Image by Roohullah Anwari for NPR"Put on your burqa and don't speak English. They can't know you are American or we'll all be dead," Momand warned me as we left Kabul in his well traveled Toyota Corolla. (I speak Dari, one of Afghanistan's languages).
In Jalalabad, a fairly safe Afghan city near the Pakistani border, the plan quickly fell apart. The Afghan businessman, it turns out, had other things on his mind besides arranging my interview.
While Momand went to repair his car, the businessman took me to a tiny hotel room where I was to stay the night. The businessman told me Momand could not accompany us to the room because he'd gotten the room for his "wife."
Pashtun culture bars any man from being in the same room with a woman not closely related to him.
But the businessman would not leave. He kept asking me personal questions. He repeatedly told me to take off my burqa and sit next to him on the cushions on the floor. When he finally left the room to get some tea, I grabbed my cell phone and called my fixer in Kabul for help. He called Momand. link
« back to From the Frontline home
The burqa theory of reporting Afghanistan
on 15 Dec 2008
Soraya Sarhadd Nelson, a reporter with NPR, found out the only way to get to a story about the judiciary in Afghanistan was to don a burqa and head into Kunar province. Even then, things didn't go smoothly,
From the Frontline:
Calendar
Recent posts
- Fukushima: in the shadow of the Semipalatinsk mushroom cloud by Lynne O'Donnell on April 30, 2011 5:54 AM
- Have our leaders learned nothing from the war in Afghanistan? by Lynne O'Donnell on April 18, 2011 12:07 PM
- Why the revolution should leave Midan Tahrir, for a moment at least by Julie Tomlin on April 15, 2011 10:33 AM
Categories
- About this blog (1)
- Advice for journalists (10)
- Afghanistan (136)
- Africa (112)
- Americas (42)
- Angola (1)
- Announcements (46)
- Asia-Pacific (64)
- Blogs (70)
- Bosnia (1)
- Brazil (2)
- Burma (47)
- Cambodia (9)
- Caribbean (1)
- Chad (6)
- China (25)
- Colombia (5)
- Congo (32)
- Croatia (2)
- Cuba (3)
- East Timor (1)
- Eating on the frontline (8)
- Egypt (2)
- Entertainment (49)
- Equatorial Guinea (1)
- Estonia (1)
- Europe (24)
- Fixers (12)
- Frontline Club magazine (5)
- Frontline bloggers (68)
- Frontline events (129)
- Frontline members (103)
- Frontline training (3)
- Future of journalism (53)
- Gaza (30)
- General (28)
- Get your kit out (17)
- Getting the story (101)
- Ghana (2)
- Guatemala (1)
- India (6)
- Indonesia (4)
- Iran (15)
- Iraq (173)
- Israel (20)
- Ivory Coast (4)
- Journalism (289)
- Journalism awards (55)
- Journalists in danger (289)
- Kenya (12)
- Kosovo (2)
- Lebanon (14)
- Liberia (2)
- Madagascar (2)
- Media attention (4)
- Mexico (6)
- Middle East (131)
- Nepal (1)
- Niger (3)
- Nigeria (4)
- North Korea (7)
- Obituary column (116)
- Pakistan (26)
- Palestine (7)
- Philippines (3)
- Photography (116)
- Romania (2)
- Russia (57)
- Rwanda (5)
- Saudi Arabia (2)
- Singapore (4)
- Somalia (78)
- Somaliland (1)
- South Ossetia (39)
- Sri Lanka (17)
- Sudan (16)
- Syria (3)
- Thailand (3)
- Transnistria (1)
- Transport (3)
- Tunisia (1)
- Turkey (2)
- Turkmenistan (1)
- UK (5)
- Uganda (6)
- Venezuala (3)
- Vietnam (6)
- War films (49)
- War words (68)
- Yemen (1)
- Zimbabwe (37)
Archives
Our Bloggers
- Adam Blenford on Photojournalism
Last update on 22/07/09 - Adam Pletts in Afghanistan
Last update on 10/02/11 - Alex Strick van Linschoten - a war reporter on the road
Last update on 16/12/09 - Ali S. Novruzov in Azerbaijan
Last update on 22/04/10 - Anastasia Moloney in Bogota
Last update on 23/12/08 - Anita Coulson in Africa
Last update on 04/04/08 - Ben Hammersley in the Philippines
Last update on 17/02/08 - Charlotte Cook on Documentary
Last update on 22/03/11 - Daniel Bennett - Reporting War
Last update on 31/03/11 - David Axe - Africa is Boring
Last update on 29/10/10 - David Gill in Afghanistan
Last update on 20/01/09 - Deborah Bonello in Mexico
Last update on 11/04/11 - Devjyot Ghoshal in India
Last update on 15/08/09 - Fred on the Democratic Republic of Congo
Last update on 30/10/08 - From War Zones to the Wilderness
Last update on 21/04/08 - Frontline Club on documentary films
Last update on 17/03/09 - Glenna Gordon in Liberia
Last update on 03/03/09 - Guy Degen in Germany
Last update on 18/02/11 - Heathcliff O'Malley - a photojournalist on the road
Last update on 03/02/09 - Hereward Holland in Accra
Last update on 23/02/11 - Hodan Yusuf-Pankhurst on Somalia
Last update on 12/02/11 - Iona Craig in Yemen
Last update on 15/03/11 - Isabelle Roughol about Cambodia
Last update on 26/10/09 - John Owen on international news reporting
Last update on 01/06/10 - Jonathan Gorvett in Borneo
Last update on 26/12/08 - Kevin German in Vietnam
Last update on 18/02/09 - Kyle MacRae on citizen journalism
Last update on 09/06/08 - Last week at the Frontline Club
Last update on 26/10/09 - Matthew Collin in Georgia
Last update on 01/09/10 - Michael O' Riordan in the United Arab Emirates
Last update on 10/12/08 - Mike Hills in Lebanon
Last update on 30/07/09 - Morten Hvaal a photojournalist on the road
Last update on 10/06/09 - Natalia Viana in Brazil
Last update on 15/09/09 - Olga Kravtsova on journalism and trauma
Last update on 28/12/10 - Oliver Balch in India
Last update on 30/01/10 - Onnik Krikorian in Armenia
Last update on 19/02/11 - Patrick Wells in West Africa
Last update on 29/10/10 - Pete Chonka on Somaliland
Last update on 26/06/10 - Peter Moszynski on Sudan
Last update on 03/03/09 - Phyza Jameel in Pakistan
Last update on 22/10/10 - Rob Crilly - African Safari
Last update on 21/06/10 - Ryan Gallagher on Journalism
Last update on 12/04/11 - Salam Pax in Baghdad
Last update on 11/03/09 - Sasa in Syria
Last update on 12/05/09 - The Forum - Journalism, insight and debate at the Frontline Club
Last update on 19/04/11 - Tom Finn in Yemen
Last update on 05/04/11 - Vaughan Smith in Afghanistan
Last update on 21/02/11 - Yawar Nazir and Abdul Mohamin Bhat in Kashmir
Last update on 15/05/09 - Zimbabaloola in Zimbabwe
Last update on 22/04/08