Peshawar

We were in Peshawar, in northern Pakistan, for a hot, sweaty, exhausting week in late June 1986. I remember spending hours lying under a slowly turning ceiling fan, trying to tune out the heat. The bazaar was full of Afghans, refugees from the war then going on between the mujahideen and the Russian army. I wore long-sleeved shalwar-kameez (a long baggy cotton shirt and very loose trousers) and had my head and shoulders draped with a shawl, yet the looks I got from many of the men on the street made me feel as if I were walking around naked. Most women I saw were wearing full-length burqas that covered them from head to toe, leaving only a mesh “grill” over their eyes. But some Punjabi women drew stares, as well, because they wore only loose shawls over their hair, leaving their faces bare or half-draped—even though they all had their arms and legs covered in loose, flowing cotton or silk. The local tourist brochure proudly advertised the local Pashtun culture as “the most male-dominated culture in the world.”