Sylvia's Journal

It takes a lot to get me down but not very much to lift my spirits. That was done at dinner time after another trying morning by an article in today’s Afghanistan Times. An intrepid Italian with the help of the Aga Khan Foundation and New Zealand tax dollars is doing something much more challenging than what I am trying to do. If I sometimes feel I am swimming upstream, he’s certainly swimming upstream of something equivalent to the wild Mississippi River by coaxing Afghan women from rural Bamiyan to learn to ski.

The quotes in the article are priceless. “Women skiing? I’m against it if they do it without the burqa,” according to one gentleman fingering his prayer beads. One of the young women (they are all in their 20s and 30s) who clearly enjoyed the new experience said, “It is the first time I do something for myself.” Apparently the women had to put up with snide remarks from male onlookers – but that is nothing new. I remember an article about a young female automobilist in Herat whose car was full of dents from male drivers intentionally hitting her car – a variation on snide remarks.

A 16 year old had come to the conclusion that, never mind the burqa (“it would be impossible to see the piste”) even a veil was impractical and unnecessary. But Mullah Said did not entirely agree with the latter proposition, “If the woman is properly covered from head to toe, with a scarf, she does not need the burqa…”

Reading this I was imagining women with their blue burqas fluttering in the wind elegantly zigzagging down a mountain slope. I ought to get that burqa before I leave Afghanistan and, one day back in the US, when no one is looking, see what it is like to ski with a burqa. Ha!

The article made me smile and realize that I am not alone in my efforts of trying to free women from oppressive attitudes and practices although it certainly feels that way sometimes. S and M told me today that they are praying for me. That was very sweet, since I think they are the ones I need to pray for.