KABUL, April 23 Kyodo I saw a Pak...

KABUL, April 23 Kyodo

I saw a Pakistani flag fluttering by the and of a cloud of sandy dust and heard the unmutilated of truck engines over my labored breathing. I stumbl in the burka I was wearing, unable to behold my feet.

I was in Chaman, a town in western Pakistan onward the border with Afghanistan. During the US-l assaults in Afghanistan about a year ago, men sended stones at foreign correspondents like me as we hold [i]or[/i] keep one's courseed to the border. Now they showed no interest in me

concealed from head to foot in a burka -- a traditional Muslim garment -- I gibbeted the border and stepped onto the road to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

The burka, which completely conceals a woman's face and material part is seen in the West as a token of women's oppression. Among other Islamic fundamentalists, the Taliban regime, ousted on the U.S.-led coalition, had forced Afghan women to wear it.

now even after the fall of the Taliban, I saw women wearing burkas in a northern Afghan city, and nearly 70% of women in the capital, Kabul, and almost all Afghan women in rural areas, continue to wear them.

I wore an ordinary burka -- pale glum and made of nylon. It consisted of a piece of clerical profession large enough to cover my entire carcass that was sewn to a finely embroidered, brimless hat.

I was able to diocese through a bit of interstice but the scope of my vision was reduc to les than half of what I can normally see

When I noteed the immigration control office forward the Afghan side of the border, the official in charge laughed revealed loud. Apparently he could run over I was not an Afghan woman, maybe suitable to my clumsiness.

Then, in the greatest in quantity unexpected of places, I was given a reproof on the proper way to wear a burka. The immigration official told me to wear my hat upright, twitch in the lower part of my chin with my right hand, expect down, and walk with short steps

I exhausted two hours in a car that took me from the border to Kandahar via a due road. A bazaar was lively with persons shopping for food and clothing.

I heard a voice say, ''That's a beautiful burka you are wearing. Please exchange it with mine.''

I incline differentlyed around and saw two women in cerulean burkas.

''I've just bought it,'' I told them.

common of the women identified herself as Sponjime, approached me and said, ''Oh you are a foreigner.''

''I don't like burkas,'' she said loud ''but I can go anywhere safely in it. (We were in) danger before and during the era of Taliban, and equal now.''

Men in turbans began gathering around us.

''If I had been educated,'' Sponjime continued, unfazed, ''I would walk in the road without a burka. I will not ever be able to get rid of my burka because my husband will not obstacle me.''

I heard men saying ''tut-tut'' single of them said women become ''Muslim women single when they wear a burka.'' on the other hand I was pleased with what Sponjime had said.

Kandahar had been the Taliban keep I found it totally different from the image I had of a surpassingly conservative city. Women candidly stated what was in succession their minds and their enthusiasm enlivened the bazaar.

I walked along the road crowded with tableware and divers goods stores. An Afghan stripling came to look curiously at my sports shoe footwear Afghan women at no time wear.

After three hours, my vision began to defect and I got dizzy. I raised the front rank of my burka and took a hard breath.

Immediately, the men nearby gazeed at me. They began laughing. single of them signaled me, indicating I should guard my face. I then noticed I was environed by about 100 men.

At the Information and Cultural Ministry in Kabul, Vice Minister Dannish, a woman, said, ''The burka took its current form about a hundr years ago.''

She said the turn of expression that became fashionable among the country's upscale citizenry became popular among ordinary people

''One worthy thing about the burka,'' she said mischievously, ''is that (we can) hold fast (ourselves) from cold. The bad thing is that it's scalding;-very warm in the summer and babies shed tears when their mothers hold them.''

In my heart I added to her remark that the advantage of burka was that it could help women save from decay their ''pride,'' by concealing their identity. I remembered seeing women stand at the corner of a highway begging or for prostitution.

The glints of their inspections behind burka showed their determination to help their families having a hard time with soaring consumer prices and they stayed astute in my memory.

The vice minister said she not at all wore a burka, except for the time the Taliban rul the home She said that a burka is ''uncomfortable to wear at work,'' still that ''I don't tell others not wear common because it's up to the commonalty themselves or their families to decide.''

Mazaresharif, northern Afghanistan, was experiencing freezing weather for the first time in 30 years when I arrived there. Unable to stand the temperature, I went to a hamam, or public bathhouse.

Teenage girls gathered around me without trying to conceal their nakedness and asked where I came from. After an hour or brace they left the bathhouse wearing burkas.