Subdued, Sub-Dude, or, being a woman in Afghanistan

How to even express what it's like to be a woman in Afghanistan... I am at a loss. A complete loss.
4/13/08 1:38am

K-K-K-Kabul!

Who knew it would be so dreary, cold and rainy in Afghanistan? I am not be the most ignorant American, yet I feel I am representing us as a whole quite well in that regard; lots and lots of things I didn't know before I came. Here are a few:

1. Afghanistan is cold and rainy a LOT in springtime
2. Kabul is 6,000 feet above sea level - which doesn't mean elevation sickness but it ain't nuthin!
3. Kabul is located at the foot of the foothills of the Hindu Kush, a steep, snow-capped, jagged range in the Himalaya (you can see them from the city, incredible view!)
4. in 2002, Kabul had a population of 1 million; current population is approx. 4 million (mostly returning refugees, mainly from Pakistan, where they fled during the Taliban occupation)
5. There are 2,000 internationals in Kabul working in NGO's or independently as part of the rebuilding effort
And finally,
6. The whole situation of women here in Afghanistan BLOWS! (Okay, I DID know that before I came here, but having been here for a week and a half and having to try to live by these stupid, oppressive, de-humanizing rules has given me an opportunity to experience firsthand and see for myself that these rules are, in fact, BULLSHIT!

There, I said it.

More on everything here later.

Kabul Day 3 (or is it 4?)

...how long have I been here?

I have a tendency to get lost in time anyway, but here it seems impossible to keep track. We are staying at Turquoise Mountain Foundation, which is housed in a walled-in compound behind the old British Embassy (bombed out in the war). There is a 19th century fort (not 14th century, as we'd previously thought!) which is being restored, as well as gardens and classrooms where they are teaching classes in pottery, calligraphy and woodworking. It is beautiful and quiet, friendly with mostly Brits living here - being here seems more like camp than being in a country ravaged by war for thirty years.

My first day here I was taken to Murad Khane, a bazaar in an old section of Kabul which was destroyed. TMF is restoring and rebuilding it, and has a clinic there, a school and an arts program for kids.

I am helping my host Jenny Hartley with an oral history documentary she is making. She has surveyed households in the area and found the oldest members of the community to interview them. She told me that the life expectancy for both men and women in Afghanistan is 40-something years, so a really old person here might be in their 60's. On this day, I shot an interview with an 87-year old man. He was beautiful!

Then I shot the arts program for kids - !!! Some of the kids came from the school in Murad Khane, but many just came off the street in the bazaar. So sweet to see them rush in, eager to cut and paste and paint. The culture here doesn't really encourage creative self-expression just for the sake of it, so this is the first time many of these kids have done anything like this - potato stamps! They have gotten to know Jenny and her colleagues, and when they see her in the bazaar they run up and ask, "When do we get to come and make a mess again?" I will try to post a clip of these sweet-faced, wide-eyed kids grappling with glue-sticks in this mud-walled house.

In an unexpected twist, Adam had to stay back at the compound (after all the preparation we had about how I wouldn't be able to do as much, and the gender roles here!) and the next day was Friday, which is a weekend here, and it poured down rain as well, so we stayed here all day except for a quick trip to the local market around the corner. By yesterday, Adam was raging with compound fever; the sun came out and it was actually WARM, so we went to Chicken Street with Fatma, an Afghan woman who works at TMF and speaks perfect English.

After all the warnings about dress code and behaviour, I ended up wearing jeans with a Kurta (long shirt - women must ALWAYS always cover their butts here) and a fleece hoodie with a scarf to wrap around my head. I was wearing Jenny's duck boots to navigate the thick, gooey mud and puddle-filled streets. It felt so good to wear jeans! I was relieved to have been with western women and see how they deal with the dress code - I was able to cobble this outfit together that felt like I was being myself while still respecting the local culture. I mean, it's not like I was going to fool anyone into thinking I am a local, so why not embrace my American self?

I repeatedly grilling the folks at TMF about how to behave here; what to wear, where to look - men can't look at women, but can I look at people? Not sure where the boundaries are - (this isn't an area I've particularly excelled at anyway, but here I'm REALLY clueless!) but here it's more than just social etiquette, it might be a matter of personal safety! After all that, I felt pretty safe walking around, shooting everything (a surprisingly small number of people didn't want to be filmed!) and being myself, albeit a slightly toned-down version.

There's so many incredible stories here - amazing people doing extraordinary things in extreme contions - it's beyond kid-in-a-candy-store for shooting and writing. I've said it before, but it bears repeating - there's lots of horrible, awful things happening here, but there's also lots of amazing, beautiful things happening here - it's a very inspiring time here in a lot of ways. Most Americans I know, educated and well-read as they may be, are clueless about what it's like here, what is really happening. I am psyched to be here to see for myself, and am hoping to capture some of the inspiration to bring back to America.

Electricity is even worse here than India, so hopefully the gods of power will shine on us and I can get a clip up soon!

Good Morning Afghanistan!!

We arrived in Kabul yesterday afternoon. We are in Afghanistan!

We flew on the Afghan airline Ariana Airlines, “the friendliest way to fly to Afghanistan.” But the 2.5 hr flight from Delhi clarified two things – why Ariana was half the price of the other airlines, and why it’s nicknamed “Scary”ana airlines (a moniker we heard shortly after purchasing our tickets.) We were also told, shortly AFTER we had bought our tickets, that the reason Ariana isn’t allowed to land in Europe is because they don’t have a regular maintenance schedule or don’t maintain their planes, or something. Yikes!

On the plane I noticed a few interesting things: one, that all the seat belts were different – Adam’s was an old Pan Am seat belt, with the classic 70’s emblem on it. Mine was from another airline. Somehow the realization that various parts of our plane were cobbled together from recycled bits of 30-year old airplanes didn’t really comfort me, particularly as we hit some very rocky turbulence crossing the mountains over Pakistan.

I was the only blonde on the plane, and the only American woman. None of the men looked at me, not even a sideways glance - not even that thing that guys do when they don’t want you to know they are looking at you, that sort of quick little flick-glance thing. It was quite interesting, made me feel almost invisible, except for the women who stared at me unabashedly.

The view from the plane was almost completely brown, even the mountains. which were steep and a little too close to our window for my preference. It was an overcast day in Kabul, lovely and cool after the smothering heat of Delhi.

We were met at the airport by Conrad, an American who is working at Turquoise Mountain Foundation as Rory Stewart’s personal assistant. I still haven’t finished “The Places In Between,” Rory’s book about his walk across Afghanistan in 2002. It’s a great story and well-written, but who’s got time to read? He is arriving here tomorrow and while I doubt it’ll come up, I wish I was more prepared.

What great luck to have Conrad with us –he’s been living here for ten months and speaks Dari (I have now learned how to say hello and thank you, but that doesn’t help much in immigration). He ushered us through the tourist registration process, chatting with the official in Dari and making the whole process seem easy and friendly.

We easily found the TMF driver in the small, sparse parking lot. What struck me was how quiet it was, especially after the constant cacophony of India. We’d been told that the most dangerous part of Kabul is the road between the airport and the city, but somehow I’d forgotten about that, feeling so comfortable with Conrad and the car and the whole thing. I’d already pulled my camera out, shooting the landscape when I saw the roadblock. A couple trucks and some men in uniform with assault rifles were stopping traffic on both sides of the road. That was a little worrisome, but not nearly so much as the next moment when Conrad said he didn’t recognize the uniforms they were wearing. Hm. At the Delhi airport we’d read a newspaper story which said the Taliban is preparing to take over Kabul in the spring. Conrad wondered aloud who the roadblock might be, but we passed through without stopping and it was not mentioned again.

As we passed another military vehicle, I saw the heavily armed man on the hood through my camera and then saw him seeing me. He locked eyes and held my gaze so intensely as we passed, I put my camera down. I looked back a minute later and he was still there, still looking, still holding his large gun.

Now we are safely ensconced in the compound of TMF – with a 19th century fort and wi-fi (although a horrible connection) a cook, offices, classrooms, a garden and living quarters for the mostly-British staff. It is quite nice and feels very safe. The guard at the gate walked around our SUV with a bomb-detector before we could drive in. That made me feel VERY safe (!!!) We were told never to leave the compound, partly because we might be arrested by the corrupt police who don’t speak English.

Today we are going to an old area of Kabul which TMF is helping to rebuild. Jenny Hartley, who is our host here, is in charge of community development and runs programs for children, among other things. It is going to be shooting-heaven (camera shooting, I mean) and I am incredibly excited to be here.

Off to Afghanistan!

It's happening. We are flying to Kabul today from Delhi! After months of planning, discussing, researching, we are really going. The funny thing is, everyone we've spoken to about this trip who HASN'T been to Afghanistan has warned us about how dangerous it is, while everyone we've met who has been there, worked or lived there tells us that it's the friendliest place they've EVER been, that it's not really that dangerous and that we are going to be fine.

Funny that - having lived in Los Angeles and New York City, and been warned by non-residents how dangerous THOSE cities are, I know firsthand how wide the gap can be between the perception of danger from the outside of a place and the perception from inside. In truth, not a day has gone by in the last month when I haven't felt the miracle of survival here on the streets of India, where just crossing the street is a kamikaze endeavor.

SO, all that is to say that a big part of my mission in going to Afghanistan is to experience what is happening there and bring it back to America, via words, pictures and video. We will be staying at the Turquoise Mountain Foundation (see first blog post for more detail) and working on a documentary for Prince Charles, as well as shooting as much on our own as possible.

The awful irony of our arrival there today is that we just found out yesterday morning that a young woman at TMF named Anna (whom I'd been emailing re: helping out on this project) died yesterday, falling off a horse. She was a 26-year old American, working for an NGO in Kabul, and just had this freak accident. So tragic! We will be arriving today in the midst of their mourning for her, and will try to help however we can.

We are told there is connection so hopefully we will post updates here.

PS, I am NOT planning to wear a burka, and yes, I do feel a bit like Private Benjamin (although Goldie actually made a more appropriate movie to reference here, but I think I am one of the 3 people who ever saw it, "Protocol" - don't bother, but she plays an aerobics instructor or something who accidentally saves a diplomat's life and gets a job with the State Dept, and ends up as an "ambassador" of sorts in some unnamed fictional Muslim country.)