Deborah Rodriguez spent several years living in Afghanistan, an experience she recounts in Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil. In today's blog post she talks about her quest to locate a copy of the Oprah's Book Club selection The Good Earth...and the similarities between reading groups and beauty salons. Living in Afghanistan for five years, I had only heard about book clubs from watching re-runs of Oprah. But in September of 2004, I decided I wanted to be part of one of America's favorite pastimes, so I unofficially joined Oprah's Book Club. I googled Oprah and saw that everyone was reading The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.
So I emailed a girlfriend in the States and asked her if she could send me the book. She was delighted to do it until she went to the post office and discovered how much it cost to send one small book to Afghanistan. I was out of luck.
Living in a war zone is stressful, and as the days went on, I started to get desperate. I just wanted to do something to make myself feel normal. I asked all the expatriate customers in the salon if they had a copy of the book, but no one did. In fact, my search seemed sort of ridiculous; after all , no one was living a very normal life --- some of the women traveled to the salon in a three-car convoy with armed security men and others arrived right after a roadside bomb had exploded. And here I was, hunting for a book!
It seemed that I wouldn't be able to read The Good Earth after all, but I decided to try one more thing. When I wore the black hijab, my friends called me Ninja Deb. It didn't matter. I put on the black hijab with only my eyes showing (a look my friends referred to as my Ninja Deb attire) and begged my husband to take me to Pakistan. My excuse for the trip was that I needed supplies for the beauty school. I had run out of shampoo and peroxide and really wanted to get a facial machine. But I had also heard about a wonderful bookstore --- I was sure the book had to be there.
I was excited and thought we would rent a nice van. I planned to take a nap while the hired driver drove and wake up in Islamabad. I soon found out that this was a far different plan than my husband had. I was pushed into a bus, told not to speak for the next 12 hours, and to try to blend in. Me, the chickens, goats and the other ninjas were all trying to blend in.
Twelve hours later we reached the Khyber Pass, a no man zone, a frontier tribal area and one of the most dangerous places in the world. We weren't so much traveling on a road as a rocky trail that no bus belonged on. The Afghans say that it is much better than it used to be, but I can't imagine how. I was sore for weeks after that trip!
Every bump and bruise was worth it when I walked into one of the most amazing places I have ever been. Row after row of books, it was the biggest bookstore I had ever seen, and most of the books were in English. I was in Pakistan and in a huge English language bookstore.
I was introduced to books by writers that few of us have heard of, written about places that I couldn't even pronounce. I had landed in the Mecca of books. I spent hours and hundreds of dollars and bought every book I could lay my hands on. I felt like a starving person at a banquet. The Oprah book club book was not there, but it didn't matter anymore.
I have found that beauty salons and book clubs are much the same. In the salon, I can't always get a group of women together to read and talk about literature. But over time, even when we have just one copy of a book, we pass it from woman to woman. Then, when a customer who has read the book comes in for a haircut or a pedicure we can discuss the book. It was a wonderful part of my days in Kabul.
I took many trips to Pakistan and created a wonderful library. There was always something good to share and to read. In the end, I never joined Oprah's Book Club. But like so many times before in my life, I changed the rules, made my own way, and started a book club of my own.
---Deborah Rodriguez
