Afghanistan in the early 1970s was a fledgling constitutional monarchy. The second set of parliamentary elections in the country’s history had been held in 1969.
It was during this time that Bob Burman spent 6 weeks in Kabul. Burman was a UW faculty member in the Colleges of Agriculture and Engineering. The Afghan government was eager to make improvements in the fields of irrigation, seeds and fertilizers. And faculty from the University of Wyoming were brought in to help advise Kabul University. The goal was to help Afghanistan achieve agricultural self-sufficiency.
Burman documented his experiences in Afghanistan through letters home. He remarked on the women who were dressed in full body veils, called chadri. He was surprised by the colorfully painted, beat up buses, with people riding on top and hanging off the sides.
Read letters from Afghanistan in the Robert D. Burman papers at UW’s American Heritage Center.