the_taliban_shuffle_-_kim_barker

jacket over his pressed cream-colored traditional long shirt and pants.
He pumped his hands in the air, put his hand over his heart. Women
gave speeches, praising Karzai for naming a lone female governor, for
letting them work in the ministries.
Karzai spoke for more than half an hour, acknowledging that some
people felt he had not done enough in his first term.
“I saw a lot of improvements on my way from the presidential palace
to here, beautiful houses and big buildings,” said Karzai, neglecting to
mention that many were built by prots from the drug trade and
corruption. “If I win the election again, I will ask the Taliban to work
hand in hand with their Afghan brothers, so they can help each other to
make a peaceful and secure Afghanistan in the future.”
Oh, great. Them again. Now, after making deals to win the support
of the country’s most powerful warlords, Karzai wanted to make a deal
with the Taliban, who clearly would balk at women being teachers, let
alone governors. Regardless, as Karzai nished his speech, the women
rushed toward him, handing him pieces of paper, favors they wanted,
or shaking his hand and crying. He called me “ma’am,” pushed his way
toward the door, and as he did so, a loudspeaker burst into ames,
creating a hysterical logjam of headscarves and burqas. Caught in the
middle, I shoved the tiny Afghan women to the side like Godzilla, but
still, one rammed into my right knee. I limped outside and watched
Karzai run toward one of the helicopters and climb inside, to y the
lonely three and a half miles back to the presidential palace.
The signs were growing that it was time to pull out—for me, at least.
I went to the Nova beauty salon, where an Afghan beautician sliced
open the bottom of my foot with a razor before plucking more than
half my eyebrows, leaving me looking permanently frightened, a line of
tiny scabs above my right eye. (The eyebrow, sadly, would never grow
back quite right.) I opened the refrigerator at the house and found a
tenement-sized rat, nonchalantly sitting on the middle shelf and
gnawing chorizo. I suered two bouts of food poisoning in three weeks.
I ran into my ex-boyfriend Dave, who got mad when I wouldn’t look at
his photographs of his various embeds. I attended my new driver’s
brother’s wedding, where an Afghan woman wearing hair extensions,
heavy makeup, $70,000 worth of gold, and an occasionally see-through