Pietro,

An interesting mission. What can you teach ten Afgan students about
planning?

Planning would seem to be a process of gathering and organizing information
to allow people to make informed decisions on the physical and social
environment. It may be beneficial to teach skills related to gathering
information, and skills related to organizing information.

Gathering information could include "Google-training", community input, and
the traditional gleaning of printed sources such as books, maps, databases,
etc.

Organizing information could include technical skills such a charting,
mapping, report writing, data analysis (you could practice on the US 2000
census information). You could teach methods of understanding and using this
information for planning decisions (the number of people in a neighborhood
times daily per capita water consumption, blah, blah, blah equals size of
the reservoir.)

It would appear presumptuous to teach Afgans about their society, power
structures, cultural influences, laws, traditions, etc. If you are lucky,
you will be in a position to observe change occurring there, and if you are
even luckier, to assist in some small way.

Keep in touch as time goes by, and best of luck.
Steve