THE BOOK FAIR
READ AND FULFILL YOUR LIFE
Deborah Rodriguez
The Little
Coffee Shop of
Kabul
Author: Deborah Rodfiguez
Published: 2011
Genre: Fiction; Cultural
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 375
Review:
Yazmina, a beautiful young woman, is taken from her uncle by thieves for an unpaid debt. Her uncle helplessly pleads that he cannot afford their price of blackmail. Layla, Yazmina’s younger sister, hides with fear. She will be next the thug yells. Yazmina knows her fate; the men plan to sell her. Yet her real fear is that she is pregnant, and unmarried, worthless.
American born Sunny, moved to Kabul with her boyfriend, Tommy, to escape from “Nowheresville, America.” Five years later, the proprietor of her coffee shop in Kabul, Sunny finds happiness in her success. Navigating the dangerous streets of Kabul, Sunny visits the office of the Women’s Ministry.
Yasmina begs help from the newly appointed female minister who brushes her aside. Sunny however, does not and offers the young woman a job and a place to stay unaware of the danger and intrigue that will follow.
The chick book shines the spotlight on women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
Kabul
Beauty School
Author: Deborah Rodfiguez
Published: 2008
Genre: Non-Fiction
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 278
Review:
Deborah Rodriguez based her non-fiction book, “Kabul Beauty School”, on the years she spent living in Afghanistan. The story focuses on, the Kabul School of Beauty, where Deborah taught classes and on the beauty salon she opened.
Deborah Rodriguez, originally from Holland, Michigan, is the survivor of two failed marriages and the mother of two sons. A free spirited woman, Rodriguez worked for humanitarian causes, including helping in disaster relief in NYC after 9/11, and also in India, arranging and delivering food and humanitarian aid to villages, before she became involved in Afghanistan.
In the summer of 2001, Rodriguez took training for disaster courses with the Care For All Foundation. In 2002, she left for Afghanistan volunteering with CFAF. Once in Kabul, Deborah fell in love with the people and the country and decided she would help Afghan women by opening a salon. The Taliban had successfully closed down all the beauty salons in Kabul.
In 1996, Mary MacMakin began a non-profit organization called PARSA. Mary MacMakin also began endeavors to help Afghan women open businesses, particularly in the beauty field. The business women pool their knowledge and resources and plan the Beauty With-out Borders Kabul Beauty School. Deborah is thrilled to be a teacher in the school.
During her almost five years in Kabul, Deborah comes across countless women with unbearable stories of terrible brutalities of abuse: beatings, rape, torture, teen marriage, and young women sold by their families to older men as second and third wives. Deborah befriends many of the women and helps those she can. The most remarkable value the salons hold for women, aside from the beauty treatments, is that the salon is a completely private place for women. No men are allowed inside the salon, for any reason, at any time, ever.
Deborah battles bureaucracy, theft, and child molesters as she manages to teach classes at the school and run her salon, all in a city in which the language is difficult for her. She was about to graduate a fourth class when she was forced to leave the country after learning of a threat to kidnap her son.
Although the school is no longer open, Deborah Rodriguez is grateful for having the opportunity to have helped the women she met in Afghanistan and she hopes to one day return. It is understood that her problems in Afghanistan stemmed from the publishing of the book, “Kabul Beauty School”. Deborah resides in California.