Hair brained
BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN
Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind The Veil by Deborah Rodriguez Random House, 270 pages, $24.95
Deborah
Rodriguez thought she was staring at a Mardi Gras mask when a frizzy-haired
woman with sheep-shearing scissors and rusty makeup skills dolled her up in
a tiny, run-down Afghan beauty salon five years ago. "My eyes leaked black kohl for the next three days," Rodriguez deadpans in a new memoir detailing everything from an Afghani bikini wax to the war-torn nation's gender politics.
The fiery Holland, Mich., hairdresser originally came to Afghanistan for disaster relief work in 2002, but decided to stay, assisting in opening a beauty school and salon to help empower women, who, for the most part, are still considered second-class citizens.
"I saw how it helped me get through my bad times. And I really thought if it could help me, it's got to help others," Rodriguez, 46, said during a recent visit to Chicago.
Rodriguez's brand of lipstick feminism is a win-win situation; the fashionable female expatriates get trendy spa treatments and the Afghani women line their pockets with more than they could imagine. Cultural mores keep men from entering the salon so the women have an "Oasis" -- as Rodriguez's salon is aptly called -- to themselves. American beauty companies donate most of the products.
"A drop by drop a river becomes," Rodriguez says, quoting an Afghan proverb. "You're not going to change life fast in Afghanistan, but slowly, slowly maybe the women will be able to have a little bit more control over their lives."
The bubbly Rodriguez, a party girl once dubbed "Crazy Deb," admits she remains perplexed by some aspects of Afghan culture and still gets frustrated by the country's lack of electricity, which makes running a blow dryer pretty tricky. But while she misses wearing short sleeves in public, she opts to wear a flowing Afghan chapan, or robe, on her stop in Chicago, where she underwent disaster relief training three weeks before Sept. 11. Rodriguez's silver tribal Kuchi rings sparkle when she exasperatedly lifts her hands when talking about how Westerners think women in a post-9/11 Afghanistan are liberated just because some of the burqas have been tossed to the side.
"You look at the place and you think, 'I don't want to call it home,' but it has become home," the mother of two adult sons says of dusty Kabul. "But I say when 'my girls' have a voice and the world will listen to them, or their husbands will listen to them, or the police will listen to them, then I can leave. But right now, they still rely on me to be their voice."
Rodriguez has become a hipster den mother, cheerleader and confidante to women like Baseera, Topeka and Roshanna -- pseudonyms in the book -- whose personal tales she interweaves with her own in Kabul Beauty School. Conversely, these struggling Muslim women have become Rodriguez's savior. It is they she credits with helping her muster the courage to leave her abusive second husband and start a new life teaching modern-day beauty techniques and female self-sufficiency -- both which were quashed by the Taliban regime.
Interestingly, about a year after she first arrived, Rodriguez married a former mujahideen (someone who fought against the Russians), just 20 days after meeting him since, she says, dating is not an option in Islamic Afghanistan. At the time, Rodriguez was lonely and wanted to be part of the culture. Her husband Sam, 10 years younger, has another wife and eight children in Saudi Arabia. "It sucks ... I don't think about it and I've gone in denial status. There's no place in my Westernized thinking to rationalize it. So he keeps it out of my eye's view and I don't deal with it. I've shelved it," she says of being a second wife. She admits she wasn't in love when they first married but has grown to adore him since.
It's Rodriguez's witty and blunt unpretentiousness coupled with her affections for Afghanis that makes her story infectious and charming. She doesn't pretend to have all the answers and is the first to confess that the differences between her and Sam are "as tricky to cross as the Hindu Kush mountain."
"I want a hot bath and dammit I want some bacon!" Rodriguez wails when fed up with life in the rugged Muslim country.
Rodriguez's story is also full of heartbreak; detailing a world where many girls are forced to marry as young as 12. She dreadfully watches as teenager "Hama" become a sexual plaything for a man old enough to be her father. "That killed me," Rodriguez sighed. "The more I tried to do, the worse the situation got, until I finally just had to back out and accept the fact that I totally failed on this one."
But some of her former colleagues have questioned the details in Rodriguez's book. In last Sunday's New York Times, six women who were involved at the founding of the school say Rodriguez's book is filled with inaccuracies and inconsistencies. They accuse her of exaggerating her role in the school's formation.
Rodriguez said she is "saddened" by the recent allegations that she embellished stories about her "girls' " abuse and intentionally plotted to move the school to her home for her own personal and financial gain. She said she doesn't want to get into the "mudslinging" with her critics, most who were instrumental in establishing the school and appeared with her in the 2004 documentary "The Beauty Academy of Kabul." ("I was the loud one," Rodriguez boasts.) Her publisher, Random House, is backing the author's account.
Rodriguez will soon return to Afghanistan. She visits the United States once a year to fulfill her cravings for bookstores and "just being able to drive around." She also goes to Dubai every four months to touch up her auburn extensions, Botox and underwear.
But it's clear her heart belongs to her "girls," who pleadingly clung to her before her overseas book tour: "They looked at me and I said, 'No crying,' and they said, 'Debbie, you're our only hope. This is our last chance.' "
Rummana Hussain, of Indian Muslim descent, is a Sun-Times staff reporter who knows a good haircut when she sees one.