NOTE: This the latest in a series of conversations I have been having with an Afghan friend about life under the Taliban.
Dear David:
In my last year of college I started to think about immigrating. First, I planned to go to Australia and then to Europe. But I failed to go both times. At that time, I had one good reason to leave Afghanistan, and that was economic.
Since then, I have searched more extensively about lifestyle, income, culture, education and other aspects of life in Western countries. There are many differences from our life here. I realize that I'm stuck in a place where deprivation is the main thing we know.
People in Afghanistan have been struggling with poverty all go our lives. Most families do not have enough healthy food to eat. For example, we are a family of six and only I earn a salary. And that is just $100 per month. With only a hundred dollars for all of us, sometimes we get into trouble.
But we are lucky, comparatively speaking. According to the World Bank, the income of more than 60 percent of the population of Afghanistan is estimated to be less than 50 dollars per month.
One huge additional problem is that the culture of Afghan people is patriarchal. Women are deprived of their basic rights. For example, in the city of Helmand, there is not even a park or a restaurant where women can visit. Men do not allow their wives to leave the house.
Also, nobody cares about hygiene here. Everyone drinks from the same tea cup without washing it. They believe that passing the saliva of one Muslim to another is healing.
There are other factors that contribute to our poverty. The majority of Pashtun families (our largest ethnic group) consist of one man with two or three wives and more than 10 children. These people believe that God provides them with food. They leave everything up to God.
Most of their children do not receive a proper education. In this environment of mass ignorance, it is easy for terrorist groups to simply take power.
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