MORRIS, Man. – Lurching around Afghanistan in a truck driven by a man named Abdullah isn’t typical behaviour for an 80-something Canadian woman.But Flora MacDonald has never been a typical woman.And tales of her work in the war-ravaged land meshed neatly with the Manitoba Women’s Institute’s 100th anniversary celebrations last month.Challenges for women and girls in current day Afghanistan seem similar to when MWI began in 1910.“People hear about Kandahar and fighting and trouble but they don’t hear about the other 33 provinces of Afghanistan,” MacDonald told the MWI convention, explaining how she has been able to work with women and girls in the country for almost a decade.MacDonald was Canada’s first female external affairs minister and held three cabinet positions with Progressive Conservative governments under prime ministers Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney.After being defeated in the 1988 election, she dedicated herself to charitable endeavours.She first got interested in Afghanistan because her Scottish uncle was stationed there after his service in the Boer war in 1901.MacDonald explained how she travels the rough roads of Bamyan province, helping extend Canadian aid mainly to women who need help developing gardens, making clothes and educating girls.To avoid problems with the Taliban, she covers up when going from place to place.“It’s hard to ride around as a white-haired, fair-faced woman and not get into trouble,” said MacDonald, who had earlier seemed about to break into a highland dance as a bagpiper brought the lieutenant-governor into the hall.“So I keep trouble at a distance by hiding as much of me as I can, except when I get up into the high mountains, because there are so few people living up there, there’s little danger.”MacDonald explained how women under Taliban rule in 2001 were not allowed to speak to each other when they would show up for food aid, but after Taliban rule was broken, the women could begin communicating with each other and learning about the world around them.Canadian aid helped women get sewing machines and make clothes for their families and make money by selling clothes.MacDonald and other Canadian aid workers have also helped to set up schools for Afghan girls, who often have to sneak to the secret schools.“They would do anything to get there,” said MacDonald about how girls want to be educated so badly they are willing to face the dangers of persecution if they are caught.In the early years of the MWI, much attention was paid to instructing rural prairie women in how to safely preserve fruits and vegetables.MacDonald explained how in Afghanistan, women were not even familiar with crops that grow above the ground, previously only growing root crops like carrots and potatoes.“The hardest part was to teach them to eat green vegetables,” said MacDonald.
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