creativity," she reports. Nonetheless, the country remains "on the brink. It could go either way, but I have great faith in the Afghan people. If they are given some encouragement, they will see things through."
As for Canada's mission in the southern province of Kandahar, Ms. MacDonald, a former foreign minister, says the Taliban danger there "has to be contained." She's doubtful, however, that aid can be effective in a "war zone," and wishes that more attention was paid to other parts of Afghanistan so that Taliban influence does not spread.
Back in Canada for a while - she'll be on the slopes of Mount Everest in the fall - Ms. MacDonald will be raising money for Future Generations and speaking about Afghanistan.
She'll also be continuing to work on her memoirs with author Geoffrey Stevens. She's had a life in politics that stretched over many decades from the backrooms of the Conservative Party to the cabinet table.
As her Afghan trips and foreign assistance work attest, Flora's still going strong.