A Different World

Today, I got to see a different side of Afghanistan. I went to a meeting with a district official, and I went to see part of a seminar on gender justice. I had to wear my body armor, and let me tell you, I got quite a workout. It’s not easy moving, especially up and down stairs, with an additional 40 or so pounds draped across my shoulders. And I’m so short that when I sat down in the vehicle, once I got a boost from Ferocious to get in the back seat, the vest rested on my thighs. Oh, well. Even while I was getting bruises on my thighs, I was taking the load off my clavicle.

I also wore a head covering to both locations. I was meeting with people whose custom and culture dictate that head covering be worn, and so I decided to honor that. I bought a really cool scarf at Target before I left – it was on sale for about $5, so I had to have it. I wore that one today.

We left our quarters around 8:30, and I got my first taste of the rules of the road on this side of Afghanistan. They are the same – none. However, those rules are mitigated by the fact that this area is not as populated as Kabul, and so we had not nearly as many harrowing escapes. As we drove along, I noticed that many men ride bicycles to get around. Even more numerous are mo-peds or motorcycles. We saw a family – dad, mom, and son – on one mo-ped. When I commented on it, the young Afghan man with whom I work told me that he had seen as many as eight people on one mo-ped. I have no idea how that happened.

Then there is another mode of transportation. I am not sure what it is called, but it is a small motorcycle with an attached small truck body, so the person on the motorcycle actually has a roof over his head and a covered truck bed behind him. The covered truck bed might be filled with goods or people. We saw several of these contraptions with as many as four people filling the back, including women in light blue burkhas. What is really cool about the mo-trucks is that they are gaily painted with bright colors and decorated with other colored symbols. For instance, the body might be painted like a circus wagon with red hearts scattered around. Or it might be painted hot pink with splashes of color sporadically applied. My team leader said that she understands they are painted this way in order to ward off evil. As an aside, in Kabul, many 18-wheelers are painted brightly in almost psychedelic patterns; it’s as if they could have been seen on San Francisco’s streets sometime in the 1960s. It was fun to watch these little mo-trucks, even though I thought several were going to run right into us.

We also got to see more shops on the way to the city. Imagine a strip shopping mall. Now take away the fronts of the stores so that all of them are open air, and then take away the parking lot and add a bare patch of hard-packed dirt. That is what the strip shopping centers here look like. I didn’t see a front or door on any of the shops. As we got closer to the city, though, the shops took on more a normal appearance, except that I couldn’t read any of the signage, because the signs are all written in another, really foreign language. And pictures of Hamid Karzai are everywhere.

Many of the shops sell fruit, and this must be the watermelon capital of the world, because if I saw one watermelon for sale today, I’ll bet I saw a couple hundred. I also saw lots of big, fat bunches of green grapes, and lots of potatoes for sale. Our Afghan counterpart told us that Afghanistan is really known for pomegranates, and that there are some growing near our camp, but I didn’t see any.

At the entrance to the city is a roundabout housing a beautiful huge sculpture of a fruit basket dripping with watermelon, grapes, and pomegranates, giving the idea to the traveler that he or she is entering a beautiful city. That is somewhat true. In fact, some of the thoroughfares are divided, and one is lined with pine trees of some sort. The pine trees have been painted white from the ground to about five feet up the trunks. That is so trucks can see them at night. That’s right – no street lights.

Many of the buildings are also pretty. Some have flat roofs, and some have minarets; some have beautiful windows and decorative glass walls; some have intricate scrollwork. I couldn’t tell what kinds of buildings I was looking at, but the truly beautiful ones are much too large to be single family houses. It is not unusual to see walled neighborhoods or walled buildings. The walls are made either of mud or mud bricks, and I assume that is why some of the walls are tumbling down. We passed parks and soccer fields, wrought iron gates and fences, and tree-lined boulevards.

But we also passed people who live in tents. We passed open fields that looked as if someone had used them as personal wastebaskets, with plastic bags, bottles, and other unidentifiable items littering the entire field. I wanted desperately to take a trash bag out into the field and start picking up all the junk I saw.

It wouldn’t have done much good today, however, because the wind was so strong that every flag we saw was standing straight out. Dust was EVERYWHERE! I was glad that I had chosen to wear a head covering because at least I could attempt to keep some of the dust out of my hair and mouth. And in the midst of the dust, the fruit and fresh vegetables were displayed for sale as if they were in a Hy-Vee. This morning, before I went to the first meeting, I dusted my desk and put my computer down. When I got back, around 2:00 this afternoon, a thin film of dust coated the desktop again. ARGHGGHHG!

On a serious note, the seminar on gender justice was very interesting to me, even though I couldn’t understand a word that anyone said. The teacher is a national who works for the company, and he is a born teacher. He is a young lawyer, and he got the class involved and engaged and discussing the material. I believe the students were given some fact situations and then were to discuss them. Whereas I often have trouble getting an entire classroom to respond to questions or discussions, these students – probably 18 lawyers, including women – were jumping right in. And the women had more to say than the men (no smart comments, please).

After I listened to about 45 minutes of classroom interaction, I wondered whether to the Afghans we Americans speak fast, or whether the Afghans I saw and heard today really do speak so fast that their mouths seem to fly.

I was also expecting to see the women sitting on one side of the table and the men on the other, but though most of the women sat together, the group was more integrated as to gender than I expected. And in contrast to most of the seminars I have attended, where the air conditioning is set at frosty, and we all hunker down to keep from freezing – all except the big men who wear sport coats and long sleeved shirts, that is – this seminar was held in a big room on the second floor, with no air conditioning. Ceiling fans stirred up the warm air – and I mean warm – and some windows were open to facilitate a wind current. I was getting ready to sweat, as I had on black trousers, a white t-shirt and a long black tunic, AND the scarf, until I looked at the men who were in military-type uniforms and the women who were dressed, while not in burkhas, in long tunics, long pants underneath, and heavy, tight head coverings. I decided to hold the sweat for another day.

Additionally, while most of the seminars I attend have rows of tables and chairs set up from front to back, this seminar was held in a large room, and the participants sat around a huge rectangular table. I thought the set-up probably facilitated discussion, and it certainly didn’t give anyone a chance to hang to the back where he or she could read the morning paper or surf the web on an iPad.

Most important, I was genuinely proud to see so many people, both men and women, all of whom represent the law, engage in a discussion about the important issue of gender justice in a country where many women are, for lack of a better way to say it, held hostage by their culture and the interpretation by some of their religion. I think about half the participants were women, and I know they were taking a risk, and probably do every day, by being different from the norm in their country. In America, we tend to take the idea of gender equality for granted. Even though we do not experience 100% gender equality, when we think about it, we generally accept that a person’s role in life, either in the family or at work outside the home, does not have to be restricted by virtue of his or her gender. The women who were at the seminar today give us hope that someday, more places in the world will accept that idea, and will put it into practice.

So for tonight, I give thanks that I live in a country that has helped me go from little girl in the country to college graduate, to lawyer, to judge, to teacher, to musician, to adventurer in another land which is in another time. And I give thanks to Ferocious, who kept me safe today, and who lent me a laundry bag. And I give thanks to Max and Emily, and my mother, of course, who have so graciously accepted my idea that things don’t have to stay the same, and who have wished me well on this part of my journey through life.