Word: khatol
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Restored to her job as director of physical training for the air force, the energetic Khatol, who is in her early 40s ("A lady doesn't tell her age," she says), has to make sure soldiers stay in shape. But after 22 years of war, things are in such disarray that the force simply is not equipped for the usual drills. Some soldiers don't have shoes to wear. Government coffers are nearly empty, and salaries have not been paid for months. In early July Khatol spent the better part of her days hounding officials in the Defense Ministry...
...Khatol's male colleagues are pleased to have her back. "We are proud of her," says Masood, 40, an air force officer and volleyball-team member. "It doesn't matter if she is a man or a woman. She is a champion of Afghanistan." Says Abdul Rahim, a gray-bearded brigadier who has known her for 10 years: "During the Taliban time, I was worried about her. I couldn't even go to her house and ask how she is. They'd kill me." These days, it is possible for a colonel to drop by and chat and even...
...work. She leaves for work at 8:30 a.m., always immaculately turned out--lipstick and eyeliner carefully applied, tie knotted perfectly on her olive drab shirt, hair pulled up and arranged under her maroon beret. Inside her black army boots, her toenails are painted a glossy red. But Khatol, a Pashtun, still chooses to wear her burqa while shopping, so she will not be overcharged in the bazaar. "The burqa is the culture of Afghanistan. With or without it, I am Khatol," she says...
...When Khatol returns home from work, she sometimes takes a nap on her bed, still wearing her uniform. Other times she relaxes in the living room, surrounded by colorful bouquets of paper flowers sent by well wishers. She likes to watch an old black-and-white Soviet-made TV that she borrows from friends, especially "fighting films" with Jackie Chan and Jean-Claude Van Damme. But mostly she frets about the future of women like her sister Lailama, who will find it difficult to make up for the time lost under the Taliban. "There's no difference between the Taliban...
...Khatol's greatest joy remains parachute jumping. She has always loved the way the wind feels whipping against her face and the thrill of the free fall before her parachute opens and carries her safely to the ground. She did her first jump in six years in March as part of the official celebration of Nawroz, the Afghan new-year holiday that the Taliban had banned. She was supposed to land in the Kabul stadium, but the helicopter mistakenly dropped her in a nearby field instead. Unfazed, she gathered up her parachute, hailed a battered old taxi and rode...