{"id":20856,"date":"2013-05-30T14:22:39","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T18:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=20856"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:55:09","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T13:55:09","slug":"the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/","title":{"rendered":"The World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen [in Christian Science Monitor]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"World<\/a>When you Google journalist Anna Badkhen<\/a>, the one repeating line you\u2019ll encounter is this: \u201cAnna Badkhen writes about people in extremis<\/em>.\u201d To do so, she\u2019s \u201cspent [her] adult life in motion of one sort or another in the war-wrecked hinterlands of Central Asia, Arabia, Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Badkhen professes, \u201cI did not have a home,\u201d although she\u2019s been making prolonged journeys to Afghanistan with regularity. Her fascination with the country \u2013 and her sojourns there \u2013 began \u201cbefore American warplanes dropped their first payload on Kabul in 2001.\u201d Her latest extended residency finds her based in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, prompted in 2010 by a visit one afternoon to the tiny neighboring village of Oqa.<\/p>\n

Populated by \u201cforty doorless huts\u201d and 240 residents, Oqa does not appear on any map; no roads connect the village to any other. Officials in Mazar-e-Sharif insist that Oqa does not exist. But Badkhen knows otherwise. Oqa is the place where she witnessed the creation of \u201cthe most beautiful carpet I have ever seen.\u201d\u00a0It is that experience \u2013 blended with Badkhen\u2019s account of the cultural and political landscape of a people and region in extremis<\/em> \u2013 that forms the basis of her transporting new book, The World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Commuting from a working-class neighborhood in Mazar-e-Sharif, Badkhen became a frequent visitor to the home of septuagenarian Oqan patriarch Baba Nazar; his wife, Boston (Turkoman for \u201cgarden\u201d); his son; daughter-in-law; and their two young children. The Nazar family are Turkomans \u2013 members of the Afghan ethnic group known for their remarkable skills in carpetmaking.<\/p>\n

In the case of the Nazar family, their survival hinges on the deft fingers of daughter-in-law Thawra, who spends seven months out of every year \u201csquat[ting] on top of a horizontal loom built with two rusty lengths of iron pipe, cinder blocks, and sticks\u201d to weave a single annual carpet.\u00a0The necessary wool costs just over $60; the carpet will sell for $200 to a dealer who will send it out in the world where a wealthy consumer (perhaps in the United States, which is \u201cthe single largest purchaser of carpets on the world market at the time of this story\u201d), will pay somewhere between $5,000 and $20,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever her carpet ends up, for her work Thawra will be paid less than a dollar a day,\u201d notes Badkhen.\u00a0That precious payment will need to last the family another year, until Thawra\u2019s overworked body begins the creation process once again.\u00a0\u201cOf all the Afghan carpets, those woven by the Turkomans are the most valued,\u201d Badkhen explains. In Afghanistan, carpets remain big business. \u201c[A] million Afghans,\u201d writes Badkhen, \u201cone out of thirty \u2013 were believed to be weaving, buying, and selling carpets.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Oqa, where remoteness offers only illusory reprieve from the latest marauders \u2013 government militia, warlords, Taliban \u2013 Badkhen cannot safely stay even a single night.\u00a0Life here is often cruel. In Baba Nazar\u2019s own family, his daughter \u2013 mangled as a teenager by a land mine that left her, most important, unable to weave \u2013 had no choice but to marry an elderly and nearly toothless sharecropper. Baba Nazar\u2019s son, like most of Oqa\u2019s men, dreams of escape, yet lacks the means to do anything but survive another day.\u00a0Circumscribed daily by deprivation, men and women use readily available opium as a substitute salve because \u201c[f]ood \u2026 could cost five times as much.\u201d It is not uncommon for infants to die of overdoses. Only Baba Nazar seems to know enough to forbid its use in his own family.<\/p>\n

And yet even in this harshest of environments, Badkhen is able to capture kinship, laughter, and merriment, especially among the women. She tells their stories with an exacting vocabulary (her prose is dense with evocative words like filamentous cirri, sibilated, alluvial, and eldritch).\u00a0Beyond her words, Badkhen includes her own ambient sketches that capture the villagers\u2019 daily lives; the active curiosity her drawing initially aroused eventually gives her the opportunity to become an invisible observer. Badkhen was able to watch village women take companionable turns in sharing Thawra\u2019s work (\u201c[i]t took a village to weave a carpet\u201d), giggle over bawdy jokes in the kitchen, and indulge in joyous women-only revelry during wedding festivities.<\/p>\n

These are the daily details that each woman works into a carpet: \u201cher future autobiography, her diary of a year, her winter count, with its sorrowful zigzags, its daydreamy curlicues, loops of melancholy, knots of joy.\u201d\u00a0At the risk of spouting clich\u00e9s (but don\u2019t they become such because of the universal truths buried within?), Badkhen weaves her own literary magic. For now, the stories of these women (and men and children) will travel to places that none of them could even imagine, to places, ironically, that many of their carpets already call home.<\/p>\n

Review<\/strong>: Christian Science Monitor<\/em>, May 20, 2013 [print edition]; May 30, 2013 [online edition]<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you Google journalist Anna Badkhen, the one repeating line you\u2019ll encounter is this: \u201cAnna Badkhen writes about people in extremis.\u201d To do so, she\u2019s \u201cspent [her] adult life in motion of one sort or another in the war-wrecked hinterlands of Central Asia, Arabia, Africa.\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,328,114,107,20,6535],"tags":[486,6608,148,208,10,11,28,173,45,487],"class_list":["post-20856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-afghan","category-british","category-memoir","category-nonfiction","category-repost","tag-anna-badhken","tag-bookdragon","tag-christian-science-monitor","tag-drugs-alcohol-addiction","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-politics","tag-travel","tag-war","tag-world-is-a-carpet"],"yoast_head":"\nThe World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When you Google journalist Anna Badkhen, the one repeating line you\u2019ll encounter is this: \u201cAnna Badkhen writes about people in extremis.\u201d To do so, she\u2019s \u201cspent [her] adult life in motion of one sort or another in the war-wrecked hinterlands of Central Asia, Arabia, Africa.\u201d...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-30T18:22:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-17T13:55:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2013\/05\/World-Is-a-Carpet.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"948\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1422\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon","og_description":"When you Google journalist Anna Badkhen, the one repeating line you\u2019ll encounter is this: \u201cAnna Badkhen writes about people in extremis.\u201d To do so, she\u2019s \u201cspent [her] adult life in motion of one sort or another in the war-wrecked hinterlands of Central Asia, Arabia, Africa.\u201d...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2013-05-30T18:22:39+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-17T13:55:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":948,"height":1422,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2013\/05\/World-Is-a-Carpet.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/","name":"The World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-05-30T18:22:39+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-17T13:55:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-world-is-a-carpet-four-seasons-in-an-afghan-village-by-anna-badkhen\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen [in Christian Science Monitor]"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20856"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20856"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38444,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20856\/revisions\/38444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}