The teenage boy keeps staring. From inches away, he looks bug-eyed at my face, watching me eat a piece of bread, bite by bite, fascinated. I try to chew with my mouth closed. All around, the men–and there are only men on the street here–watch me slack-jawed, as if they have never seen such a thing. Many probably haven’t for years. Except for their relatives, they have never seen a woman so naked, so exposed.
I am dressed like my grandma. I wear clothes that swallow me, two sizes too big, a long-sleeved T-shirt that lands mid-thigh, men’s Dockers, a head scarf. I try to shrink, be invisible. But I am 5-feet-10, and I have blue eyes, and it is impossible for me to blend in here, unless I put on a burqa, which would look even more ridiculous.
The men here wonder why my newspaper sent me instead of a man to Afghanistan. Or they wonder whether I’m from France, for whatever reason. The women grab for my hands, say hello, ask me questions. Am I married? Do I have children? Do I know Bush?
As a reporter, I have never been so conscious of my sex as I am in Afghanistan. Like other women correspondents who have come to Afghanistan of late, I’m a celebrity, a sideshow, drawing crowds on the street.
I am here with the World Food Program, following around its executive director, Catherine Bertini, as she meets the people her program helps. Bertini has carefully picked the places she visits: All help women or children.
Unfortunately, the other reporters on this trip are all men, and most have TV cameras. The women of Afghanistan don’t really want to talk to them. They look down; they mumble answers to questions; they look at me when they respond to the men. And then they take me aside and pepper me with questions and confidences in broken English.
They still are afraid. They still don’t like cameras. They still don’t feel comfortable around strange men. Women who have become doctors say this. Women who once traveled to other countries say this.
We visit Jalalabad, Herat, Kabul. Calling this land surreal, contradictory does it no justice.
In Herat, a new bus has “Feel the Love” in cursive on the side and a map of Afghanistan on the back. Young soldiers wearing new camouflage uniforms smile big and brandish their guns for the TV cameras. The thirsty landscape is beige dust on beige brick–except, predictably, for the grounds of the tribal warlord in charge, which features trimmed green grass and sculpted bushes.
The warlord will not shake a woman’s hand, even Bertini’s. She says this doesn’t bother her.
The women in Afghanistan were supposedly treasured, protected. Their names mean things like “respected flower.” And more than anyone, they are the face of this place, the legacy of the Taliban’s rule, ignored by the world for long years.
But months after the fall of the Taliban, a woman’s face is still a rare sight. Most of the women who venture outside are still wraiths in blue burqas, floating down the dusty streets. They are still shell-shocked, skittery, damaged.
In Herat, most women still stay inside. The World Food Program recently advertised on the radio for female workers in Herat. Only nine women responded.
“The workers there said women just aren’t ready yet,” Bertini says.
Seemen Sharifi worked for the World Food Program for seven years behind the Taliban’s back, and she was the only female worker in Herat. She says she worked because she’s educated, and she shrugs as if this answer is obvious. She is not so interested in this topic.
“Are you married?” she then asks. I tell her no. “You are lucky,” says Sharifi, who still wears her burqa on the streets.
In Kabul, the capital, the women cry as they beg. They call me madam and hold up small children and prescriptions for penicillin. Men with newly shaved faces kick them out of carpet shops and say they are scam artists.
Under the Taliban, widows and other women with no man to support them had no choice but to work as prostitutes or beggars. Now, they know nothing else. These small children might belong to the women. And they might be rented props.
At a woman’s bakery in Kabul, Bertini bends down to talk to some of the dozens of women there, most of whom wear their burqas even inside the bakery courtyard. The women say they are optimistic about their future. They say they hope they will get jobs, they hope they will finally feel comfortable enough to wear simple head scarves.
I ask the translator the names of several of the women crouched against the wall. About a dozen of them. They walk toward me, pull back their burqas, show their faces for the first time. They grab at my arms, point at my notebook. Each woman repeats a word, over and over.
The translator has slipped away. I am in the middle, and I keep trying to move to the edge. I am not clear about what they want. Money? Help? The women persist. They point at the notebook, at the pen.
The translator returns to explain: “They want you to write them down.”
I write.
Bibi Gul, which means “respected flower.” Sakina. Marry Jan. Kandi Gul, or “sugar flower.” The women smile as I scribble. They shake my hand and keep repeating their names and pointing at the pad. So these are their names.
