Women still face obstacles in a country where their voices are ignored and the law is stacked against them.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan–Musliba leans forward, holding her white scarf so that only her dark eyes are visible, and makes an open-handed gesture. She wants to explain to the foreign visitor why she’s been in jail for the last two months, but at age 12, she doesn’t quite understand herself.
Without authentic human connections, our alliances can be neither genuine nor lasting.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan–The engineer from Florida seemed the perfect seatmate on that eight-seater Cessna flight from Kabul to Kandahar over the rugged reaches of Afghanistan. It was my first visit, and he’d already been living six months in the former Taliban stronghold, overseeing the construction of highways and schools as part of the effort to rebuild the war-shattered country that America bombed in response to Sept. 11.
Women Are Heads Of Households, But Still Unemployed, In Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan–As evening approached in one of west Kabul’s poorest neighborhoods, Parwin sat outside in the waning light, trying to mend one of her daughter’s dresses with a precious bit of thread a neighbor gave her. She didn’t worry about stopping to prepare dinner. There would be no dinner that night.
Some risks, once measured, are worth taking.
“My desire to go to Afghanistan was fueled by a longing to know, as much as possible, what it means to be an Afghan woman today… Occasionally I felt a jolt of fear as I prepared for the journey. So much was unknown, and so much of the news from there was bad.”
After the silence of the Taliban years, Afghanistan is beginning to hum again.
KABUL - In a small room snuggled into the war-damaged buildings of Kharabat Street, Zahed Nodar sits cross-legged on a maroon carpet, inhales deeply and closes his eyes as if to shut out the blare of car horns, the shouts of men pulling wooden carts, the scent of wood smoke and rotting fruit, his own years spent fleeing the fighting.
Then he nods to his fellow band members, leans over his armonia and begins to play with a passion that makes his rich, lined face look far younger and the audience feel larger than four.
