This issue features our remarkable interviews in Afghanistan with silk weaver Rabia Maryam in Mazar-i-Sharif and a US initiative to covert poppy farmers into silk growers. We also look at the history of Basque Shepheds in the American West along with the uniminaginable devastation caused by forest fires.
Vol. 10 Iss. 2
After decades of wars, bombings, invasions, and unimaginable hardships, northern Afghanistan is rebuilding its communities with natural fiber - sericulture, to be exact. As an alternative to growing poppies, women in Mazar-e-Sharif are once again beginning to weave and grow silkworms, thanks to a project created by the US government that now boasts more than 2,000 Afghani women. In the only issue to almost exclusively focus on one country, Afghanistan's wild fibers illustrates its softer side.
Fibers/Animals: Hebridean Sheep, Silkworms, Cashmere Goats Places: Afghanistan; Nevada; Scotland; Idaho
