Afghanistan before the conflicts
For many of our generation, we have grown up to think of Afghanistan as a war zone. For as long as I can personally remember, it’s been an area of conflict, destruction and disquietude. I recently stumbled across an article that featured imagery of Afghanistan from the 1960’s, by a Dr William Podlich. He and his family took a trip to Afghanistan during the 60’s, and he captured what I hadn’t even acknowledged existed. Afghanistan, before the conflict. I Guess that’s down to my own lack of learning.. Either way, the images below are something truly extraordinary, and I’m hoping it will leave you as it’s left me; wanting to learn more.Words and photo credits to the original at the Denver post.
“I grew up in Tempe, AZ, and when my dad offered my younger sister, Jan, and me the chance to go with him and our mother to Afghanistan, I was excited about the opportunity. I would spend my senior year in high school in some exotic country, not in ordinary Tempe… Of course, there were loads of cultural differences between Arizona and Afghanistan, but I had very interesting and entertaining experiences. People always seemed friendly and helpful. I never got into any real difficulties or scrapes, even though I was a fairly clueless teenager!Times were more gentle back then.” – Peg Podlich.”
“My dad was a professor of Elementary Education, specializing in teaching Social Studies, at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona from 1949 until he retired in 1981. He had always said that since he had served in WWII (he trained soldiers against chemical warfare), he wanted to serve in the cause of peace. In 1967, he was hired by UNESCO as an Expert on Principles of Education, for a two-year stint in Kabul, Afghanistan at the Higher Teachers College. Throughout his adult life, because he was interested in social studies, whenever he traveled around (in Arizona, to Mexico and other places), he continued to take pictures. In Afghanistan he took half-frame color slides (on Kodachrome), and I believe he used a small Olympus camera.” – Peg Podlich.”
“I was in my senior year (my final year) of high school and I attended the American International School of Kabul out on Darul-aman Road. In Tempe, I had walked four blocks to school; in Kabul a school bus stopped outside our home. Jan and I ran out when the driver honked the horn. On the bus, we were supervised by Indian ladies, wearing saris of course, and were driven with about 20 kids back through Kabul, around the hill to the west side of town. ” – Peg Podlich”
“AISK’s last year was 1979, so the school had a 20 year history. AISK was located on the same campus that currently houses the American University of Afghanistan (on Darul-aman Rd in west Kabul). In 1967-68, there were about 250 students attending AISK and 18 graduating seniors.” – Peg Podlich”
“For the year that I was in Kabul, my family lived in a house in Shari-Nau, up the road from the Shari-Nau Park. My parents had lived in Denver, Colorado in the 1940s. My mother would say that Kabul reminded her of Denver: about a mile in altitude, often sunny, with beautiful mountains in the distance.Ê I thought it seemed somewhat like Arizona because of the arid landscape and lack of rain. Since I was born here (in AZ), it was very easy for me to appreciate the stark beauty of the landscape there in Afghanistan.” – Peg Podlich.”
