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.