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Loading... Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veilby Deborah Rodriguez
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This book is really different. It is about a woman opening a beauty school where salons were previously banned. The book is really about defying the conditions you live in. This woman is living in a society where women leaving their homes; she teaches them to come to her school and learn how to depend on themselves and gain power. This book is a book about woman power and how one person can change an entire regime. It is a great story and although she fights many battles, it is not sad. The story teaches a lesson and it has a happy ending. She makes life easier for women. (  )alexandraboxer | Jun 10, 2009 |   This is the third book I've read in three days and all three were on different views of humanity and improving lives and none were even slightly alike but all were 5-star books. Proper review coming up... sometime. (  )Savondujour | Jan 30, 2009 | Don't bother, this is a pointless book. Egotistical volunteer teaching Afghan women cosmetology while solving all their problems. No concept of honoring their culture. (  )pictou | Jan 30, 2009 | This is an interesting look at women's lives in Afghanistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban. Deborah Rodriguez goes to Afghanistan as a nurse's aide in an effort to escape her own controlling and abusive husband for a while. While there, she interacts with many of the local women, and their stories of living with their own limited freedom through their own often abusive arranged marriages, yet still having the strength to try to better their lives encourages her not only to divorce her husband, but to come back to Afghanistan and start a beauty school to help these women pursue one of the few careers open to them. Many of the women's stories are heartbreaking, but once they are in a salon or the school and are able to take off their veils, they become just like any women in a salon - gossiping and laughing, and even when they cry, they don't do so alone. (  )ShanM816 | Jan 13, 2009 | A Michigan hairdresser establishes a beauty/cosmetology school in Kabul to teach Afghani women marketable skills that will help them provide for themselves and their families. The resiliency of the beauty school students is inspiring given the violence, abuse, and poverty they've had to overcome in their young lives. (  )dele2451 | Jan 8, 2009 | 0.048 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0812976738, Paperback)Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born.With the help of corporate and international sponsors, the Kabul Beauty School welcomed its first class in 2003. Well meaning but sometimes brazen, Rodriguez stumbled through language barriers, overstepped cultural customs, and constantly juggled the challenges of a postwar nation even as she learned how to empower her students to become their families’ breadwinners by learning the fundamentals of coloring techniques, haircutting, and makeup. Yet within the small haven of the beauty school, the line between teacher and student quickly blurred as these vibrant women shared with Rodriguez their stories and their hearts: the newlywed who faked her virginity on her wedding night, the twelve-year-old bride sold into marriage to pay her family’s debts, the Taliban member’s wife who pursued her training despite her husband’s constant beatings. Through these and other stories, Rodriguez found the strength to leave her own unhealthy marriage and allow herself to love again, Afghan style. With warmth and humor, Rodriguez details the lushness of a seemingly desolate region and reveals the magnificence behind the burqa. Kabul Beauty School is a remarkable tale of an extraordinary community of women who come together and learn the arts of perms, friendship, and freedom. From the Hardcover edition. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:03 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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