Gathering Strength:. Peggy Kelsey

in 2010, I was invited to accompany my friend Elizabeth Roberts and her husband Elias to this interview. Soraya’s office overflowed with stacks of books and papers. She was inundated with work but was calm, soft spoken, and gracious, seemingly unaffected by the chaos around her.

      Soraya was born in the western desert province of Herat and graduated from the medical university there as a gynecologist. When the Soviets came, educated people who didn’t support them were considered enemies, so she and most of her colleagues fled to Iran. There, she practiced gynecology in a huge government hospital and worked with botched self-immolation cases. When she heard about the need for doctors in a hospital for refugees in Pakistan, she went there. But that, too, became dangerous as fighting spread, so she moved to Germany where she stayed until the fall of the Taliban.

      Soraya was one of the first to repatriate when Karzai became president and invited Afghans to return. She served as Deputy Minister of Women’s Affairs for three years and then was appointed to the Independent Human Rights Commission.

      Masiha

      Defense Lawyer

      Defending women is very important work, especially in Afghanistan. When I started my work here, there were no female defense lawyers. Now there are 54 of us.

      When I asked Masiha’s employer, Medica Mondiale (MM), to connect me with an attorney, I received what may have been a form letter explaining that interviewing trauma survivors, even using a caring, sensitive approach, may re-traumatize them. MM’s question, "Is the interview really necessary?" strengthened my belief that, for my book, it was not, so I didn’t ask Masiha to introduce me to any of her clients. The organization’s concern for trauma survivors’ well-being deepened my respect for MM. I interviewed Masiha in the group’s conference room.

      Even as a child, Masiha was very interested in studying law and political science. She graduated from Kabul Law School, having studied secular law, Sharia¹ law, and political science during her four years there. After graduation, she took courses for defense lawyers given by the Afghan Women Lawyers Council (AWLC).² Her goal was to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When that didn’t work out, she became a defense lawyer. She’s been defending women since 2004.

      Laila

      Engineer, City of Kabul, Urban Planning Department

      I'm very interested in helping women in remote areas. Those women are excluded from every kind of life. I could organize health care or sanitation projects. In some places, women are not even aware of sanitation.

      I visited Laila in her office in the distant outskirts of Kabul. The cavernous main room had a few dusty tables and chairs, some empty, others piled with untouched, rolled up city maps and unbound collections of reports written in Russian. On one wall hung a big plastic-covered map of the planned community, Macrorayon, where Soviet families had lived during the 1980s and Afghans live now. This spacious room surrounded a small inner sanctum, sealed off against the winter cold. This provided a cramped working space for five employees, who didn’t seem to have much to do. In its prime, the office had been filled with 30 busy workers.

      Laila’s boss and two other women sat in on our interview. I’ve included some of their comments.

      Laila was born in Baghlan Province, but completed high school in Kunduz. Throughout most of the Soviet war, she studied in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where she learned Russian and worked on her Master’s and PhD degrees. She obtained a job in the government housing construction department upon her return to Afghanistan, but this job doesn’t utilize many of her skills, and she only earns $81 a month. She is happily married and has one son and two daughters.

      Shakila

      Former Assistant Program Director, 10,000 Women

      Being part of this movement has made me feel more responsible for Afghanistan and its future. I didn't see any misery during the protest, just hope and life. It was inspiring!

      In 2007, Shakila taught my husband, Bill, the Dari language while he was in Kabul. I first met her when she came to Texas in 2009. She’d been to a conference in New York City, and Bill and I flew her down to enjoy a visit and see another part of the US. It was fun to show her Austin and to see our town from her point of view.

      Earlier that year, Shakila helped organize and participated in a women’s demonstration against certain repugnant articles of the Shia Personal Status Law (aka Shia Law, Marital Rape Law ) that had been signed by President Hamid Karzai in April.³

      Shakila was the one who convinced me to return to Afghanistan in 2010. When I arrived, she introduced me to translators and many people of interest. I am deeply indebted to her.

      Shakila was born in 1980 in a small village in Bamyan Province. Six years later, as Soviet forces attacked the area, her family evacuated to Arak, an Iranian provincial capital. Iran encouraged universal education at that time, and Shakila completed high school and a two-year nurse’s training program. Her family returned to Afghanistan in 2004, moving to Kabul for its work and educational opportunities. Shakila worked as a nurse at Bamyan Hospital and later as a translator for International Midwife Assistance (IMA). She rejoined her family in Kabul when that job ended and began working as an Assistant Program Manager for the 10,000 Women Business Training Program at the American University of Afghanistan. In the fall of 2011, she began her studies in business in the US.

      Zainab R

      Director, Community Development Council

      These mullahs always provide challenges and problems for me. They are very much against changing the minds of people. But we older women have one goal and that is to fight with this kind of thinking. We have to change the mind of the people.

      When I told Shakila I was going to Bamyan, she suggested I interview Zainab R. We met up at the bazaar in Bamyan City and took one of the few taxis to Azdar Village, a new community built to house returning refugees. Zainab’s house was built of traditional mud bricks even though it was relatively new. Inside, light from the large windows illuminated the nicely plastered, painted, and carpeted living room. She was tired after her long day, and I found out afterwards that she was having some lung issues. Two days later, when I was scheduled to photograph her, she was in the hospital with pneumonia. In spite of her poor health, I could see the activist fire burning within her.

      Zainab was born in Yakolang Province in the central highlands of Afghanistan, but grew up in Bamyan. Her mother died when she was nine years old. Shortly afterward some Kuchi people, nomads of Pashtun ethnicity, raided her Hazara village and forced the villagers out. Zainab and her family went to Iran, where she earned an Associate’s degree in midwifery. Her father died when she was 15. Zainab has six brothers, a husband, four sons, and nine daughters.

      The family returned to Bamyan after the Taliban were driven out. She now works in the hospital there and became head of the Community Development Council (CDC).

      Fatima

      Director of Women’s Affairs, Bamyan

      We established a Women's Development