The beggar of Kabul

The car slows to a crawl at one of countless ineffective traffic circles scattered throughout Kabul. Left-indicating vehicles sporadically swerve right, while hazard-blinking vans force their way straight, all the while bicyclists risk it all for point B.

Near the yet-to-be-completed “pink” Mosque (not officially known as such, but it seems fitting since Mazar has a “blue” version), she emerges from behind a large official vehicle with tinted windows. Her dirty blue burqa outdone only by the filthy rag wrapped around her left hand. Her right hand extends in my direction. The hand is much older than she. Dirt occupies the thickened nails and prominent cracks in the skin. When last did this hand see water, or a decent meal?

Entering the campus gates of Kabul University, amazingly on time for my meeting with the good professor of History who agreed to see me on such short notice, the hand haunts me. Passing a smattering of burqas, but clearly more young women enrolled in a more modern outlook on life, I wonder about it. This hand so permanently cupped in the action of begging for survival. This hand caked in the dregs of society’s unwanted discards. This hand so randomly attached to this image, this woman, this person. Has it ever been loved, and has it ever loved someone.

This woman comes to represent not only the poor, not only the women, but much more of Afghanistan to me. I don’t even know what she looks like, but I think of her today shielded from the world, or perhaps the world shielded from her, as the beggar of Kabul continues with her day, and I have to with mine.