Journalist Joanie MeharryBy Joanie Meharry

"These are not the typical Afghan girls that you read about in the news," the headmaster told me when I arrived at the all-girls school for my first day of teaching. The classroom was lined with rows of bookshelves, and the four female students chatted energetically as they entered. All of the girls were striking with their vibrant headscarves, fashionable outfits, and facial features strongly suggestive of their respective origins: Bamiyan, Herat, Kabul, and Mazar-i-Sharif.

With the intense heat of the Afghan summer, I had donned loose linens and a silk headscarf that refused to stay put as we sat down in a circle. I explained that I had moved back to Afghanistan for several months to teach them critical reading and writing while I conducted my own research on the looting of the country's cultural sites.

"How would you like to structure the course?" I asked the group.

two students in KabulThe Kabuli girl spoke up first: "We want to debate."

"We can have informal debates when we discuss the books you girls are reading. How does that sound?"

"But you've been educated in America, you must know how to teach us formal debate," she insisted.

"I believe that you will be learning debate with your other teacher. The focus in this class is reading and writing."

"Yes, but the other teacher is a man, and we want to learn to debate from you so we can come back to Afghanistan and be strong, female leaders."

Thinking that their debating skills were already quite good, I nodded in concession. "Fair enough, we will have weekly debates."

After class, the same Kabuli girl approached me. She had the highest marks in her class and had been awarded a full scholarship to a prestigious New England prep school. Her family was thrilled and wanted her to spend the remainder of the term preparing for the cultural exchange. She was carrying the prep school's course catalogue and wanted to have a detailed discussion about her options for the next three academic years.

"What subjects would you most like to study?" I asked.

"Science and Math, but also Business, Economics, English, Politics, Women's Studies..." adding to the list as she flipped through the thick catalogue.

After years of sporadic education in Kabul-owing to the ongoing civil strife and changing political views of women's education-she was not going to spend another moment away from her studies. There were a number of academic options for students in Kabul, including Kabul University, The American University of Afghanistan, and Polytechnic University of Kabul, but she wanted an international education.

On her way out, she paused: "Oh, and for your class I'm going to read Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea backwards and forwards so I can explain to the American students why Afghanistan is just like Texas."

"Texas?" I asked quizzically, wondering whether this was the beginning of a political joke. But I never received an answer; she was already running to her next class.

an outspoken Afghan studentWeeks later I was having a tutorial session with the girl from Bamiyan. She had chosen to read Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. Like one of the protagonists, she was Hazara, a minority ethnic group primarily located in Bamiyan Valley—famed for the two standing Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. We were discussing relationships between the ethnic factions in Afghanistan.

"Would you marry an Afghan man?" she asked abruptly.

"Nationality is not important to me, but for now I'm simply here to teach you and do my research."

"Yes, it is important to have education first and marriage second: but my family does not understand; they want me to come home and take a husband."

In her household in Bamiyan, the girl explained, she would be expected to do household chores and take care of her family. She would have limited access to the Internet and little opportunity to read. She would have been content with this lifestyle before coming to study in Kabul, but now she was literate and held a high school diploma from abroad. She wanted a college education.

"I have a friend who met a boy that she liked in college here, and now they are married. I am too young for marriage, so I am focusing on my education for now. But you are old and educated. When will you get married?"

Before I could respond, my female student from Herat arrived. She was adorned in metal jewelry and jingled as she organized her laptop and cell phone on the table in between us. She quickly began to explain that she had completed reading Half the Sky, but instead wanted to recite a story she had written.

Half an hour later it was apparent that she was falling in line with a long tradition of creative Herati women, including her own mother who worked in crafts. Ever since the reign of Queen Gawhar Shad, the renowned 15th Century Timurid patron of the arts, the women of Herat had taken great pride in their cultural heritage. Herat was still considered the cultural capital of Afghanistan, even during the Taliban invasion of 1995, when Heratis posed a strong resistance to the Taliban forces who whitewashed their art and closed their schools.

My Herati student had been recently awarded a large scholarship to study at an overseas university, but lacked the means to cover the remaining costs. "I will not be able to go on in life if I am not able to attend school and write stories," she said as she slunk back in her chair.

Several days later when I saw her again, she was vigorously chatting with her classmate from Mazar-i-Sharif. The girl from Mazar was the most reticent of the four. As a young Tajik girl during the Taliban era, she had bravely smuggled goods to her neighbors and endured a string of tragedies. For the first class she began to read a colorful narrative about Afghanistan, but immediately abandoned it for a series of books on national and international politics.

As we sat down for one of our last classes of the summer, the girls were already amidst a heated debate about Malalai Joya, the female politician from Farah Province who had been suspended from Parliament for criticizing fellow representatives.

"We must raise our voices, like Malalai," the Herati girl proclaimed.

"No, women should work within Parliament to make change. What can Malalai Joya do now for Afghanistan? She lives in Canada," the Mazari girl rebutted.

"She did what she had to do at the time to make a statement, and she should not apologize for her words. We must all be educated so we can each find our own way to cause changes for the women of Afghanistan."

Joanie Meharry's last article for the Levantine Review was The National Museum of Afghanistan: In Times of War. She is a scholar in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. She currently divides her time between Afghanistan and the United Kingdom.