Afghanistan Journal

4.28.03

I woke up at 5:30 this morning. I went into the bathroom to check if there was hot water it was time for a shower. I was too exhausted to take one the night before, so I set my alarm clock for the morning because I knew I had to take a shower, I had to look nice for this day.

My bathroom tap had no hot water so I went to the next bathroom, and sure enough there was a little more than a trickle of steaming hot water. I tried to balance it with some cold, but the knobs, the whole system does not really work like that.

The roosters were crowing during my shower and I could hear the morning prayers, the house was silent.

My friend and I put on our long linen button down robe type shirts. Although we have to be conservative, we are still cute. Hers is bright red and she wraps a red and black scarf around her head. I am all black with fringe coming off my scarf. We both wear makeup and little bit of hair sneaks out the front. At 6:30 the Minister’s car will be coming for us.

Today is Independence Day for Afghanistan. The festivities are said to begin at 8 but we soon found out that Afghans have the same lag in start time that Iranians do. I asked the Minister if he could get me and my friend inside, and sure enough at 11 PM the night before, we were confirmed. The US embassy told all Americans to avoid all festivities. But we could not resist.

We arrive and there is not a woman to be seen. We go through the Palace compound with all its gates and road blocks and finally we are at festivity grounds. All around us are men in uniforms, some uniforms are similar to American army and others look like old Soviet uniforms. We arrive in land rover with tinted windows, again the false feeling of security. Eventually we park and have to get out, although we were hesitant. It seemed that not only were we the only women, we also the only people not in military garb. They take us to the women’s section and after our bags are checked we go to the front of the stands to take a seat. I am an Afghan woman to these eyes until I open my mouth. If I speak Persian I am definitely Iranian.

When I sit and look before me I am overwhelmed. There are the usual ruins all around, a little more ruined than a bombed building. These ruins look more like tourist sites of old Roman buildings, where one can rarely tell if it was they say it is. Embedded among the ruins is an immaculately kept mosque about half a mile long. The backdrop of this scene is a circle of mountains. The mosque is untouched because even in times of war, religious areas were protected. Between us and the mosque are thousand of soldiers in different uniforms, I can not tell which uniform relates to which military role.

However, the most excitement was occurring around me. A woman, dress in general’s uniform and hat comes down to sit near us. When she walks by I see so many gold medals on her uniform that she leans to one side when she walks. Her hair is pulled up into her hat but she is wearing heavy amounts of mascara and eyeliner, not denying her desire for beauty among all the hostility. She fascinates us, the whole crowd of women. Everyone stares. I wonder in what army, when and how she managed to fight with such warriors?

Soon after that comes the next show of woman. A woman dressed in Western clothes (a long black skirt) comes into the section. People to begin whispering about her. She is not wearing a scarf. There she was, a mid-fifties chic, Afghan woman at a public event with nothing but a bow in her hair. She comes before everyone and begins to complain and ask where all the women are? Why hadn’t they come? She says “there are thousands of men here and not even a hundred women”. The women do not reply, but simply say that there were not enough invitations. She stands in front of our section and begins to take pictures of us, the women in the crowd. Then she takes her seat on bench, which ends in another men’s section. As if her behavior and dress was not defiant enough, she pulls out from her purse a cigarette and begins to smoke. My friend and I watch in amazement. The woman behind us leans down and asks us if we can believe a woman would dress like that, defying Islam. She soon finds out that we are Iranian and asks about 100 intrusive questions till my friend shows her annoyance and the interrogation ends.

The mix of the general and the feminist were quite a shock for all bystanders and fascinating for me.

Then a woman begins singing a prayer over the intercom and this is quite symbolic. To hear a female voice in such a venerable event, is quite a feat. The melodic voice echoes among the mountains.

There are snipers everywhere; guns are plenty. I am comfortable with guns, they are at every party, among any crowd. Whether on the belt of a privatized American soldier or a long Kalashnikov held by an Afghan soldier-turned- bodyguard for the Minister, they are a regular part of life. The element of safety with a gun depends on the handler, and everyone here who has a gun is comfortable handling it.

After waiting for two hours, we finally see the hummers that carry the bodyguards of the president. 10 suburbans follow, they park and the president gets out and jumps on to the back of a open jeep. He stands up in the front and begins to wave. He drives in front of the crowd, and I amazed because that is quite a security risk. However, he successfully makes his circles and then joins his cabinet members.

The actual parade is actually just a show of might. Thousands of military march in huge lines and this continues for over an hour. The disabled also walk in the parade and I have never seen so many one legged people. Afghanistan has the largest numbers due to the mines.

We decide to leave and everyone notices. While sitting in the crowd we have already had the Minister come over and visit us and an army soldier offer us “whatever we need” because he realized that we are Iranian and we have come to Afghanistan to help. It seems I can never be too incognito.

There are parts of me in this woman or maybe there are parts of this woman in me. My aggressive, no bullshit ways in the Ministry amazed many. Without fear I walked in there without hejab and starting bossing around warlords, jihadis, even boys with klashnikovs. Of course it was not so Hollywood esque, but I did openly confront the men of the Ministry. I felt empowered to by the Minister. And I was driven by one goal only, to get work done, to get water to the people. If one were to view me they would think, what a strong and independent woman.

However, everything is not as it seems

I imagine these women going home. Instead of being the outspoken, agitating woman she is there, I see a woman who quietly opens the door to her house. She runs into the kitchen and puts on her apron. She goes upstairs to find the kids and ask them whether they have done their homework. They look the other direction. She tears the video game consuls out of their hands. She gets them behind their desks and they start to work. She runs downstairs and starts to cook. An hour later her husband arrives. He is round, with a nice charming smile. He kisses her first. He puts his satchel in its place in the foyer. He walks into the living room and turns on the television. He comes back into the kitchen and asks her about the kids. Then he asks her about her day. She goes into minor detail about the parade.

She asks him to go upstairs and help the kids with their homework. She knows he is tired and he probably doesn’t have the energy to honor that request. He knows she knows. He walks upstairs. He finds energy in seeing his children but he is having a hard time letting go of his day, of the exhaustion of the weight of the world on his shoulders. She feels the same.

They eat dinner together as a family. She is upset, but she doesn’t know why. She notices her husband is uncomfortable. She notices he is not present at the table. She begins to attempt to mitigate the situation. She makes jokes, the kids laugh. She makes fun at her husband, he smiles forcefully, trying to be light and fun for the kids. He is in thought.

She has disappeared from the table. Instead she sits in the minds of each one of her family member’s minds, hypersensitive to and predicting their needs with varying levels of success, worried her kids are bored or don’t like her food. She tries to distract her husband to bring him back to the table, make him laugh or feel good about them. She has disappeared from the table. Like a little fairy she is bouncing around between her family members trying to appease their present needs and desires.

That night she goes to bed. She has a slight subconscious itch. It is subconscious so she is unable to identify it accurately. The days pass through her mind, like a flash back scene from a movie. Most of it is irrelevant, even TV shows run through her mind. Then she remembers a coffee with a friend, a male language professor. He says “I don’t understand how you can be so clever in the daytime, but so clueless at night.” She disregarded the comment as indicative of his constant desire to sleep with her. But she had heard similar statements over the years, even before she got married. Something about “not getting it” when it came to relationships. She wondered what people were talking about.