This is my story, the story of a German who has up to now lived for more than forty years in Pakistan, and has been very happy in her work, and with her patients, friends and co-workers and who loves the laughter and the sadness and the courage of the people, the beauty and the threatening grandeur of the country, and has suffered a lot witnessing the injustice and the violence and disregard for the dignity of the weak and the poor, and tried and struggled to add her small contribution to the fight against the evil and to strengthen the many many good and brave initiatives. But of course I have seen it with the eyes of a Westerner. And as this book is a kind of an account of my life, there will be many passages strange to my Muslim friends. However, this may not necessarily be a negative point because this mutual inter-cultural enrichment, which characterizes the Leprosy Programme of Pakistan, has only been possible because we have shared, listened to and clarified our ways of thinking, making this cross fertilization possible. — Ruth Pfau