A blog of a college student just trying to get by
The effects of surgical reconstruction and Americana on a little Afghan girl
Published on February 12, 2005 By Yonzer In Surgery
I am trying to do things on a Saturday, in hopes of being productive today. So far it hasn’t worked. Most of the day I’ve been watching the Discovery Health channel (which I am addicted too). An amazing story of this Pakistani girl who by all rights should be dead from a terrible accident involving an oil lamp and her skin captivated my slight hungover Saturday morning attention.

Her head and arms were literally wielded to her body by scar tissue. How she survived in that condition for close to a year is beyond me and a testament to the resilience of the human body. The story of how a doctor took her under his wing and practically adopting her for a year so she could undergo fifteen reconstructive operations was touching to even this beer guzzling slob of a college student.

One particularly intelligent thing this doc did was to have her tutored in the speaking and reading of her native language (In the short time she spent in America she had picked up a dizzing amount of English which puts my lacking Spanish prowess in a bad light). In the crucial developing young years of life (I believe she was only 8 when the ordeal started) it would be particularly detrimental when she reentered her Afghan life.

However one thing that struck me as sad was the scenes where her hometown village welcomed her back. Here was this little girl dressed in American clothes being very warmly greeted by her neighbors and relatives (and rightly so, she should have been dead). But what struck me was how different the women of the village were dressed and behaved then the little girl. They had all traditional clothes on that covered much of their face only revealing their eyes and some of the nose. Now I’m betting that if any of the other Discovery Health channel enthusiasts are as astute as I am they would think, “Good for her, she has self confidence, women’s rights, and all the other things that we consider (at least some of us) a part of normal life.

Now let me acquaint you with something called ethnocentrism (God I love spellcheck). It is judging another culture based on the values of one’s own culture. From my anthropology course, I know that for a woman to be dressed like that she would be considered a whore. That’s just how things are in that society. So it is amazing that a mere year in the grand ole United States can that much of a corrupting affect on a backwater Afghan girl.

And in my quest to rid myself of prejudice and ethnocentrism, I wish the little girl/whore well on her second chance at life.



The other show I watched was about Al Rocher’s gastric bypass surgery. He has done much to bring to light the silent struggle of the obese in our lipid saturated country.

But I think I’ll leave that topic for some other blog for some other procrastination Saturday. GO REDHAWKS!


Comments
on Mar 31, 2005
I found you from "dad gone mad"...interesting view on things. Ethnocentrism...we had to learn about that in my Speech class. It really does put things into a new light.
on Mar 31, 2005
Me to i found you on "dad gone mad"! You have some really interesting takes on ethnocentrism.