Blog 2/17

So far I have enjoyed learning about Afghanistan from different perspectives, and from both men and women. Being in group one, I read pages 49-103 for this week, and enjoyed each one of the stories. 

A favorite that sticks out in my mind was titled: Mino, Daughter of Adbul Qasim and Zakira, Daughter of Abdurahman. The opening few pages of this particular story shocked me, and once I read a few lines, I was hooked. On page 90, Mino says: "Oh my god... A stranger saw my face" after her future husband was looking up to her window one day after changing into comfier clothes to do dishes in. Again, as with the first story, "Anisa, Daughter of Isa Mujammad," arranger marriages were the norm for young people in Afghanistan. Something else that I noticed about the social/love relationships in Afghanistan are that most husbands practice polygamy, which is a topic I am familiar with due to another class I am taking this semester. Many Americans (possibly not in Utah...) find polygamy as a unethical marriage practice, but many others believe it is just a common way of life. Before Mino's marriage to Ibrahim Bek, Tahir tells her that "We've been friends for many years so I can vouch for him and know that he will be very trustworthy. You'll be his second wife." 

Time passes, and things between Mino and Ibrahim grow old and rusty... I learned that "Taloq" means divorce, and that if someone says it three times, they can not go back on their "decision," as it would be sinning against Allah. People who live in their town are horrified that Mino was still living in the same house as her ex-husband, but she did not have anywhere to go, and with children this situation was ever more difficult. In America, with divorces, clearly there are rights and boundaries that usually help the mother or father in need  financially, but in Afghanistan this is not the case. Mino was horrified and eventually ended up moving back in with her family and basically went into a depression. With the death of her daughter to malaria, her luck was not looking up. By the end of the section of the chapter, Mino's fate does take a shart turn-around, and her love with Ibrahim starts to be rekindled, but they must formulate a plan before the two are re-married.