Bpeace in Kabul

On the way to the market, check out the high heels and the handbag with this burqa.


How many activities can you cram into a Kabul day?

Laura, Gwendy, Paula and Kate went to the fabric market with Mahbooba, head of the Afghan Women’s Business Council. There was not a natural fiber in sight.

Jim repeated his stunning “How to Make a Profit” performance, this time to the Style Road Trip ladies. They poured over their new Bpeace calculators, and realized how hard it is to make a profit. Jim’s recurring theme was “unless you make a profit, your business won’t be sustainable.”

Gwendy stimulated their creative imaginations with Keith Recker’s “mood boards”—a series of photo montages on color and design. The lively, fun session had the room buzzing with delight. Turns out our Afghan ladies love green and purple, and designs from China and India.

Ray and Gwendy conducted an embroidery design transfer demonstration. Ray has spend the prior three weeks buying supplies including chalk dust, rulers, tracing paper, Mylar, push pins and had “goodie bags” of supplies for all the ladies. His effort was much like a Thanksgiving meal, weeks in the making, and over in a half hour. He did a great job.

Paula was all over the day like sauce—shooting 600 photos from the market to the end of day’s training wrap-up. (By the way, it takes her an hour every night to download all her photos, and another hour to convert the photos we want to use on the blog. We hope you all are enjoying the photos, because Paula is sure working hard to bring them to you.)

Toni and Jim met with the Kabul’s tip-top businessmen, the leaders of Afghanistan’s International Chamber of Commerce. We met the top biscuit-maker, and the man who is leading a $50 million hotel development.

Kate had an unexpected learning experience with a visit to the Kabulpolice after her handbag was stolen from one of our vans during a flattire change. Typical Afghan bureaucracy gave Kate ample time to spendwith the middleclass detectives and policemen. Kate's interpreterMaywan facilitated a major cultural breakthrough between these curiousAfghan men and a Bpeace woman. They learned about American women andour projects. Kate learned that these men believe in a growing rolefor women in their society. Indeed they shared pride in theirdaughter's accomplishments. They believe that education and businesstraining is the foundation to keep Afghanistan free from tyranny andconflict, expressing deeply felt gratitude for our work inAfghanistan. The officers thanked Kate's husband for allowing her tocome to their country and look forward to meeting him when heaccompanies her on a future visit.

The entire team enjoyed dinner with Rodolphe Baudeau of Altai Consulting. His firm of more than 200 employees has been in Kabul for three years. Some of his predictions of where big business opportunities are for women, are right in line with our thinking—including hospitality and niche adventure tourism (mountaineering).

Whew…we’re pooped.

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