Books |
Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil
Deborah Rodriguez
By
Published: Jan 01, 2007
Category:
Memoir
Her husband was a minister — and a pig. You know the type: jealous, possessive, calls the wife 70 times a day if he suspects she’s in the mere presence of another man. She had no college — she’d worked as a prison guard and was now on her second stint as a hairdresser — and she lived in Holland, Michigan, not exactly a center of opportunity.
But Debbie Rodriguez had a personality as vivid as her short, red, spiked hair. She’d taken emergency and disaster relief training in the summer of 2001. And she had a big heart.
So what did she do right after 9/11?
She volunteered to spend a month in Afghanistan. At the first meeting of her group with other foreigners living in Kabul, the women burst into wild applause when she was introduced — there wasn’t a decent hairdresser in the entire city.
Debbie Rodriguez loved Afghanistan. When she returned to Michigan, a friend suggested that she move to Kabul and start a beauty school. The idea itched. She couldn’t stop watching television footage of the Taliban. She read book after book. She knew, from her own experience, that she could help Afghani women: “A salon is a good business for a woman — especially if she has a bad husband.” And she identified with them: “I was still married to such a mean man that Afghanistan, then considered by many people to be the most dangerous place on earth, felt like paradise.”
“I hope you die in Afghanistan,” her husband said as she left for the airport in March of 2003.
“I’d rather die than live here with you,” she said. And, with that, “a door in my heart opened, and the tiny piece of him left inside tumbled out. I flew to Afghanistan, where my heart would soon fill with new people to love.”
And, it turns out, for you to love. Debbie Rodriguez is the kind of fearless woman that women instinctively adore (and men, at their peril, learn to respect). And in a beauty salon, women literally let their hair down — that is, once they’ve removed their burkas. So you get stories.
There’s the long-deflowered bride who, on her wedding night, needs to prove she’s a virgin. The woman who takes her burka off for the first time in fifteen years and has to shield her eyes from the sunlight for the first three days. The woman who hadn’t been out of her house in eight years. The hairdresser who had been jailed by the Taliban for practicing her trade.
And you get a glimpse of Afghan customs. Did you know that, in Afghanistan, both men and women get their bodies completely waxed before they marry? That at the wedding party, some women dress as men so they can more authentically dance with other women? That there are no rude Afghans? (“Even when they’re pointing a gun at you, they’re polite.”)
And, mostly, you get Debbie. Her determination: When the owner of Paul Mitchell phones her in Kabul, it’s only seconds before the question of donated beauty supplies becomes “how much do you need?” Her ferocity: I counted two incidents — there may be more — when she lifts her burka so she can see better to punch an offending Afghani man in the face. And her wild spirit: The story of her semi-arranged marriage to an Afghani will have you slack-jawed more than once.
“One person can make a difference.” I usually cringe when I hear that. But Debbie Rodriguez is living proof. She set a stage upon which women transformed their lives. She brought laughter into rooms that had only known tears. And, in the process, she found her own joy.
In May of 2006, some American military vehicles crashed into civilian cars. Several Afghanis died. A riot followed. American troops said they fired over the heads of the rioters, but several Afghanis were killed and many were injured. After that, strict curfews were imposed. And the Kabul Beauty School had to close.
Count that as a shadow. Debbie Rodriguez kicked open doors and smashed windows, and now there is light in the hearts of hundreds of Afghani women. I can’t imagine there are men tough enough to put those lights out.
Looking for a role model? Here you go.
