Girrl Power in Afghanistan

The picture on the right served as a welcome sign for the Director of Education's compound. After meeting with the Director, we visited a computer class at the Teacher Training Center. It was a women’s only class and we had a chance to speak with several of them after class. They showed us what they were learning in class, which was basically an introduction to Word, Windows and Excel. The course lasts four months and they go to class every other day for one hour. Since most of the students don't have electricity in their homes, much less a computer, the time they spend at the the Training Center is the only time they have to practice their computer skills. The Training Center offers computer classes to men, women, orphans and street children and you can check out their blog at: http://www.rihr.blogspot.com/.


Since my Pashto consists of manana (thank you) and a badly gurbled sengay (how are you), we used English as our main form of communication. The women spoke English pretty well, especially considering we were the first Western women some of the ladies had ever spoken to.

The next day, four of the women and their instructor came to visit us at the Fab Lab. Since most of the equipment was not set up, Amy used her laptop to show them how to work the laser cutter. The women spent the next two hours designing and creating plexiglass keepsakes.

We sat around for a while before they left and chatted about our home lives. The women were curious to know more about how women live in the U.S., namely when they get married and what type of jobs they have. There was definitely an aura of feminism in the room. A couple of them declared that they were never going to get married, a daring thought given that most Afghan women are married by age 17.