Kabul Beauty School
Deborah Rodriguez
Reviewed by Karen Morse
Deborah Rodriquez, known by Kabul
shop owners and Michigan
prison
inmates alike as “Miss Debbie,” first came to Afghanistan
in 2002 as part of a group from the Care for All Foundation, a
Christian
Humanitarian Organization. A hairdresser
by trade, Rodriguez is deemed significantly less useful than her
medically-trained
compatriots and is given any number of odd jobs and a good deal of free
time to
explore the city. Little did she--or the
relief group--realize exactly how desirable her skills might be in that
war-torn city.
When the expatriate community discovers a hairdresser in
their midst, Rodriguez is swamped with requests. One
woman summed up the situation quite
succinctly: “We have literally risked
our lives for highlights. […] Once I drove ten hours over the Khyber
Pass to get my hair done in Pakistan”
(39). During Taliban rule, hair salons
and their feminine space were banned. In
2002 salons were only just starting to reopen, struggling without the
supplies
and skills needed to be truly successful.
As she begins to befriend both westerners and Afghans in Kabul,
Rodriguez begins to see a niche that she can fill. She
returns to Michigan
hoping to find a way to open a teaching salon in Kabul. Armed with her dream and a lot of gumption
she manages to get $500,000 worth of donations from Paul Mitchell and
other
large beauty companies. Just when
Rodriguez
is at a loss as to how to proceed, she discovers Mary MacMakin and her
nonprofit, PARSA . Aligning herself with PARSA, she returns to Kabul
in Spring 2003 as a founding faculty member of the Kabul
Beauty School,
eventually becoming its lead instructor and administrator.
While Rodriguez’s story of an American woman helping to make
a difference in the lives of Afghan women is not unique, it is both
moving and
powerful. KABUL
BEAUTY SCHOOL
is compulsively readable. A strong
opening chapter illustrates both the struggles of modern Afghan women
and
Rodriguez’s inimitable blend of brazenness and kindness, leaving
readers with a
desire to know more about this spunky, resourceful hairdresser and her
students.
The stories of Rodriguez’s students fill the pages of this
memoir: the wife of a Taliban-aligned
opium addict, the bride who must fake virginity, and the young girl
sold by her
parents to an older man, just to name a few.
The author, however, is just as interesting as her students.
One of the things that sets Rodriguez apart is her ability
to empathize with her students. Having
suffered an abusive husband, she is attuned to the indignities--both
large and
small--that affect Afghan women every day.
Rodriguez is dynamic and personable; more than that, she clearly
loves Afghanistan
and its people. As she so elegantly puts
it, “as soon as I set my foot on this soil, I knew I’d somehow
managed to come home. I’ve been
renewed
by the spirit of this place and roused by its challenges” (269). While Rodriguez maintains both her
personality and independence throughout the period covered in this
memoir, she becomes
ever more a part of the Afghan community, even allowing her friends to
arrange
a marriage to an Afghan businessman.
The history of the school--and Rodriguez's life in Kabul--is
not without drama. The school has
political and financial problems. There
are cultural misunderstandings, most perpetrated by the clueless, but
well-meaning Rodriguez. At the memoir's
end, we learn that both the school and affiliated salon have been
closed. Nevertheless, the reader is left
with a sense
of hope: if anyone can turn things around, it is Rodriguez.
The narrative is a bit uneven (for example, the handling of her
son’s stay in Afghanistan is cursory, simply tagged onto a story about
one of
her students). However, that is almost to
be expected in a first effort and the natural charisma of the author,
and the
compelling tale of the school, will be enough to keep readers
interested.
Author- Salon's Web Site