The Bookseller of Kabul 11.17.08

Hopefully you read the post I posted just before this one because they are slightly related. But..I'm sure you can follow along anyways.

I just finished a section after Mansur has come home from his pilgrimage and everyone is at home. Leila, Bibi Gul's last child is still living at home, unmarried and is treated as the family slave. She is fed up with being treated this way and whats to leave the house when with her mother when Yunus got married. However, Yunus' engagement continues to drag on. Yunus is her only brother that doesn't treat with her with complete disrespect and expects her to kiss his feet.
Everyday Leila wakes up before the sun to start breakfast and prepares the house for the day. She works all day doing mindless chores and then stays up late into the morning cleaning up the last parts of the house and dinner. As Seierstad writes Leila story, the anger and anticipation to leave the house can be felt building up. So finally Leila lets go and secretly attends an English lesson at school without the knowlegde or permission from any of the men in the house. She uses a random village boy to escort her and is nervous but excited to attend the class. Unfortunately, when she arrives, she discovers that the class is very westernized. Few women wearing burkas and the ever more shocking...there are boys in the class! Shocked and upset by the people attending the class Leila barely sits throught the whole class and then rushes home, sharing the awful news to the fellow women in the house.