THE KABUL BEAUTY SCHOOL, By Deborah Rodrigues

Just finished reading this book and I am eager to share with everyone Debbie's incredible story. At first glance, a small-town American hairdresser volunteering in war-torn Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, would have strictly nothing to do there. But here's a typical, amazing example of being at the right place at the right time, and turning a small advantage into something much bigger than yourself.

Shyly standing amongst her co-aid workers, Debbie listens at everyone being introduced as doctor, epidemiologist, educator, and dreads what explanation would be given about her presence there. But at the moment she is introduced as a hair dresser and beautician, the whole room of foreigners living in Kabul erupts with applause, and before she knows it, she is busy, from morning to evening, cutting hair, giving highlights and pedicures to people from all different nationalities.

From here comes an idea, which, little she knows, will start a mini-revolution in the lives of many an Afghan women. Debbie realises that in the patriarchal Afghani culture, being a hairdresser or a beautician, is one of the very very few professions which give a woman the legitimate reason to leave her home and earn money. So she decides to start a beauty school, as a mean of empowerment and livelihood for Afghani women. Back in the US, she starts collecting donations from customers and even manages to involve big cosmetics companies to contribute money and supplies for the school. Ecstatic, she goes back to Kabul (leaving her mother and two teenage sons back in America) and thus starts a story worth a blockbuster - a lone American woman struggles with prejudice, threats to her security, finances, the rough conditions in the country and bureaucracy, to not only initiate social change, but also change her own life forever (getting a glimpse of life behind the veil, committing every possible cultural faux pas, and even marrying an Afghan man 10 years younger than her - knowing she is his second wife). This is a story of incredible guts, living life to the fullest, of unlikely friendships, and a simple truth I only too well understand - sometimes it is hard to change an injustice happening right in front of your eyes. It is not easy to go into a country with such harsh realities and ancient, rigid culture, and just wave a magic wand. It needs a lot of patience, understanding, treading with a velvet glove.

Another moral of the story for me, personally, is: even if you are wondering about a place and thinking 'what the hell am I doing here?', you never, absolutely never know what life has in stock for you, and sometimes the most unexpected thing can empower you and give a meaning to your existence.

Read more on http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/11/DDG5SP5EOE1.DTL