A Teacher From Afghanistan

Suraya—a woman who foments revolution from underneath her burka

Suraya showed up in my life in the most unexpected way. I was at lunch with a colleague who told me about a woman she was hosting from Kabul, Afghanistan. The woman, Suraya, was the Director of the All Afghani Women’s Union (AAWU) and was on her way to speak at the UN on International Women’s Day about the plight of Afghani women. I felt my excitement rise, and I asked my colleague if there was any way that I could meet Suraya and interview her. My colleague said that with Suraya’s hectic schedule, it was unlikely that she could fit me in, but she would mention the possibility to her. When Suraya’s sister-in-law offered to be our translator, Suraya found a time when we could meet. She and her sister-in-law came to my house for the interview after she returned from New York.

In the midst of the excitement in New York, Suraya fell ill with a heart ailment and had to be rushed to the hospital. She made it to her speech at the UN, but she was still not well. The day I met her she looked pale; a middle-aged, heavy-set woman, dressed in a simple dark skirt and a white blouse wearing a head scarf, which she removed when she came into the house. Her dark hair was pulled up and back and she wore no makeup. We greeted each other, and I realized that Suraya understood English, but was too shy to speak it. She was interested to see my house, so I showed her around and then invited her and her sister-in-law to sit in the living room while I went into the kitchen to fix us some tea.

Suraya had been interviewed many times before, and she was at ease with the prospect of telling me about her life and her work. I was on edge. Would I be able to capture Suraya’s story through a translator? We had such a short time. Could I bridge our cultural divide and make meaning of her experience?

As the tea brewed, I again took myself back to Kosova as I had with Florence (see earlier blog). I remembered a visit I had made to a small village in Kosova. I went there with the Kosovar mental health team to speak with a poor rural family about their losses during the war. Before we were allowed to begin the interview through a translator, the man of the house interrogated me. Did I know that the women in his family were not allowed to go out on their own? Did I understand that it was he who made the decisions in this household? He said that he knew things were different in my country and that before he would allow me to speak with his family, he had to be certain that I respected his culture. I told him that I knew that things were different in Kosova and that I had come to the family to hear about their experiences during the war, their losses, and what had kept them strong. I told him I believed that I knew something about loss and that I could also learn more from listening to his story. By reaching out to him, I had made a bridge. He relaxed, and we went on with the family interview.

Carrying a tray of tea, I went back into the living room to join Suraya and her sister-in-law. I felt more ready for my interview with Suraya. I was determined to be open to our differences and to search for moments when we might meet in mutual understanding. I already knew that she was a Teacher and that I was there to learn.

Suraya began our interview by telling me about her work. She showed me the latest edition of the magazine put out by the All Afghani Women’s Union and told me something of their recent history. On March 8th 2002, the AAWU celebrated International Women’s Day. On that same day, the AAWU issued the first edition of their magazine, Women Shout. The last time they had been able to celebrate International Women’s Day was in 1991. The Taliban had silenced them for ten years.

On November 16, 2001, when the Taliban were routed from Afghanistan, the AAWU workers decided that they would gather a large group of women in front of the UN offices in Kabul. Suraya knew that many women wanted to meet in the main square to celebrate the downfall of the Taliban. The government said that she could only march with fifty women, but Suraya and the other women organized ten thousand women who met in smaller groups on street corners all over the city. Suraya marched with two thousand women. All the women who showed up for the demonstration did not wear their traditional burkas, a sign that they were taking back their freedom.