Kabul, Afghanistan
DEC. 15, 2004

I have a bit of a breather today, and really wish I could pop into town for lunch with you and then magically come back here tomorrow!!! Aïna's headquarters are in Kabul but we have 7 other media centers around the country and I'm trying to see as many as possible. I've been to Aïna Herat and I also spent time in Panjsheer Valley and will be in Bamyan, Jalalabad, and hopefully Mazar-i-Sharif soon. I have become, by default, the designated translator on trips outside of Kabul. Even though I'm every bit as much of a foreigner as the next guy, somehow because Farsi was my first language, I'm not as intimated to keep asking what people mean over and over again until I really understand. And I can translate the nuances in English so that helps the journalists I travel with--at least the American and British ones ;-)

I helped moderate a Q &A session with 38 Afghan women ages 18-50 in our Herat center. One of the biggest issues there is forced marriages. 300 young women have literally burned themselves alive over the past 2 years due to bad domestic situations, and many live with the burns they inflicted on themselves in shame--unable to finish the deed. You may have read about this.

Some of the women in the session, come to the center regularly to meet journalists, attend lectures, for access to reading materials, internet, computer literacy and English classes. It's generally great to see that they come, sometimes from far away. But I had the unfortunate experience of seeing one of the computer/graphic design trainers show an Afghan how to use a tool in some drawing program to make hearts, fill them with a rainbow pattern and repeat them. Not a sketch pad or even pencil in site. No design references, no font books, no color theory, nothing. Oh boy! We have to train our trainers better, I wrote in my report. In Kabul people are more sophisticated when it comes to design--but not really!

Another issue that came up in Herat is that girls are used as payment for debts, and even exchanged for donkeys, regularly, in the outer provinces. There are groups working on programs to help women change these patterns in their own lives. Aïna has been commissioned to ideate, and produce an educational and entertaining TV magazine show for women by women. I used the session in Herat as part of my research on what these women would want to see, know, learn for themselves. They were the ones who brought up these issues; and then they said they wanted to learn about business models, medical research and AIDS!!! These are women wearing black chadors under their blue burkahs... Can you believe it?

On another positive note, I've met village elders, community leaders in elaborate turbans who say things like: Islam wants girls to be educated, just like the boys. If it takes logic like that to get schools built and functioning, then so be it. I've heard this from people in places like Paktika, Pashtun region, near the Pakistan border--near where the trouble still lurks. If you pick up the current issue of National Geographic (DEC 2004), you will see Reza's latest story and work; it's about that region and the on going hunt for a ghost they call Bin Laden.

Thinking, Writing, Etc.