NGK Fellowship: Destination Afghanistan

Aid Afghanistan is a remedial program for girls who didn’t get a chance to get an education during the Taliban period. In this all girls program, began by my host during the “forbidden years of education”, there is a wide range of ages in each grade level. One of my projects was to the get the 10^th graders ready for American University in Afghanistan. The American University “consortium” has decided to open an American University of Afghanistan, much like the ones they have in Beirut, Cairo and Dubai. First of all let me digress a bit.

It would be a scary proposition to attend the American University in Afghanistan (AUAF), not because of the quality of education, which is consistent with AU in Washington. But with the Anti-American Taliban campaign what makes a finer target than the American university? First of all to get in, the ‘unauthorized cars’ must remain outside. Each person signs in twice, once at the gate, then at the main building. You must “wear the American University badge at ALL times” or else….as one of the deans calmly told me, “you could get shot”. Nice. For the “authorized vehicles” the bottom of the car is scanned with a long rod and a large mirror like object affixed to the bottom. They are scanning for bombs. Ahh, I have been in this country for about 7 weeks, and even I know that there are many more creative ways to kill a whole bunch of people than strapping car bombs to the bottom of the car which is the most utilized form.

I have pondered about this illusive idea of security in Kabul, or Afghanistan as a whole. There is NO way of fully protecting yourself from people that are ready to die as long as they take out a few foreigners or locals to make a statement.  With that said, I guess, living here, you MUST be immune to bombs, suicide bombers, and the likes.

Side note again: (It doesn’t help that my father is Mr. Security Conscious, but since I’ve been here, I have become a “Security Consultant”. I seem to know all the security loopholes as soon as I enter a room/building.). I should think of a change of career…..

With that said, I believe in the rationale behind attending the AUAF, it is would be an opportunity of a life time to get a solid educational foundation for the girls who may not be able to leave the country: especially girls that are so smart!

Now about my girls…these girls however, are sharp! They are survivors and the sky is their limit. First I gave them a test to check their English aptitude. After which the highest scorers got an intensive English training. I was actually assistant teacher, because we bumped into Ruth an English teacher from San Francisco who agreed assist with the English training. Another digression….Afghanistan is crawling with volunteers. As many people come here to make money, (there is apparently LOTS OF MONEY to be made here) there are those like me, who are just curious and work for free.  Some international NGO workers make up to $20,000 per month. I know you probably read per year, no, PER MONTH!

Back to my girls. I call them my girls. This was one of my more rewarding projects. Helping the girls improve their English. If Afghanistan allows these girls to grow and expand their knowledge, this country will already have a handful of leaders in the making. They were bold, they were vocal. They didn’t strike me as what I perceived to be the “typical Afghan woman”. I was astounded. My first day in class, we had questions session. Among the poignant questions which I got were, are you married? Why are you in Afghanistan (there is a question) how old are you? Are you Muslim? If you are not Muslim how come your name is Zainab? Here I was thinking, I’d get a bunch of docile girls…far from it!

In my class of 13 I had three aspiring doctors, 3 aspiring Sailors (wasn’t sure where that came from, but Hey!), 3 aspiring business women, 2 pilots, one aspiring housewife, and one computer engineer.

My last assignment for them was to write on the topic “If I were a vegetable, what vegetable would I be and why?” We had fun with that one! My last day was two days ago.

I finally understood why Yemi wants to be Professor. There is a lot of gratification in seeing someone develop partly because of your effort…