Guests in the Land of Buzkashi: Afghanistan Revisited
by Miriam L. Stratton
Category: History

In 1972-73, the author lived with her family in Kabul, Afghanistan during the period when a coup replaced the monarchy with a republic. The resulting instability of the government alarmed the Soviet Union which began to apply pressure on the government to replace all westerners with Soviet workers. Consequently, many foreign aid projects fell by the wayside. This is an insider view of Afghanistan at a formative period of its history and gives background to understand today's rule by the fundamentalist sect, the Taliban. Stratton mixes humor with frustration as she meets inflexible male Afghan attitudes toward women, particularly the male servants in their home, as well as how foreigners seek to create a slice of home in alien circumstances. Gathering around the pool to trade rumors following the coup, learning one's telephone is tapped, mixed signals between cultures, having a servant threaten to kill for one for his having been fired. All these and more give the reader insight into living abroad in a third world country. Stratton and a female friend risked the hostile elements to travel around the country on their own, in an unreliable car that put them in peril more than once. They lived through their experiences...perhaps by Grace extended to naïve fools.