My mom sent this postcard from Kabul to her grandma (my namesake) back in Illinois in 1965.
I love the description of the photo:
Afghan national dance or “Atan” is exciting and full of pep. This photograph shows a few people from the suburbs of Kabul, the nation’s capital.
Traveling alone at the age of 23, my mom wrote this postcard the day she arrived in Kabul from India. (India, she told me, was the most depressing country she’d visited.) After five days in Afghanistan, she went on to Teheran.
I love these old postcards, but sometimes I want to cry when I read them. Single 23 year-old women don’t travel to Afghanistan or Iran for fun anymore. And people aren’t dancing in the suburbs of Kabul full of pep.
Do people even dance there at all now?
Wow, I’m impressed that your mother was so brave and original in her travels! Must be where you get it. I’ve found a young writer/filmmaker online who traveled in Afghanistan alone in 2004 with just $100 in her pocket. Quite a different proposition today, as you hinted. But she found plenty of amazing hospitality. Not sure about the dancing… guess I’ll have to read her book.
Here’s the trailer, in case you’re curious: http://blog.lizgrover.com/2010/03/butterfly-on-road-trailer.html
Wow! Thanks so much, Cara! I really want to read her book–after I finish yours!! Yeah, at least when I wanted to go to out of the way places, my parents couldn’t really argue with that. And we had some pretty cool furniture and art from her travels. Back then, things were so cheap!