My first encounter with female students came a few days ago, when Wahida arranged for us to visit the local Bagrami school during the hours of women's instruction. Because there are no co-ed classrooms, the females take the school in the early morning, and the males in the afternoon. Despite the division of gender in the seats, coeducational faculty is permissible. Whether this is due to the scarcity of female teachers or patriarchal authoritarianism (or some zesty combination of both) I am not sure.
The first classroom we visited, Wahida talked about the FabLab, why girls especially should come and learn about computers. After she had finished, I also asked the girls what they want to be when they grow up: The responses, in order of popularity:
Doctor
Teacher
Engineer (!)
"Your Colleagues, The Boys, are all coming every day after classes, and they are very smart." I said. "So I am sure you must be even smarter." This got some giggles. Not a fair statement, but sometimes girls need to have some fun at the expense of boys.
One young lady stuck out in my mind. In a class of students ranging in age from (I'm guessing) 11 to 14, she was one of the youngest (People here are a little on the smaller side, so when I estimate a child's age I tack on 2-3 years, depending on how happy they look. sad, stressed out people age faster everywhere on the planet) But she stood at her desk and spoke passionately in a loud and squeaky voice that in the Quaran the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) said that women and men were to be equal. But men do not want us to be equal. I had to argue with my dad just to come here. And it's not fair, dammit. There was much applause.
Adriana made a very good point in all of the classes - "Women have always had to work hard for equality. Even in the united states, equality with men is still relatively new. Everyone must work hard to maintain it." We were left with lingering promises - "I will come, but I must get permission from my father" the girls all said. Not just the students - the female teachers also required permission from their families to come to the lab, probably only 5 blocks away.
In our followup with the principal, I had the opportunity to meet some of the male instructors, who filed in for tea when the bell rang. Some of them were religious, old fashioned hardliners, and had pointed questions for us.
"Why should I let my daughter go? How do I know she will be safe?" One old gentleman asked.
I had Wahida translate for me - "Sir, my father is very strict. At first, he did not want me to come here. But I showed him pictures and let him talk to my boss (an embellishment, but whatever), and now he is happy that I am here and is convinced of my safety halfway across the world." This seemed to placate them. There are some closed-minded folks, but these we can work with. It's the zealots and extremists, whom we can never hope to convince of anything, that are the real danger. And you don't find those people teaching sums to fifth grade girls. You find them sending death threats to the girls whose families want them to learn math.
Our visit must have worked because as of a couple days ago, the Fab Lab was packed with a batch of... little girls! And some older girls! This was a heartening development, although it underscored the sore need for parity.
I was frustrated that two of the female instructors who had promised to come were not there. This left us with three rooms of waiting young ladies, without even an instructor in their native tongue. One room occupied itself by appointing a sort of drill instructor, who would shout out the names of computer components as her classmates repeated after her:
"Mouse!" She would shout
"MOUSE!" They all rejoined
"Keyboard!"
"KEYBOARD!"
"Monitor!"
"MONITOR"
"CPU!"
"CPU!"
"Mouse!"... and on and on. For an hour.
To make matters worse, there were some network problems that day - so there was no internet. And I, in my stupidity, had failed as yet to familiarize myself with the Sugar OS. When I walked into a class full of ten year old girls, huddled four to an OLPC, I was ashamed and frustrated to be unable even to help them take pictures with it. So instead I fired up iTunes on my mac book. Because if there is one thing that transcends language it is Roadrunner Cartoons. Sitting on the floor, surrounded by 15 little Afghan girls making "meep meep" noises, instilling in them a simultaneous love of Chuck Jones and technology... this is so deeply gratifying I can't even put it into words. I will treasure this moment until I die.
And then, there's Sadia.
Meeting this young woman was simultaneously inspiring and heartbreaking. The day after the girls came for the first time, Mehrab came to my room to let me know that there was a tenth form girl who wanted to learn algebra. She was accompanied by one younger girl on the first day, and two more younger girls on the second day. What is most disheartening is the difference between Sadia and The Boys. She is widely considered by her peers to be the cleverest girl in her form, yet her skills lag her male counterparts by at least a year. She brought the tenth form book, and wanted help with what I assume was her homework. Yet we couldn't move ahead to manipulating single variable rational equations. She hadn't mastered fractions.
Keep in mind, this is a problem I encounter frequently in American classrooms, boys and girls alike. Students are shuffled ahead into more advanced classes, awarded marginally passing grades for performance that by any reasonable metric would be considered failure, and then expected to keep pace with curricula they're clearly unprepared for. It's unfair to everybody, and this attitude of "preserve the student's ego at any expense" has led to our pathetic national losses in education. If anyone wonders why our infrastructure at home is failing, why our public science programs are languishing and why everyone in the first world has better broadband than we do - look no further than our dismal math and science performance, compared even to developing countries like China and India.
I'm not convinced that this is the fault of dependence on standardized testing, necessarily - though I'm no fan of "teaching to the test." I am, however, convinced that part of our problem is cultural. At home, when I ask a class full of regular kids (i.e., not gifted, not accelerated in any way) what they want to be when they grow up, I get
Professional Athlete
Singer
Regular kids are informed by the media - and our media is the shallowest, most vapid media on the planet. It's purposefully designed to shorten attention spans and make people want to buy shit they don't need - and the best way to do this is with images of sex and violence. Film and television - really, advertising - have elevated the art of materialism to a science. And it has made our children very stupid indeed. This combined with the comforts of industrialization have also made them lazy. No wonder we are considered "the great satan."
Our cultural differences are reflected in the marvelous performance of the boys' math class. The boys are dynamic, focused, anxious to participate, eager to succeed. I am led to understand that their normal coursework is very rote, which is not how I do things. I talk for a while, then we all participate - the students come to the board to solve problems, and the ones who get stuck are assisted by peers. It is often difficult to get kids to come to the board in the US (depending on the class) but here the kids eat it up. They do their homework. They bring questions from their other class. They correct me when I forget an exponent. These are fantastic students, because they value the opportunity to learn more. I wish kids back in the states did as well.
What's interesting is, the boys seem to have no problem learning from me because I am female. It could be because the impression of competence endowed by my American-ness overrides gender biases. I also talk and act with confidence, not deference - it's amazing how simple postural cues can be used to manipulate teenage boys - in any language. I'm sure some portion of them are coming for the simple novelty of interacting with a girl of any nationality who is smart and looks them in the eye.
In talking to some of the NGO workers, I have learned more about the achievement disparity here. Even men who are college-educated professionals often marry women who are pig-ignorant: illiterate, uncurious, unable even to identify their own country on a map. One of the guests here at the Taj is a woman named Cecelia - she has worked with many local families and expressed some frustration that the husbands do not hire tutors for their wives. But in my opinion it is too late for tutors once a woman becomes a wife and mother. Not that tutoring for these (nominally) grown women would be bad - education is my short answer for everything. But those resources would be far better invested in the daughters of these worldly men - as much as they are willing to provide, and the earlier the better.
Sadia has the same drive and desire to learn as the boys, but if other girls have it they are slow in coming. Perhaps their families are unwilling to let them consort with us - perhaps they are shy. I suspect that the critical period has passed for many, and that they will never have this desire. After all, many girls are married by the time they are 18 or 19 here (some as young as menarche). I know I didn't really focus on what I wanted to do with my brain until I was 17, and I grew up with every advantage in the world. But then, I can expect to live about twice as long as the average Afghan. Which makes the need for education so very urgent.
So even if they can't remember how to find the roots of an nth degree polynomial, I would still like to leave "my" young men with higher expectations of the women in their life. I want them to think that intelligence is a virtue in girls. Even if there is a tragic shortage of educated women for their mothers to select for them, when they are fathers in a few short years I hope my students will encourage their daughters the same way they will their sons.
What is pleasing is the knowledge that the people we are turning out at the Fab Lab will be the Best and Brightest of tomorrow. These are the kids who are going to rebuild this country. We've already got them on the internet, sending out feelers, talking to people all over the world, learning that there is more to life than the way things have always been done here at home. The promise of technolgy and freedom is tangible to them.
And never doubt it, kids. Freedom IS our primary export. For good or for ill.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Like a suit and tie, except if you don't wear it they kill you.
Wahida is the coordinator of the Fab Lab. She's an extremely competent english speaker, and has been teaching me the Pashto alphabet. On the third or fourth day we were here, she invited Adriana and me to come to her home and meet her family.
Adriana and I, hijabed to the nines, waited inside the gate of the Fab Lab for a taxi to arrive. Wahida herself arrived on foot, wearing a burka (what I have taken to referring to as "The Blue Blankie"). She was escorted by a much younger cousin or brother, who rode on her lap in the taxi.
Once inside the densely carpeted cab, she threw back the veil and greeted us with three kisses each. "I am so happy today that you are coming to my home." she said. She looked sideways at Adriana, and asked "Are you angry?"
"No! Of course not. I'm happy." Adriana is observant and sometimes reserved (though far from shy). Not what we'd think of as angry, but her pensive demeanor is sometimes off-putting to Afghans. People would spend the rest of the day asking, "Sister - why are you so upset?"
Wahida's father is the head of the Veterinary faculty at the local university. Their entire family lives in a sort of condo complex attached to the campus. We headed upstairs, through a courtyard with chickens and children, into a room lined with the pinkest curtains imaginable and comfy low cushions on the floor. This, Wahida explained, was the study where she and her sisters do their homework.
"Why are you so angry today?" She asked us both. "Please, this is my home and you are my sisters. You must be comfortable here." I guess we must have been a little high-strung, in our eagerness not to be rude. I got the message and explained, "It's an honor to be invited to your house, and we don't want to embarrass you. We're still learning how not to be jerky americans. We'll try to relax."
We first met her father, who had been translating English textbooks into Pashto for his students. He came and sat with us, welcomed us to his home, and asked about our mission.
"We are not bad people," He told us, apologetically. "We have had much fighting here, but only some Afghans are bad. They ruin things for everyone. There is so much destruction here, but we are not all bad." It's funny - I wanted to tell him the same thing about Americans.
We would come to learn that Wahida's family is very erudite and cosmopolitan by Afghan standards. Still, our next destination from the girly study (complete with exactly seventeen stuffed animals, Wahida told us) was the outside oven. Her mother and aunt were baking nan in the mud oven outside - pictures are attached. Her mom embraced us both like we had grown up next door and were coming home for the first time in a decade. We also met some small cousins and Wahida's youngest sister, who is a firecracker. I didn't have a chance to meet any brothers.
Heading back upstairs, we visited a next-door neighbor, the wife of one of the professors. She must have been about our age - What was interesting to me was, after Wahida introduced us, she felt compelled to explain that her neighbor had no children. They were both almost apologetic about it. Her neighbor even gestured to her womb, and made some explanation about possibly being sick. I wasn't sure what to say. She showed us the lovely view of the neighborhood from her patio. Overhead, helicopters buzzed. American? Blackwater? I'm not the expert. "A bird for every ghetto," I thought.
I was struck by the homey, open nature of the complex. Doors were open, neighbors were like family. This is almost impossibly precious and rare in Los Angeles. Here, it's the norm.
We headed back for tea and a sit with Wahida's female relatives. It was a delightful, girly day. One of her cousins, a tenth-grader named Soroyia, came to ply some english on us. Soroyia is an aspiring dentist. As we sat, drank tea, and applied henna, I asked questions about the subjective experience of females. "Wahida, what happens if you don't wear the Blue Blanket?"
"The Burka? People make problems for you. My parents don't want me to wear it."
"No?"
"No. There was a time when I did not, but people sent a letter to my father. He became very afraid. I was sent to Kabul."
Over the course of the afternoon, we heard more of her family's story. There are competing political factions at the local university: old-guard holdovers from the communist days (Wahida's dad and the University chancellor fall into this category) vs. the kind of militant extremists Faux News would have us believe Afghanistan is peopled with exclusively. What few moderates there are suffer the derision of both. Elections are coming at the end of summer, and tensions are high.
All of the girls in Wahida's family are attending school, and this is not easy for them. Their house has been set on fire. While there are surely more nuanced politics at work, the women are an easy target for the aggression of the "narrow minded religious people", many of whom are classmates and professors within the university community. People they know personally, and see on a daily basis. Even when you know exactly who the bad guys are, it's not so easy as just killing them, if they're your neighbors and you know their brothers and maybe their brothers are ok, but if you take out one extremist now his brother has your fucking number and if you have made an enemy of an Afghan, you have made an error.
These are old grudges, complicated by history and an endless parade of would-be colonists. The Greeks, the English, the Germans, the Russians, the Americans... As we sat eating an enormous spread of food, in which Adriana and I felt we barely made enough of a dent to be marginally polite, Wahida's mom talked to us in Pashto. She said many of the same things her husband told us when we arrived: We are not all bad people. We are happy you have come. People try to make trouble with us. They say because we allow our daughters to go out, we are not muslim. They make problems for us. Sixteen of my family gone in one day, to a Taliban bomb. I am so happy you are here today. We have slaughtered a hen for you. Please, you are my daughters now, you must eat more.
Wahida, why are your sisters so upset?
Adriana and I, hijabed to the nines, waited inside the gate of the Fab Lab for a taxi to arrive. Wahida herself arrived on foot, wearing a burka (what I have taken to referring to as "The Blue Blankie"). She was escorted by a much younger cousin or brother, who rode on her lap in the taxi.
Once inside the densely carpeted cab, she threw back the veil and greeted us with three kisses each. "I am so happy today that you are coming to my home." she said. She looked sideways at Adriana, and asked "Are you angry?"
"No! Of course not. I'm happy." Adriana is observant and sometimes reserved (though far from shy). Not what we'd think of as angry, but her pensive demeanor is sometimes off-putting to Afghans. People would spend the rest of the day asking, "Sister - why are you so upset?"
Wahida's father is the head of the Veterinary faculty at the local university. Their entire family lives in a sort of condo complex attached to the campus. We headed upstairs, through a courtyard with chickens and children, into a room lined with the pinkest curtains imaginable and comfy low cushions on the floor. This, Wahida explained, was the study where she and her sisters do their homework.
"Why are you so angry today?" She asked us both. "Please, this is my home and you are my sisters. You must be comfortable here." I guess we must have been a little high-strung, in our eagerness not to be rude. I got the message and explained, "It's an honor to be invited to your house, and we don't want to embarrass you. We're still learning how not to be jerky americans. We'll try to relax."
We first met her father, who had been translating English textbooks into Pashto for his students. He came and sat with us, welcomed us to his home, and asked about our mission.
"We are not bad people," He told us, apologetically. "We have had much fighting here, but only some Afghans are bad. They ruin things for everyone. There is so much destruction here, but we are not all bad." It's funny - I wanted to tell him the same thing about Americans.
We would come to learn that Wahida's family is very erudite and cosmopolitan by Afghan standards. Still, our next destination from the girly study (complete with exactly seventeen stuffed animals, Wahida told us) was the outside oven. Her mother and aunt were baking nan in the mud oven outside - pictures are attached. Her mom embraced us both like we had grown up next door and were coming home for the first time in a decade. We also met some small cousins and Wahida's youngest sister, who is a firecracker. I didn't have a chance to meet any brothers.
Heading back upstairs, we visited a next-door neighbor, the wife of one of the professors. She must have been about our age - What was interesting to me was, after Wahida introduced us, she felt compelled to explain that her neighbor had no children. They were both almost apologetic about it. Her neighbor even gestured to her womb, and made some explanation about possibly being sick. I wasn't sure what to say. She showed us the lovely view of the neighborhood from her patio. Overhead, helicopters buzzed. American? Blackwater? I'm not the expert. "A bird for every ghetto," I thought.
I was struck by the homey, open nature of the complex. Doors were open, neighbors were like family. This is almost impossibly precious and rare in Los Angeles. Here, it's the norm.
We headed back for tea and a sit with Wahida's female relatives. It was a delightful, girly day. One of her cousins, a tenth-grader named Soroyia, came to ply some english on us. Soroyia is an aspiring dentist. As we sat, drank tea, and applied henna, I asked questions about the subjective experience of females. "Wahida, what happens if you don't wear the Blue Blanket?"
"The Burka? People make problems for you. My parents don't want me to wear it."
"No?"
"No. There was a time when I did not, but people sent a letter to my father. He became very afraid. I was sent to Kabul."
Over the course of the afternoon, we heard more of her family's story. There are competing political factions at the local university: old-guard holdovers from the communist days (Wahida's dad and the University chancellor fall into this category) vs. the kind of militant extremists Faux News would have us believe Afghanistan is peopled with exclusively. What few moderates there are suffer the derision of both. Elections are coming at the end of summer, and tensions are high.
All of the girls in Wahida's family are attending school, and this is not easy for them. Their house has been set on fire. While there are surely more nuanced politics at work, the women are an easy target for the aggression of the "narrow minded religious people", many of whom are classmates and professors within the university community. People they know personally, and see on a daily basis. Even when you know exactly who the bad guys are, it's not so easy as just killing them, if they're your neighbors and you know their brothers and maybe their brothers are ok, but if you take out one extremist now his brother has your fucking number and if you have made an enemy of an Afghan, you have made an error.
These are old grudges, complicated by history and an endless parade of would-be colonists. The Greeks, the English, the Germans, the Russians, the Americans... As we sat eating an enormous spread of food, in which Adriana and I felt we barely made enough of a dent to be marginally polite, Wahida's mom talked to us in Pashto. She said many of the same things her husband told us when we arrived: We are not all bad people. We are happy you have come. People try to make trouble with us. They say because we allow our daughters to go out, we are not muslim. They make problems for us. Sixteen of my family gone in one day, to a Taliban bomb. I am so happy you are here today. We have slaughtered a hen for you. Please, you are my daughters now, you must eat more.
Wahida, why are your sisters so upset?
Sunday, April 5, 2009
The Hospital
We visited almost a week ago, but in that time, I feel ill. There are some pictures posted. Unfortunately, I was unable to collect very many, due to the sensitive nature of the location - that and people kind of freak a little when they see women with cameras, or so I'm told.
I've struggled with how to present this experience, because the state of health care is so complex in this region, and in the country at large. There are so many NGOs (Non-Government Organizations), so many government agencies, so many charities, so many conflicting agendas... and the only thing that ties them together is the scarcity of funding.
There are two hospitals in Jalalabad - the National Health Hospital, and the University Hospital. They are 600 yards apart, and run by two different Government agencies - The Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Education. Because these are different (one could say competing) agencies, they are unallowed to share resources.
Our visit to the National Health Hospital was occasioned by the arrival of Pete and Kim of MedWeb, a telemedicine company.
MedWeb's telemedicine devices allow practitioners in rural areas to upload biometric data, images and medical files directly to major hospitals via servers. Some of the more clever devices for use in the field include a portable ultrasound that can be run via laptop and an EKG glove - instead of meticulously placing electrodes every time, a patient can be asked to wear the glove and lay it over their chest, which situates the 'trodes in their proper location without fuss.
While at the hospital, Pete gave a quick presentation for the department heads of the hospital. There were two female doctors, both OB/GYN (not a shock), and probably 12 male physicians, trained all over the world. Norway, Korea, Pakistan, Russia, UK.
Really, the thing to do is point you to Kim's Blog for MedWeb. The reality is that I am in many ways ignorant of the delicate political dances that must be performed by and for officials here in order to get anything done, and I don't want to misrepresent MedWeb's fine work. They also ran around and did a lot of stuff while I was down for the count. Kim's blog may be found here:
http://medwebcpo.blogspot.com/
If you're interested in more detailed insights into the health care situation on the ground, I would strongly suggest clicking the above link. Kim's reportage is sometimes inspiring, sometimes appalling, always interesting. I am glad to have had the opportunity to work with Pete and Kim.
I've struggled with how to present this experience, because the state of health care is so complex in this region, and in the country at large. There are so many NGOs (Non-Government Organizations), so many government agencies, so many charities, so many conflicting agendas... and the only thing that ties them together is the scarcity of funding.
There are two hospitals in Jalalabad - the National Health Hospital, and the University Hospital. They are 600 yards apart, and run by two different Government agencies - The Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Education. Because these are different (one could say competing) agencies, they are unallowed to share resources.
Our visit to the National Health Hospital was occasioned by the arrival of Pete and Kim of MedWeb, a telemedicine company.
MedWeb's telemedicine devices allow practitioners in rural areas to upload biometric data, images and medical files directly to major hospitals via servers. Some of the more clever devices for use in the field include a portable ultrasound that can be run via laptop and an EKG glove - instead of meticulously placing electrodes every time, a patient can be asked to wear the glove and lay it over their chest, which situates the 'trodes in their proper location without fuss.
While at the hospital, Pete gave a quick presentation for the department heads of the hospital. There were two female doctors, both OB/GYN (not a shock), and probably 12 male physicians, trained all over the world. Norway, Korea, Pakistan, Russia, UK.
Really, the thing to do is point you to Kim's Blog for MedWeb. The reality is that I am in many ways ignorant of the delicate political dances that must be performed by and for officials here in order to get anything done, and I don't want to misrepresent MedWeb's fine work. They also ran around and did a lot of stuff while I was down for the count. Kim's blog may be found here:
http://medwebcpo.blogspot.
If you're interested in more detailed insights into the health care situation on the ground, I would strongly suggest clicking the above link. Kim's reportage is sometimes inspiring, sometimes appalling, always interesting. I am glad to have had the opportunity to work with Pete and Kim.
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