I've always had this state of awe for the people I've been fortunate to go to school with and call my friends. One friend of mine wound up working in Afghanistan over the last few years. I remember going on retreats up to the San Bernadino mountains and shooting the breeze with PL and though wanderlust was in her veins the Afghanistan work was a big leap given the current state of affairs there.
PL took time to write a letter and I found it too moving to keep to myself. I asked her about posting it and with sufficient editing you will find it below.
The Last Letter
April 2004
I have written this letter so many times in my head. I’ve started it in so many different ways and told you about so many different things. And I still don’t know how to write it. There are so many things I want you to know about Afghanistan that I don’t know where to start and I don’t know how to distill it down into something you can read and go away and remember. What I really want to write about is the life of women in Afghanistan so I’ll start here…
F tells me, “My husband is kind; gracious.” The word she uses is the same word Afghans use to describe the graciousness of God. I meet her husband. He is kind; he is gracious. They are wealthy for Afghans, like rural landowners with lots of land and rich educated relatives. Her daughter is in tenth grade and wears jeans and a sweater, no scarf on her head. She is studying English and computers in school.
F shows me a picture of her great-grandfather. He is standing stiff like a British soldier, with a British musket, but dressed Afghan style. She tells me he was once the commander of a region stretching from the Pamir Mountains (in Tajikistan) to Pul-i-Khumri. It is an extremely large geographic area.
She shows me more pictures; pictures of her and her sisters and her girlfriends (khwar-khanda, literally “laughing sister”) in Kabul, in the good days, in the free days. They were university students and wore jeans, sleeveless tops, even mini-skirts. It is unheard of today and I pore over these pictures of what Kabul used to be.
Now she and her family live in Baharak of Badakhshan. Their house is clean and structurally sound; better than most Afghan homes. But they use a smelly outhouse, a wood-heated tank of water for bathing, a diesel stove on the floor of a hallway for a kitchen. F wears a burka when she leaves the house. Her family is not as rich as it was and now she works for an NGO, as does her husband. Things have changed since she was in university.
But they are kind to me. They feed me dinner and let me stay at their house because there’s no space in our office. They walk me through their huge fruit orchard and show me the chickens they raise for eggs and the view of the river valley. When I sit down they wrap blankets around me to keep me warm. Her daughter gives me her bed and sleeps in the bed of her cousin who sleeps I-don’t-know-where. Before bed, the girls take me to the outhouse with a flashlight to show me the way; in the morning the escort me to the washroom with a towel and a bar of soap then watch as I brush my teeth and wash my face. As I am leaving through the orchard, I see the old head of an opium poppy, from last year. Life has become hard in Afghanistan.
Not all husbands in Afghanistan are kind or gracious. I read books about the strictness of Afghan husbands and fathers. I see some of it, although mostly it is hidden from me. I’ve seen Afghan women and girls laughing and having a relaxed moment where their scarves fall down around their necks. Suddenly their father or husband or older brother walks in and they sit up, fix their scarves, get serious. I’ve seen an Afghan man that I would describe as kind and gracious warn his wife and sisters back from saying goodbye to me in the courtyard because the door to the street is open and someone may see their faces, although their hair is covered. I’ve never seen a woman without a burka in town even though it’s now common in Kabul.
This is one of the things I will not miss. I can understand and even respect a culture that requires its women to dress decently, even to cover their heads when going in public. I may not want such a culture for myself but I can sympathize with it. But I cannot condone a culture that hides its women completely, forcing them to be faceless ghosts, known only by their shoes. It hurts me every time I go home in the evenings at the same time as W, our radio operator. I am dropped off first, and then she is dropped at home. She is so fun and vibrant in the office. But as soon as she gets into the car, she pulls her blue burka down over her face and she is now someone or something else. I find it hard to even talk to her so we ride home in silence. Once I asked her how her father feels about her working in an office with men. She told me he is “roshan fikir” – literally, an enlightened thinker.
I go to a Women’s Day celebration at the municipality. W is to give a speech about women on behalf of MEI. The speech is written by Naveed, our in-house poet and authority on society. We arrive early and the hall is full of women’s and girls’ bare faces. It’s strange to see so many faces; even the school girls wear burkas. We sit down near the front so we can see. Someone comes and asks us to move – these seats are reserved for men.
All the local officials make a token appearance. General Daud (military might for the region) gives a brief and seemingly tired speech about the development of women. The new governor drones on and on about how people may think that he is against women but they should remember that when he was sub-governor of one of the districts he built a girls’ school. The whole thing is being filmed by local television. Throughout the speeches the girls and women whisper and chatter and giggle. Clearly they’re not interested in the new governor’s political record.
Finally W makes her speech and we go back to the office for lunch. Naveed (whose daughter also made a speech) comments to me that women around the world are just uncontrollable and this is why they talk so much at such an important function. He is a democratic thinker, but this time I do not reply. I cannot agree because I think these women chatter at an event in their honor because they do not respect themselves. And they do not respect themselves because they are not respected.
But the secret lives of Afghan women are so charming and full of life. Most men who come to Afghanistan from other countries never see this world. They complain that the parties they go to are boring and the men sit around and don’t say anything.
I only go to parties if I can be with women. They laugh, they dance, they sing sometimes, they tell jokes, they whisper secrets in each others ears. I can carry on a basic conversation but unfortunately cannot understand everything. As the Afghans say about my language ability, “mishkil hal misha.” Literally, my problem can be solved.
So for the first time I throw my own party for women. It is unheard of and I don’t know if it will work. But one weekend I am going to be on my own for a full day on Saturday. No other ex-pats, and more importantly, no men at the guesthouse. I invite the women from my office. I know they will not be able to come if I have a party for the local staff at the office. So I give a party just for them.
All Saturday morning I bake. I make all the classic recipes… Aunt Mary Ellen’s chocolate cake, Aunt SuZann’s brownies and chocolate icing for the cake, Betty Crocker banana bread and peanut butter cookies and Kenyan mandaazis. At 2:00 I send the vehicle to go pick them. I put on a new, very Afghan outfit that W made for me. They come full of excitement.
W wears her sister’s new yellow outfit. She is a polite Afghan – she takes as many of every kind of cookie as she can possibly fit on her plate, even though she doesn’t eat even half. M brings me silk flowers as a gift. She is new and a little bit shy so she only takes a couple cookies and nibbles them. Bilqise comes with her sweet daughter who is too shy to ask me where the toilet is. Mh doesn’t say much but seems to enjoy the brownies. RG wants the recipe for the goodies and is certain that baking powder is available in the bazaar.
Overall, they don’t eat much. I think most of it is too rich for them. But afterwards there is so much left over I give them each a little Ziploc bag of cookies and still have some left for the boys when they turn up. Later W’s mother tells me how good the banana bread was – am I going to give her the recipe?
The whole time they hardly stop chattering. Their conversations are the normal conversations I hear among women: how terrible it was when the Taliban were here, who’s studying what English course, how the NGO’s are helping the people (a polite thing to say in front of ex-pats).
Before they leave, I bring out my computer and show them pictures of my family. They love the pictures. They quickly recognize every face as it comes up on the screen. I, on the other hand, do not get any better at remembering the complicated words for various relatives. They think my “yanga” (sister-in-law) is so beautiful and exclaim every time they saw her. They love the story of how I am named after two “kholas” (maternal aunts), Patty and Leigh, and spot them every time. Although I don’t believe they name children after others and I think they find it strange that westerners do.
At the end I take pictures of them and (miracle of miracles) pictures of them with me (self-timer). I give them each a bag of some of my old things which I can’t take with me. They are curious about the house and peek into rooms, asking me which room belongs to whom. But I have never been given a tour of an Afghan home so I don’t give them much of a tour. Afterwards, when I see them around the office they greet me with a secret smile as if to say, “I know things about you these men do not.”
I wish better things for these women. I wish them educational opportunities; I wish them freedom to show their faces in town; to work comfortably in an office without staying in a separate room. I wish their lives were not ruled by legalism and by decisions they did not make. I wish a gracious, kind and educated husband for W. I wish them peace and an understanding of what love really is.
But I know they are, for the most part, happy in their own way. They know how to make the best of what they are given. And they are strong. They will always be strong. May God give them grace and shine his face upon them.
Later I go to W’s house for lunch. My calendar has filled up with meal invitations as I prepare to leave for the last time. I am mostly tired of Afghan food, but some of it is delicious. I love the yogurt and I love the spinach and I usually love the steamed dumplings. Mostly I love meeting Afghan women and seeing a small picture of their lives.
Lunch at W’s is the first time I have not been offered rice at an Afghan home. W eats lunch with me every day at the office and she knows I’m tired of the rice. Her mother and aunts have cooked all morning to make a delicious meal for me. W is so proud to introduce me to them. Her mother complains that life is hard and her skin is older than her years. She and her sister (W’s aunt) show me pictures of their husbands, each insisting that her husband is more handsome than her sister’s. They jokingly ask me to judge which is handsomer. I’m not prepared to make that kind of judgment.
W’s sister, Mj, is engaged to be married. The engagement party took place only a few weeks ago. Mj shows me all her engagement gifts: fancy outfits, expensive shiny fabric for clothes, shoes, scarves, socks, underwear, towels, jewelry. These gifts are given by her fiancé although her mother and aunt went to the bazaar to do the shopping. The fiancé only gives the money for the gifts. (I wonder: does he expect receipts for his purchases like NGO offices do? I think not, which makes the strict, often angry receipt system we have seem strange and foreign.) W whispers to me that Mj’s fiancé is a good man with lots of money and young too. “But he is shorter than Mj!” she giggles.
After lunch we look at pictures, we drink tea, we talk. W’s aunt is summoned by her husband and she hurries off to go home, even though I think she would’ve liked to stay. I finally leave, full of the feeling of the secret life of these particular women.
There are many things I will miss about Afghanistan. Spring is exploding around Afghanistan. It is my favorite season. The weather is warmer; there are baby birds nesting in our porch roof that have gotten fat overnight; this morning the first gul-i-lola appeared in our yard, a red tulip-like flower; the trees have found their lost leaves; sunsets are pink and generally I believe that all things are possible even when stressed with work and other tensions.
I will miss the joy of learning a new word in Dari. That sudden rush of comprehension when a word you have heard time and again suddenly take shape and color in your head.
I will miss teaching random funny western traditions to my staff. On April Fools’ Day, I tell a few staff members about the tradition and then laugh all morning when Sayed the finance guy pulls a good one over H the admin assistant.
I will miss driving in Afghanistan. I don’t mind the bumpy roads and I love seeing the hills expanding into mountain ranges; the little children trotting along on donkeys; the people working in the fields; sunshine on a snowy hill.
I will miss the wheat fields. Nothing is so beautiful as a wheat field. It comes up in little bits of green against the dark soil. After a few weeks the wheat is taller and the field is so green it will break your heart. The heads break out and the field becomes a translucent green. Finally the whole thing turns golden in the sunshine before the harvesters come to tie it into bundles like small men standing in the remaining stubble.
I will miss even CoDo TV which plays the same music videos over and over again. (I will NOT miss that annoying girl from 102.5 Hit Channel.)
I will miss the yogurt and green tea.
I will miss taking a moment to stare out the window in the middle of a busy workday.
I will miss the wonder of cooking a delicious non-Afghan meal with only the utensils and supplies available in Afghanistan.
I will miss (yes, I really will) squatting instead of sitting.
I will miss the view of the city from the air when you are flying in and you can see how the road turns left across the river then right again, deep into the heart of the city.
I will miss the greeting kisses Afghan women give.
I will miss Afghan music.
I will miss the table tennis.
I will not miss talking on the radio.
I will not miss having my head covered while driving, unable to feel the wind in my hair.
I will not miss how white my arms and legs have become.
I will not miss the crowds that gather to stare when I go to the bazaar.
I will not miss the children that chase you if you walk on the streets and sometimes even throw rocks.
I will not miss the oily rice or how much you are expected to eat when you are a guest.
I will not miss being unable to get a normal amount of exercise.
I will not miss having to wear pants under my skirts or the constant static cling of all my clothing.
I will not miss those awkward collisions of their culture (male-centered) and mine (individual-centered in a man-centered culture), because I’m the confusing in-between-person – a woman, but acting and living as a man (according to their culture).
