Car accident

We came across a car accident today that had just happened. It involved a pedestrian and a motorcycle taxi (a rickshaw-like contraption pulled by a motorcycle). We were trying to go around the scene and so had a full view. The male pedestrian was buckled over on the ground holding his mangled leg. From inside the rickshaw came the wails of a woman who was clearly hurt. A handful of men were gathered around the riskshaw looking in. No one seemed to be moving to help her. I wandered if she was alone (without a male relative) and if these men were not helping her because by custom they could not touch her. My natural reaction was to stop and help – even my life guarding first aid course from 10 years ago was probably more medical training that most Afghans have – but I knew I couldn’t. It would create too much of a scene and a security risk. What struck me about the incident was that even if I was wrong about why no one was helping the woman, the fact that it was even a remote possibility that people were not helping her because they should not touch her is disturbing on so many levels.

Herat is far more conservative than Kabul. Whereas in Kabul you will see Afghan women dressed with long shirts (must cover butt and crotch) and headscarves falling back from their foreheads to reveal their hair, in Herat almost all women wore burkas, and only a few wore floor length scarves which covered as much as the burka except for the face. I was relieved that I had borrowed clothes from a colleague in Kabul because only one shirt I had brought from home was wearable. My headscarf had to cover my hair at all times, which is actually quite a challenge, but something I got better at with practice. I tried on a burka and was amazed at how tight it is on the forehead (to stop it from slipping), how difficult it was to see through the tiny thick blue grill, and how difficult it must be to maneuver while constantly holding the burka closed with one hand - it is open two feet across from below the waist to the floor, but must be held closed at all times, I have even seen women holding it closed with their mouths because their hands were full.

In Herat Afghan men would not shake my hand. In fact, many of them would not look at me at all or even acknowledge my presence. I know that this is a sign of respect in their culture, but it is difficult to be treated as invisible. Interestingly when I held focus groups with Afghan men, they did not greet me, but were happy to talk to me through a translator and even have eye contact during the discussion, but when we said goodbye, many of them again ignored me.

When I got back to Kabul, I went to the craft market that is held at the military base (as the military are not allowed to walk around Kabul and go to the markets). I jumped when people brushed past me and touched me in the bustle of the market and realized in that moment that no one had brushed up against me at all in my time in Afghanistan as Afghan men do not do touch women, not even brushing past foreign women in crowds. Not only is it disrespectful to the woman, but the man would also be chastised. Which is why I was completely creeped out when entering the airport and the guard who checked my ticket made a point of touching my fingers as he handed me back my ticket and brushed up against me as I walked through the door. It is funny how elsewhere the same action would have had no motive behind it and probably would have gone unnoticed by me.

I struggle with being a woman in this society, but at the same time it fascinates me. I want to push the mark and provide a positive example as I try to do when I am in Africa, but I am not sure that I know how. In Africa I know that I stick out as a professional woman and I try to be a positive example, but I also try to gain respect by being conservative and not drinking unless I am with other expats, wearing conservative clothes (no shorts), and avoiding conversations about the fact that I live alone in DC. But here my idea of being conservative is unacceptably risqué and even their idea of being liberal is too conservative for my beliefs. Trying to balance cultural sensitivity with my own feminist ways is a balancing act that I have yet to learn. Maybe on trip three I will get the hang of it.