1960s Afghanistan, through the photographs of Bill Podlich...............
In 1967, Dr. William Podlich took a two-year leave of absence from teaching at Arizona State University and began a stint with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to teach in the Higher Teachers College in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he served as the “Expert on Principles of Education.”
His wife Margaret and two daughters, Peg and Jan, came with him. Then teenagers, the Podlich sisters attended high school at the American International School of Kabul, which catered to the children of American and other foreigners living and working in the country.
Outside of higher education, Dr. Podlich was a prolific amateur photographer and he documented his family’s experience and daily life in Kabul, rendering frame after frame of a serene, idyllic Afghanistan. Only about a decade before the 1979 Soviet invasion, Dr. Podlich and his family experienced a thriving, modernizing country.
These images, taken from 1967-68, show a stark contrast to the war torn scenes associated with Afghanistan today.
“When I look at my dad’s photos, I remember Afghanistan as a country with thousands of years of history and culture,” recalls Peg Podlich. “It has been a gut-wrenching experience to watch and hear about the profound suffering, which has occurred in Afghanistan during the battles of war for nearly 40 years.
“When I look at my dad’s photos, I remember Afghanistan as a country with thousands of years of history and culture,” recalls Peg Podlich. “It has been a gut-wrenching experience to watch and hear about the profound suffering, which has occurred in Afghanistan during the battles of war for nearly 40 years.
Fierce and proud yet fun loving people have been beaten down by terrible forces.”
"I grew up in Tempe, Arizona, 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 (Pictured at right).
Kabul Gorge or locally known as Tang-i-Gharoo which led to the Darae Maiee-Par (Flying Fish Valley). This is the highway which connects Kabul with the provincial city of Jalalabad.
"In the spring of 1968, my family took a public, long-distance Afghan bus through the Khyber Pass to visit Pakistan (Peshawar and Lahore). The road was rather bumpy in that direction, too. As I recall, it was somewhat harrowing at certain points with a steep drop off on one side and a mountain straight up on the other! I remember that, before we left Kabul, my father paid for a young man to go around the bus with a smoking censor to bless the bus or ward off the evil eye. I guess it worked - we had a safe trip." - Peg Podlich.
Peg Podlich, in the sun glasses, taking a family trip on a bus going from Kabul, Afghanistan to Peshawar, Pakistan.
Guard duty at the King's Palace in Kabul.
Afghan girls coming home from school. "Afghan girls, as well as boys, were educated up to the high school level, and although girls (and boys) wore uniforms, the girls were not allowed to wear a chadri (burka) on their way to secondary school. Able young women attended college, as did the men." - Peg Podlich
The Salang Tunnel, located in Parwan province, is a link between northern and southern Afghanistan crossing the Hindu Kush mountain range under the difficult Salang Pass. The Soviet-built tunnel opened in 1964.
A residential hillside in Kabul. "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.Ę 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. I thought it seemed somewhat like Arizona because of the arid landscape and lack of rain. Since I was born [in Arizona], it was very easy for me to appreciate the stark beauty of the landscape there in Afghanistan." - Peg Podlich.
A group of young Afghans share tea and music.
Frying jilabee, a sweet dessert.
Chemistry lesson in a mud-walled classroom.
Parking lot of the American International School of Kabul (AISK). The school no longer exists, although alumni stay in touch through Facebook and hold reunions every few years at different cities around the U.S. The next reunion will be held in Boston in 2013. "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
Masjid Shah-e-do Shamsheera in Kabul.
Afghan workers make a street repair in Kabul.
Afghan military band.
A mosque building stands west to the mausoleum of King Abdul Rahman -- in the present Zarnigar Park, center of Kabul -- which was the Bostan Serai built by King Habibullah (son of King Abdul Rahman). Today is stands as a store room for the Department of Preservation of Monuments, Ministry of Culture.
American International School of Kabul (AISK), Senior English class. Peg Podlich is on the left. "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
An Afghan boy decorates cakes.
A group of Afghan men look out over Istalif, about 18 miles northwest of Kabul, which was a centuries-old center of pottery making and other tourist attractions. The village was nearly destroyed by major fighting between "Northern Alliance" forces and the Taliban in the late 1990s.
A Buddha statue in Bamiyan Valley- a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The two largest statues (not pictured here) were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. "That was a bumpy, rough trip, but I'll never forget how wide and green the valley was or how monumental those two Buddha statues were, carved into the face of the cliff... The statues were a magnificent sight, even to someone like me, who did not really understand the history or technical achievement of those statues." - Peg Podlich
According to UNESCO, "The cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley represent the artistic and religious developments which from the 1st to the 13th centuries characterized ancient Bakhtria, integrating various cultural influences into the Gandhara school of Buddhist art. The area contains numerous Buddhist monastic ensembles and sanctuaries, as well as fortified edifices from the Islamic period. The site is also testimony to the tragic destruction by the Taliban of the two standing Buddha statues, which shook the world in March 2001."
Dr. Bill Podlich on a hillside in Kabul. "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 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.
