March 9 - Removing the Veil

A memoir of life in Afghanistan.

By Magdalena I. García

I just finished reading Kabul Beauty School: An American Goes Behind the Veil, by Deborah Rodriguez, the memoir of a Michigan hairdresser, who shortly after 9/11 joined a humanitarian organization and went off to Afghanistan, leaving behind her two young sons, her mother, and an abusive husband. This is the second book I read about life in Afghanistan (the first one was The Bookseller of Kabul and the next one will be Three Cups of Tea), in an effort to understand a bit more about a region of the world that is in the news every day, but which is a big blur to most Westeners.

Thanks to sponsorship from beauty companies, Debbie is able to start her own beauty training school for Afghan women. In a country where women are undervalued and denied education, going to beauty school offers them a chance to be more independent—from the fathers and husbands at whose mercy they live—or at least to minimize the abuse by getting out of the house and providing some much needed income.

Debbie introduces us to many of the women that she became friends with and their heartbreaking stories: from the student who needed help faking her virginity on her wedding night, to the young girl who is lured into prostitution with her father’s consent. But these women are resilient and determined to seize the opportunity to change their lives, even if that means assuming tremendous risks, so they pour into the beauty school and beg for a chance to enroll.

As I read the story, it struck me that the beauty school became for this women the kind of place that the church is meant to be: a much needed refuge and safe haven where those who are abused and persecuted can feel free to be themselves; a desperately needed learning center and supportive environment where those who are unschooled and unskilled can begin to build a life for themselves. We really need to work at removing the veil: the veil that conceals and restrains women in Afghanistan and other places, and the veil that covers our own eyes and prevents us from seeing the multiple ways in which we could be empowering others.