I have finished reading Kabul Beauty School. It was depressing that the ending was so sad. There were several more stories about women getting abused and Debbie encountered more problems with the Afghanistan government. Debbie also had to fire her housekeeper Shaz, because she was in love with a bad man named Farooq who gave her drugs and was calling or texting many of the women running the Beauty School salon that funded the school. If the women's husbands found out about the calls they would probably beat their wives. This made me really sad not only for the wives sake but because Shaz was so disillusioned and she herself had suffered a traumatic childhood. Another sad story is the story about Hama, the girl who hung around with the abusive family friend. Though Debbie tried to help her, Debbie tried to get Hama a visa so she could live in the US, but Hama continued to be with Ali and his friends. Though Debbie tried she could not stop Hama from being with Ali and Hama endangered the Beauty School if she hung around it, so Debbie was forced to make Hama leave to protect the school. One really sad thing was that Hama was only around 15 when Debbie first met her and Debbie is unsure of how long this abuse has been going on. Finally, Debbie was forced to leave Afghanistan and the Beauty School. She was getting threatened by someone in Afghanistan, she wasn't sure who but she was informed by a friend in the government. Because she had her son with her in that particular trip to Afghanistan, she decided that she needed to leave so she and her son left Afghanistan and Debbie was not able to return.
I think that it is really sad that someone would threaten Debbie after all she had done to help Afghanistan. I also think it is really sad all the depressing stories about women being abused in Afghanistan. I believe that Debbie was brave to go to Afghanistan and try and help the women there, when Debbie didn't even speak the language or know any of the customs, she just went there with a dream to try and help.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Kabul Beauty School part 2
I am continuing reading Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez, I am currently on page 196. Debbie was able to make her idea about opening a school for hairdressers in Afghanistan a reality. She got several hair product donations from such companies as Paul Mitchell. Debbie than got help from the organization PARSA to help fund and run her beauty school. So with all the hair product donations and the help from PARSA the school Beauty Without Borders Kabul Beauty School got started. Debbie was a teacher there and she taught the women attending the school about various hairdresser things. Original she had trouble with that because she needed to use a translator because she wasn't fluent in Dari, however after a while she found out that if she had a student who understood the concept well teach the class instead, it was much easier. The school did have several problems including getting their land confiscated and having to move the school's location, and then having to move again because they were stuck in a place were empty rooms got rented out to men who liked to party a lot. There was also the problem of the lack of funding the school got. This prompted Debbie to make a salon to help fund the school. She had graduates from the school help run the salon which catered to western clients. I have also learned more about Deborah Rodriguez. She seems to always be sort of depressed. She always seemed to need some person to be with which causes her to quickly marry people who she doesn't really know much about. After her first divorce she married a preacher who became an abusive husband. She managed to divorce him and after that she went to Afghanistan to start her beauty school. In Afghanistan her Afghan friends believe that she needs an Afghan husband and so they find one for her. After only a few dates she and the Afghan guy, who was already married and had kids in Saudi Arabia, got married.
I think it is really sad some of the stories about women being abused in Afghanistan. There was this one girl named Hama who was molested by an older man who was a friend of her family. When Debbie found out about this she was very angry and tried to help Hama by keeping her away from the old guy. Eventually someone from the US told Debbie that she would take Hama in. So, Hama was sent to live in America. There was also a woman whose husband was very abusive and Debbie tried to help her. Debbie managed to get the women into the beauty school and after beauty school the woman managed to get her husband to divorce her. After that she started her own salon and is doing so well that she doesn't ever have to get married again.
I am really happy that Debbie has helped so many people and is trying to help even more. However, I think that Debbie is sort of a weird person and has some issues. I think it was really stupid of her to marry an Afghan man, even though he had some progressive thinking, he was still raised in a culture where women were considered inferior and were bossed around by their husbands. I also think that when Debbie went to Afghanistan she was abandoning her kids in America, when she first went to Afghanistan I think her kids were only in their teens and I think that by going to Afghanistan she abandoned them.
I think it is really sad some of the stories about women being abused in Afghanistan. There was this one girl named Hama who was molested by an older man who was a friend of her family. When Debbie found out about this she was very angry and tried to help Hama by keeping her away from the old guy. Eventually someone from the US told Debbie that she would take Hama in. So, Hama was sent to live in America. There was also a woman whose husband was very abusive and Debbie tried to help her. Debbie managed to get the women into the beauty school and after beauty school the woman managed to get her husband to divorce her. After that she started her own salon and is doing so well that she doesn't ever have to get married again.
I am really happy that Debbie has helped so many people and is trying to help even more. However, I think that Debbie is sort of a weird person and has some issues. I think it was really stupid of her to marry an Afghan man, even though he had some progressive thinking, he was still raised in a culture where women were considered inferior and were bossed around by their husbands. I also think that when Debbie went to Afghanistan she was abandoning her kids in America, when she first went to Afghanistan I think her kids were only in their teens and I think that by going to Afghanistan she abandoned them.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Kabul Beauty School
I have read the first 56 pages of the book Kabul Beauty School. This book is a memoir about Deborah Rodriguez, a hairdresser, who went to Afghanistan to try and help people. The book starts out with the wedding of Debbie's best friend, Roshanna. As a favor to Roshanna Debbie did all of Roshanna's hair and make-up. This was a lot because brides wear tons of make-up for their wedding and they have to have all of their hair, except for the hair on their head and eyebrows, waxed off. After Rodriguez talks about the wedding, she talks about why she went to Afghanistan. She went with the group CFAF (Care for All Foundation). At first Debbie didn't know what she could do to help since she was only a hairdresser and not a doctor or other medical person. At the beginning Debbie did little things to help, like doing people's laundry or praying for the group. But, when she went to a meeting that had many people from various organizations to help Afghanistan, many women there were excited to have a hairdresser. So, Debbie did many of the volunteers hair. After that Debbie was interested in seeing what a salon in Afghanistan looked like, since under the oppressive Taliban rein they had been wiped out and were only starting to come back. Once Debbie saw a salon, she realized that she could teach women how to hairdress so that they could make money and become the breadwinners of their family. This is where I stopped reading and I am really excited to continue reading.
I really like this book so far. I think that it is so cool that this woman, a simple hairdresser, is trying to help all these people in Afghanistan. I think that it is amazing that this one woman could help so many people and that she is unafraid of trying to help and is trying to do everything she can to help. I also think it is interesting learning about the culture of Afghanistan and how different it is from the US. The marriage ceremony is so different from American marriages, it was cool learning what the Afghan marriages were like. However, I do not like the sexism of the Afghan culture, like women have to wear the burqas and the women don't really go out in public much, and how the men and women are in separate spheres.
I really like this book so far. I think that it is so cool that this woman, a simple hairdresser, is trying to help all these people in Afghanistan. I think that it is amazing that this one woman could help so many people and that she is unafraid of trying to help and is trying to do everything she can to help. I also think it is interesting learning about the culture of Afghanistan and how different it is from the US. The marriage ceremony is so different from American marriages, it was cool learning what the Afghan marriages were like. However, I do not like the sexism of the Afghan culture, like women have to wear the burqas and the women don't really go out in public much, and how the men and women are in separate spheres.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
2 Annotations
How much should the government help the environment?
Susskind, Lawrence. "Strengthening the Global Environmental Treaty System." Issues in Science and Technology Vol. 25, No. 1 Fall 2008. SIRS..
The author of this article is Lawrence Susskind. He is currently a professor of Urban and Environmental planning at MIT. He has a B.A. in English literature and sociology from Colombia University.He also has a Masters in city planning and a PhD in Urban planning from MIT. He has also won many awards including the Global Environmental Award for his work contributing to the field of environmental conflict. Lawrence Susskind is also the founder and president of the Consensus Building Institute. This institute helps mediate disputes between countries worldwide. This article by Lawrence Susskind is about the problems of international treaties that are specifically about environmental issues. These problems include there being no way for the treaties to be enforced, not all the countries are joining and there is no profit for them to join, and the fact that the countries do not know what each countries contribution should be, considering how developed the country is. Finally, the article discussed ways the treaties could be improved, including making it profitable for counties to join and having groups in the various countries try and help the countries follow the treaties.
Jayson, Sharon. "What It Means to Think 'Green'." USA Today 13 Aug 2008. SIRS..
The author, Sharon Jayson, is currently a journalist for USA Today, specializing in articles about behavior and relationships.She has worked in the media for a long time and has had jobs in different media areas. She was a journalist for the Austin American-Statesmen before she worked for USA Today. She has also worked for radio programs and been anchors for newscasts. This article by Jayson is about the psychology of thinking green. It talks about experiments by different psychologists including experiments about the effect of propaganda on peoples’ opinions on being green. The article is also about how people do not always understand what they can do to help the environment and how they do not understand everything they are hearing about such things as global warming.
Susskind, Lawrence. "Strengthening the Global Environmental Treaty System." Issues in Science and Technology Vol. 25, No. 1 Fall 2008. SIRS.
The author of this article is Lawrence Susskind. He is currently a professor of Urban and Environmental planning at MIT. He has a B.A. in English literature and sociology from Colombia University.He also has a Masters in city planning and a PhD in Urban planning from MIT. He has also won many awards including the Global Environmental Award for his work contributing to the field of environmental conflict. Lawrence Susskind is also the founder and president of the Consensus Building Institute. This institute helps mediate disputes between countries worldwide. This article by Lawrence Susskind is about the problems of international treaties that are specifically about environmental issues. These problems include there being no way for the treaties to be enforced, not all the countries are joining and there is no profit for them to join, and the fact that the countries do not know what each countries contribution should be, considering how developed the country is. Finally, the article discussed ways the treaties could be improved, including making it profitable for counties to join and having groups in the various countries try and help the countries follow the treaties.
Jayson, Sharon. "What It Means to Think 'Green'." USA Today 13 Aug 2008. SIRS.
The author, Sharon Jayson, is currently a journalist for USA Today, specializing in articles about behavior and relationships.She has worked in the media for a long time and has had jobs in different media areas. She was a journalist for the Austin American-Statesmen before she worked for USA Today. She has also worked for radio programs and been anchors for newscasts. This article by Jayson is about the psychology of thinking green. It talks about experiments by different psychologists including experiments about the effect of propaganda on peoples’ opinions on being green. The article is also about how people do not always understand what they can do to help the environment and how they do not understand everything they are hearing about such things as global warming.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Seeing Redd part 3
I have finished the book Seeing Redd. Hatter Madigan managed to get into Boarderland and he starts to serve King Arch, while secretly he is looking for his daughter Molly. In Boarderland he finds that Weaver is actually alive and has been staying in Boarderland for safety. While Hatter is trying to save Molly, Redd was gathering forces on Earth. After a while, she came back to Wonderland to complete her Looking Glass Maze, every person who is going to be queen or are in royal succession have a maze, and once they complete their maze they become immensely more powerful. While that is happening Alyss and her army are trying to protect Wonderland and is fighting against King Arch's forces. Once Redd had completed her maze, she went to Boarderland and managed to get a lot of military support from the different tribes in Boarderland who didn't like the king. With their help Redd overthrew King Arch and took over Boarderland. Because of this Hatter, Molly, and Weaver managed to escape Boarderland, although Weaver gets killed while they escape. After Redd conquered Boarderland she went after Wonderland. She and Alyss fight for control of Wonderland. Alyss realizes that she is losing and follows the advice of a caterpillar. Arch had made a secret weapon that could supposedly destroy all of the countries. Hatter and Molly had fled for safety and were at the point where they could activate the secret weapon. When it seems that Redd is going to win and Wonderland will be lost, Alyss tells Hatter to activate the device. The secret weapon has a huge explosion that causes any one with magic to lose their power to control the magic. This forces Redd to retreat. The book ends with Redd's retreat and the belief that slowly the people will be able to gain their magical abilities back.
Overall I enjoyed reading this book, however I believe that the first book was better. I think that this book focused too much on other characters besides Alyss, I think that Alyss is the main character and should therefore be the focus of the story. But, most of the story was focused on Redd, Arch, and Hatter. I would have liked to know more about what Alyss was doing because it seemed to me that she somehow wasn't that important of a character anymore, even though the first book was mostly about her. I think it is interesting when the author chooses to continuously switch the point of view in the book. Some books work with the switching of the point of view because I think it adds to the story and gives different perspectives which can give more depth to different characters. However, some books I think take the switching of focus a little too far. Like in Seeing Redd, I think there was a little too much of this because I felt that the protagonist was lost.
Overall I enjoyed reading this book, however I believe that the first book was better. I think that this book focused too much on other characters besides Alyss, I think that Alyss is the main character and should therefore be the focus of the story. But, most of the story was focused on Redd, Arch, and Hatter. I would have liked to know more about what Alyss was doing because it seemed to me that she somehow wasn't that important of a character anymore, even though the first book was mostly about her. I think it is interesting when the author chooses to continuously switch the point of view in the book. Some books work with the switching of the point of view because I think it adds to the story and gives different perspectives which can give more depth to different characters. However, some books I think take the switching of focus a little too far. Like in Seeing Redd, I think there was a little too much of this because I felt that the protagonist was lost.
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