Come Back to Afghanistan Blog #1

I have so far greatly enjoyed reading Come Back to Afghanistan. I, being half Middle Eastern, have always wondered how I would fit into the culture if I went there. This book talks about the challenges and struggles of a 17-year-old man living in America when he decides to go to his family’s homeland of Afghanistan. He calls himself Afghani, as I would define myself as Yemeni and Egyptian. However, I believe that if I went to either of my family’s home countries, I would not fit in at all. Hyder spoke Pashtu, while I speak no Arabic. I fear that if I ever went there I would be more like a tourist than a person returning home. If I were in Hyder’s shoes, I would at least have advantages such as speaking two languages that are probably the most useful in the area. I not only admire the actual plot of the book, but also the way that the story is written. Hyder throws in little anecdotes about, for instance, buying shoes in America before coming to Afghanistan and trying to pick out the right pair, while in the storyline he talks about hiking in them. It can be slightly confusing, though, because sometimes the events that happened long before he went on the trip can blend together in your mind as things that he did while he was there. Despite that, most of the time there is an obvious border between the past and present. The thing that I especially found interesting was the way that Hyder in a sense adapted to the environment. When he first came to Afghanistan, I would describe him as a jumpy American who had never really been exposed to real violence. After a few months, he had become completely accustomed to the explosions in the middle of the night and the guns that people had set on their mantles and bedside tables. I’m sure that after a few months of living anywhere you would get used to the new and foreign customs, but the violence is probably one thing that I could not live with or get accustomed to. As an American, being around guns is a dangerous and scary thought, but when you live in a place like Afghanistan, it is probably a very good idea to carry one with you because you don’t know when a random ambush will happen, much like the one that happened to Hyder when he was traveling with the American soldiers. Overall, my thoughts on this book lean heavily towards it being very worth reading.