Category Archives: ladies

Day 6

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On Tuesday we went to Killid media group and met with Najiba Ayubi, the Media Director there. Radio Killid was the first free media after the Taliban, now they have 8 radio stations, 3 magazines (news, women’s, and culture), as well as a website and TV station. Her aim was to have the international news about Afghanistan come from the Afghan media.

Later we went to the National Gallery to see more modern paintings including this famous painting depicting the last British survivor of the Anglo-Afghan War in 1842.

We visited this mosque

Took pictures of the Kabul Wall

And thanks to our fearless driver, drove some treacherous streets up Guzarga mountain to take pictures from the the top where a cannon used to set off at noon every day.

Day 5

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We started out by visiting the red cross orthopedic center in the morning. Our tour guide, Najib, had worked here during the war. We met with the head of the orthopedic center, Najmuddin Helal. In addition to providing medical services for disabled people they also provide social programs, educational, vocational and employment. The factory to make the prosthetics was on the same site of the hospital and they only employed disabled people a type of affirmative action which he referred to as ‘positive discrimination.’ Najmuddin Helal himself had lost both legs to a mine in 1988. He told us that 80% of the amputees who come for treatment are victims of land mines.

After meeting victims of mines it seemed fitting to visit the OMAR mining museum. In it they had examples of every different mine they had found in the countryside including the small butterfly mines that are particularly dangerous to children. They had educational materials, posters telling people not to step in unchecked areas as well as classrooms and even an internet cafe inside an old helicopter. OMAR is a de-mining organization and we saw their name on the side of the road elsewhere, indicating that this place was free of mines.

Also that day we met Fauzia Kufi the Parliamentary representative from Badakhshan and the chair of women’s rights committee. When asked how she came to power she explained that she comes from a political family; her father was elected four times and her older sister represents Tahar province. She expressed some uncertainty about Afghanistan’s future and the future of women. She said she hoped that the US would wait to pull out troops until after the elections in 2014.

Later that day we went into Old Town to take some pictures. Everyone we met was excited to show us what they were selling.

On our way back to the car some kids across the street were throwing snowballs. As I was stepping into the car one of them hit me square in the face with a dirty snowball. It didn’t really hurt but I was pretty shaken up. Boys will be boys.

Day 4

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Day 4 was probably my favorite day of the trip. It may have a lot to do with the fact that I finally slept through the night after Day 3. The time difference from California to Kabul is 12.5 hours, so it took me a few days to adjust.

After my first good night’s sleep we went to visit Mahfuza Folad of the Justice for All Organization. I had done some volunteer work for her, online, from Chicago. They advocate for human rights including women, children and prisoners.

Next we went to visit the Peace Training and Research Organization, an Afghan NGO that does research and analysis in Afghanistan, focusing on hard-to reach provinces. These two were my favorite organizations and people we visited, I will talk more about them later.

Across the street we saw a girl’s class for Shin Gi Tai (New Full Contact) martial arts. The woman on the left, Monesa, was a 16 year old fighter who has already placed at international competitions. Kick Ass!

Downstairs was a bakery, where this man separated hundreds of eggs a day to make cakes and cookies. It was nice and warm down there.

Day 3

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Saturday is the first day of the Islamic week, like our Monday. We got down to business for some serious meetings and visits. I remember it being particularly cold this day.

We started out by visiting the National Museum. We had to go through security first. We went through a lot of security checkpoints in Afghanistan; the guys generally got a patdown from the main guard with a gun and they asked the women to step into a back room, often behind a curtain, where a woman was waiting to check you. This time when we peeked behind the curtain there was a very old woman who wouldn’t let us leave without having some tea. While the men shivered outside, we drank green tea and smiled with this lady.

There were women working the ticket counter in the museum, though we saw few women on Thursday and Friday, we saw many women on Saturday as they returned to work.20120417-205034.jpg

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When we got inside the museum it wasn’t much warmer than outside, in fact, it was quite a bit colder. In the spacious and lofty museum, with its high ceilings, we found guards huddled around a single heater coil.

After walking around the first floor we were able to meet with the museum director, Omara Khan Masoudi. He told us that in 1992 the museum had 100,000 pieces, but after the Soviet Invasion and Taliban civil War 70% of them had been looted.

The image below was taken in 2001, the museum had no roof for two years during the war and thousands of pieces were destroyed. With a grant from National Geographic they have been able to inventory 52,000 pieces so far. Mr. Masoudi was hopeful for the future and was working on building a new building and 12 provincial museums throughout the country.

On display right outside the museum was the first steam engine in Afghanistan, alongside the official car of each King, Queen, or President of Afghanistan who had a car. There are a few pictured below:

Next we went to visit the old palace, however, we weren’t able to get in because it had been mined.

From the palace grounds we could see this guest house, which they are in the process of retrofitting.

After that we went to visit Abdul Hakim Mujahid, who currently serves on Afghanistan’s High Peace Council. There was heavy security getting into his office, we had to sign in, they took pictures with our cameras to make sure they weren’t bombs, and we walked through a cavernous labyrinth before we reached our meeting room. Abdul Hakim Mujahid had been the UN representative for the Taliban for 4 years from 1997-2001. When we met him he was working on an address for the Taliban in Qatar. He stressed the importance of sharia to the Afghan people, saying they had always been the law, and that although the government has changed, the laws cannot.

Lastly, we visited Nasima Paymar of Nasima Silks and Zarif Designs. Like Fatima, she is a widow who founded her own business with help from B-Peace. Everywhere we went they gave us tea, but Nasima also gave us delicious dried mulberries to get us through the end of the day. Below you can see her showing off some designs in the factory, the women working didn’t want their pictures taken.

Thanks again to Tim for the sweet photos!

Day 1

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After hearing that my camera had been stolen, my fellow traveler Tim Kutzmark kindly sent me some of his pictures. He’s awesome. I’ll try to post a few of his pictures from each day.

This is a picture of the blue Ali mosque that we went to on the first day.

After a long day of traveling we walked through a nearby cemetery and took pictures of the houses on the hill.

Later we went to see Fatima Akbary, and her company, Golestan-e-Sabak, (I talked a little bit about her in a previous post). She was a widow who had founded an NGO to help women and underprivileged in her community, she ran a girls school, vocational training courses as well as women’s business training.

Below you can see her showing us what had happened over the winter. The tent she had built as a temporary workshop had caved in under the snow and her tools were ruined; she would be unable to fulfill a furniture order that spring.

These are some girls in her class, the one in the pink hijab was reading aloud to us.

Fatima also teaches calligraphy and woodcutting to disabled people, a type of vocational training. This is some of the calligraphy they had done.

Thanks again to Tim for the pictures!

Part 2: Comfort Zone

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In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (and other concerns), Mindy Kaling talks about how she used to get out of chores all the time by holding up a book and saying, “But I’m just enjoying Little House on the Prairie so much!” She says it’s the soft spot for her immigrant parents. I had an immigrant parent too, but I think every parent wants their kid to read, and I’ve always found great comfort behind books. So when I got home from my trip I sprinted through the last 2 hunger games books and picked up Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me, which I had given to my mother for Christmas.

After my trip to Afghanistan it was good to get back in my comfort zone and it turns out, Mindy Kaling’s humor falls squarely in my wheelhouse. Kaling was, like me, a child of middle class immigrant parents (her parents were from India but met in Nigeria, my father is from Nigeria but met my mom in an Indian religious group). She is also a pop culture nerd who grew up trying to impress her older brother (or rather trying really hard not to embarrass him). She went to prep school and then Dartmouth but worked with a bunch of guys who went to Harvard and could never shake the feeling that everyone was hanging out without her.

When asked on WTF whether the title of her book is an actual fear of hers, Mindy Kaling said yes. For me, it isn’t a fear, it’s a pretty safe assumption; I don’t get out much so if anyone’s hanging out, they’re hanging out without me. But who needs friends when I have books! Seriously I don’t think I’m missing out on the drunken conversation and sad groping, but yeah I know you’re all hanging out without me.

Another thing she mentioned on that podcast is that she often forgets that she’s not a jewish boy, Mark Maron laughed, but this is something that happens to me all the time. When I went to school in Chicago I had this strange realization one night that the people I felt most comfortable with were nerdy Jewish stoners from Northern California. How often do you look at your own face? It is really easy for me to forget that I really don’t look anything like these people.

I got into the Mills Computer Science Masters program and went to a lecture from someone who works for Wikimedia. I would describe the crowd as ‘lesbian nerd,’ this is another place where I felt quite comfortable. I feel very comfortable around data (I don’t really like sports but I just read the ESPN analytics issue cover to cover). When I was in Afghanistan we met many people but the ones I felt most comfortable around were data analysts; so many of our other conversations seemed anecdotal. I’m not great at probabilities but I find comfort in spreadsheets and statistics and the people who use them.

Mindy Kaling is not the same kind of nerd I am, (she studied latin in school and became a comedy writer), but I think we’re a similar type of nerd. I am so glad that she is successful because I feel like it’s a triumph for dorky, irreverent brown girls everywhere. Mindy Kaling speaks for me.

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Dear Reader(s?);
I went back through my blog and found like a gazillion typos. Please email me about typos, it’s embarrassing.

The Hijab

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Over the mysteries of female life there is drawn a veil, best left undisturbed
-Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

For the program they told us to make sure we put our headscarf on before we landed in Kabul. I decided to put mine on when I landed in Dubai. As I walked out of the bathroom I felt the way I do whenever I change my appearance; like everyone is staring. But after following the gaze of some onlookers I realized they weren’t staring at me, they were staring at the girl in the polka dot miniskirt.

I became accustomed to it quickly (though practically I still find it difficult to walk in the wind without losing my scarf and to eat without eating my scarf or spilling on it); it seemed the least we could do to show respect for the culture of Afghanistan. We saw no woman outside without a hijab (and inside only twice, with a hijab around her neck). The first days we were there, Thursday and Friday, are the weekend in Kabul and we saw almost no women on the street, only rarely a woman in burqa (chador), who was presumed to be a widow, because, presumably, there is no reason for a woman to leave her house on this day save desperation.

I noticed 3 types of women’s dress, the chador, a more conservative working woman outfit, and a more fashion-forward style. In older parts of town and on holidays we saw many blue burqas but during the week we mostly saw type two, working women with long loose pants or a long skirt, a long-sleeved top which covers the rear and a scarf wrapped loosely around the head. Walking around town, most of the women we saw were going to and from work (the university was over winter break still) and chose this style in earthy colors. The last category I saw in upper class neighborhoods, and occasionally in fancy restaurants, it was very westernized with skinny jeans, pointy black boots to kill, a long sleeved top and a tight hijab often in loud colors with sparkles and jewels. I felt my clothes fit squarely into the middle category, however with my height, I think from behind I probably looked most like an Afghan man. It was very cold and it is not uncommon for a man to tie a scarf around his head during the winter. Their traditional dress is actually quite similar to the women’s.

We were quite the spectacle nonetheless, in a country where one’s ethnicity is easily identifiable by their face and dress, we were a blonde woman taking pictures, a fair man in khakis and a tall black woman. We were tourists, but in a country with such little tourism, no one could place us. So they stared. and stared. and stared. Children would stare, old men would stare, the few women we saw would stare. I didn’t know what it was that made them stare, had they never seen a black person? Someone so tall? A blonde? Was my hair showing? In these situations I was glad I had my headscarf, I would avert my gaze and pull the scarf across my mouth. This is a traditional response to unwanted attention and seemed to bring people’s attention to the fact that they were staring. Sometimes they didn’t stop, but at least they knew they’re were making me uncomfortable. In a world were manners and respect are so important, this tactic seemed to work wonders. In addition to hiding in plain sight, pulling the scarf over my mouth helped keep me from breathing in the thick Kabul dust and the smell of diesel on the road or heating gas inside.

Inside the guest house I would often wear a hoodie, it was difficult for me to brush and plait my hair every morning because it was so cold that overnight it wasn’t guaranteed to dry. Normally my hair is pretty large and in charge so this was a daily challenge. But I found I was rewarded with a new fashion accessory. It may sound inappropriate but I feel that after this experience I can safely integrate the hijab into my wardrobe in situations where I might be more comfortable with it. When I landed in Dubai, I stood on an escalator next to a woman who was literally wearing what I had on for underwear, skinny jeans and a nude camisole (over which I had a long skirt and a large sweater). I had decided I would take off my hijab when i felt comfortable doing do, sitting next to a muslim couple on the plane to DC it didn’t feel right or respectful to take it off. Walking through security the woman asked I could take my scarf off, I said I’d rather not. Finally in New York, walking around with two heavy bags I got hot and changed my clothes to haggle with a Jamaican woman about getting on an earlier flight. My hair looked horrible.

When I leave my room I still like having my hood up, and it’s been raining so I’ve had a good excuse for my scarfy/hoodie look. As a westerner I always wanted to wear the hijab but felt it would be offensive, maybe it still is, but now it feels comfortable and appropriate to me. It’ll fade but I’m happy to have it in the mix.

Valentine’s Day is Wack

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Wiggity wack? No, just regular
–teen girl squad

Of all the prejudices I come up against every day the most obnoxious, lately, is the simple, pervasive assumption that as a woman, I won’t be satisfied without a husband, 2.5 kids, and a house in the suburbs. When I say I don’t want this, people make another set of assumptions;

A) I’m lying
B) I’m a lesbian
C) I’m in denial
D) I had a bad breakup
E) I don’t know what good sex is like
F) I’m cynical because I come from a broken home
G) I just haven’t found the right guy

Maybe they’re right, or perhaps I’d enjoy one of the more alternative, unmarried relationships recently described in this Atlantic article or this hairpin piece from a few years ago. A relationship with separate beds, or separate rooms, or separate wings (like Beauty and the Beast), or separate houses (like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera who had adjacent houses joined by a walkway) or maybe even (gasp!) not a romantic relationship at all. Maybe as a child, I didn’t dream of a house with a husband and a white picket fence and a bunch of kids on the lawn, I dreamed of Ms. Honey’s cottage in Matilda (except, SPOILER ALERT; I wouldn’t have adopted Matilda at the end because I don’t like kids).

In writing all these letters for my month of letters I’ve been out shopping for cards and postcards, only to be reminded that it’s Valentine’s day next week and they’ve replaced all the good cards with red and pink hearts. I don’t hate Valentine’s day (who could hate this old school Outkast jam), but I hate the look of pity people give me when I say I’ve never had a date (this fact is true every day, not just Valentine’s day, but somehow people feel more sorry for me on Valentine’s Day). Valentine’s Day celebrates one particular type of romantic love, but as Jane Austen says in Mansfield Park:

“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”

Here’s Steinbeck in a letter to his son:

“There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.”

There is a good quote from Infinite Jest that I want to share, but it’s about 6 pages long. In it David Foster Wallace writes about a paraplegic who made a choice to love without pleasure; to love a woman with no skull, who leaks spinal fluid, has a hook for hands and is in an irreversible coma. To me, this passage made the entire 1000 page book worthwhile.

There is the love between you and your best friend, the love between you and your family, the love between you and your neighbor, anon. How is this love less significant than the love you have with your lover? In a way, the childrens’ version of the holiday is better at celebrating the different forms of love since you have to give cards to everyone, not just the boy you have a crush on.

What other holidays apply only to a certain subset of the population? (Some are religious, but we all get the day off for Christmas)

P.S. Another great post by ehs dub at I’m Revolting, whose birthday is today. You win, all hail the queen.

UPDATE 2/14:
Ryan North stole my idea! JK, only love for Dinosaur Comics.

Access to Education

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Lately I’ve been thinking about education, the Russian and I had a heated discussion this weekend about it, she’s starting school again after winter break and I’m applying to a masters program. Also, it has been in the news because of President Obama’s recent State of the Union speech. Lack of access to education, I feel, is one of the biggest global problems. I don’t have any solutions right now, but I wanted to express my gratitude towards the people and institutions who contributed towards mine:

My mom is the one who filled out all the financial aid forms growing up, and taught me how to make the system work for me. She has worked, and continues to work tirelessly to make sure her children get the chances she didn’t get. My mom’s (now) husband started this blog for her which is probably worth checking out (if you didn’t grow up within earshot of my mother): Zen of Folding

The branch of the Oakland Public Library by my house was influenced by the Black Panther movement and the Black Muslims in the neighborhood. Without all those books about little black girls I am sure I wouldn’t have the confidence to achieve what I have so far. (Bill Cosby explains what can happen when you don’t get this kind of enforcement: A Boy Like Me)

Addendum 5-27-12: This branch was the African American Museum and Library which later moved to downtown Oakland. Explains a lot.

The Crowden School was my first summer camp. I met the Russian there and I learned that I could make music too (it wasn’t just for big kids like my brother).

A shoutout to A Better Chance (ABC), for paying for my testing, my first trip to a college campus (USC), and helping students of color get a fair shake.

The East Bay French American School
 was where I learned the French language, French culture, and as my mother says, where I learned to hate French people.

Head-Royce
 Middle School sucks. It sucked for me, and it sucked for a lot of others, but without it, none of us would have any soul. And if I hadn’t hated middle school so much I never would have ended up at my high school.

Interlochen Arts Camp
was awesome, my first sleep away camp. I won the ‘Honor Camper’ award and played in piano quintet, piano for 10 hands. My first experience of a humid summer where I got stung by all manner of mosquitos for the first time. My scholarship there was sponsored by Kellogs. Thanks for the corduroy knickers!

Walden
a music composition camp in New Hampshire. I got the best music theory education, made some great friends and wrote a couple pieces of music. Not bad for a 12-year-old.

Putney
little Putney, my hippie farm school. When I heard that Seventeen Magazine came to do a profile on the school and the students protested their body image perpetuation, I was sold. I couldn’t really have gone anywhere else.

Center for Talented Youth
really should been called Center for Privileged Youth, if I remember correctly you have to take a pretty expensive test to get in. But the scholarship I got there was all-inclusive, they told me if there was a pair of flip flops that everyone had, and I couldn’t afford (Havaianas anyone?), that they would help me pay for them. I had been at Putney for a few years though, so I was pretty anti-consumerist.

Summer Intensive Language Study
 (SILS) at Northfield Mount Hermon; it looks like this program is now defunct, which is a bummer. By now you can probably tell that my mother believed that summers were a time for learning, not lazing. If we weren’t taking a class over the summer, we were supposed to get a job.

University of Chicago
Where fun goes to die. I was cold, miserable and well educated.

Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
When I went in to interview I went on a long rant about how I didn’t believe in affirmative action and I hated teaching, how did I get this fellowship?

After finals in Chicago I began calculating how much money I had been given by these institutions over the years and it came out to over $500,000. I don’t have enough money to pay it back yet, but hopefully the things I learned will help me earn enough to pay it back soon.

There are many ways we rationalize the bounty we all receive in our lives but first and foremost I’d like to say just say “Thank You”. I feel very lucky to have had these opportunities.

That said, I hope these institutions feel lucky to have had me as well. All that money I got for being a poor black girl doesn’t negate the fact that I am a poor black girl with all that entails (though I’m working on the poor part). A friend once suggested that I’ve repaid the money I was given in unpaid diversity photo-ops and other marketing. In addition, I worked hard for my scholarships, maintaining a GPA, trying to be a model minority since I was the only black person for miles, and being the only black person for miles, these tasks aren’t easy for anyone, especially a young person.

I tend to think that someone’s sex, race, socio-economic background, religion, age, etc. is about as important as their shoe size, but I wouldn’t think this way if it weren’t for my education, which I got because people thought otherwise. We should live in a world that doesn’t need affirmative action, but we don’t.

p.s. I also like to think I got into some of these places because I’m smart, but who knows.

Scattered

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I try to write a new post every week, to keep me in the habit, but I don’t really like writing blogposts, what I really like writing are letters. Today, instead of writing this post (or working on my personal essay for grad school) I wrote 4 postcards using my new christmas gift from the Russian (Pantone postcards) and a letter using stationary I made in a workshop taught by Barbara.

Here is a piece from the notes for my personal statement:

I once got into a debate with a friend at the University of Chicago, he was a couple years younger than i was and deciding on a major. He said he had decided on economics because it helped ‘explain the world’, I laughed and said, George, everyone says that about their major, you talk to a French lit major and they’ll say, ‘I really think French literature is the best way to help explain my world’. My mom used to say ‘it all comes down to Geography,’ but after studying it, I disagree. You can’t tell everything about a person by where they come from (I’m not a huge believer in the idea that Californians are lazy and dumb), but it does explain a lot. Tobler’s first law of geography, that everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things does still seem to have many applications.

Can someone tell me if there is a second law of geography?