Why a Booktrail?
1990s: For some, disguising themselves as boys is the only way to get ahead.
The Underground Girls Of Kabul
What you need to know before your trail
An Afghan woman’s life expectancy is just 44 years, and her life cycle often begins and ends in disappointment: being born a girl and finally, having a daughter of her own. For some, disguising themselves as boys is the only way to get ahead.
Nordberg follows women such as Azita Rafaat, a parliamentarian who once lived as a Bacha Posh, the mother of seven-year-old Mehran, who she is raising as a Bacha Posh as well, but for different reasons than in the past. There’s Zahra, a teenage student living as a boy who is about to display signs of womanhood as she enters puberty. And Skukria, a hospital nurse who remained in a bacha posh disguise until she was 20, and who now has three children of her own.
Locations
Reset- Afghanistan - Kabul
- A: Macroyan neighbourhood
- B: Kabul University
- C: Kabul Darul Aman Palace
Travel Guide
Kabul
In Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as misfortune. A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as “dressed up like a boy”) is a third kind of child – a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world.
Life in Kabul
Azita lives in a neighbourhood in Kabul which has a certain character and shows ‘normal life in a Kabul neighbourhood’
Here, laundry flutters on the balconies of dirt-grey four-storey buildings, interrupted by the occasional path of greenery, and in the early mornings, women gather at the hole-in-the-wall bakeries while men perform stiff gymnastic excercises on the football field
Homes in Kabul
Azita takes pride in being a host and showing herself off as an exception to the way Afghan women are portrayed in the outside world – as secluded inside their homes, with little connection to society, often illiterate and under the spell of demonizing husbands who do not allow them any daylight”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Underground Girls Of Kabul
Destination: Kabul Author/Guide: Jenny Nordberg Departure Time: 1990s, 2001
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