Retired California professor teaches Afghan women the rules of the road

MODESTO, Calif. — Bibifatima Akhundzada wove a white Chevrolet Spark through downtown Modesto, Calif., on a recent morning, practicing turns, braking and navigating intersections.

“Go, go, go” said her driving instructor, as she slowed down through an open intersection. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

Her teacher was Gil Howard, an 82-year-old retired professor who happened upon a second career as a driving instructor. And no ordinary instructor. In Modesto, he is the go-to teacher for women from Afghanistan, where driving is off limits for virtually all of them.

In recent years, Howard has taught some 400 women in the 5,000-strong Afghan community in this part of California’s Central Valley. According to local lore, thanks to “Mr. Gil,” as he is known in Modesto, more Afghan women likely drive in and around the city of about 220,000 than in all Afghanistan.

For many Americans, learning to drive is a rite of passage, a skill associated with freedom. For Afghan immigrants it can be a lifeline, especially in cities where distances are vast and public transportation limited. So when Howard realized the difference driving made to the Afghan women, teaching them became a calling, the instruction provided free of charge.

He has a waitlist 50 deep and a cellphone inundated with texts from people seeking slots. Through word-ofmouth, he recently got an inquiry from Missouri.

After the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021 and instituted a strict Islamic rule, they banned girls and women from schools and universities and barred them from driving.

But even before the fall of Kabul, most Afghan women rarely got behind the wheel. In Afghanistan’s conservative society, women are often kept at home unless accompanied by male family members.

In the United States, Afghan newcomers tend to preserve religious and cultural customs: Most women wear headscarves, or hijabs. Many who are learning English prefer single-sex classes. Married women who were interviewed for this article agreed to be photographed only if their husband consented, and many let men speak on their behalf.

Yet when it comes to driving, many Afghan women are keen to assimilate — although you will not hear them invoke gender equality or empowerment. Their principal motivation? Getting from point A to point B.

“It was my goal to drive to help the family,” said Latifa Rahmatzada, 36, who got her license in September.

In Kabul, Rahmatzada, the mother of three young boys, had been mainly confined to the extended family’s compound. Shopping was a man’s job. On rare outings, she was escorted by her husband or a male relative.

Nearly 7,500 miles away in Modesto, she had no trouble persuading her husband, Hassibullah, to give her the green light to drive. “I supported her right away. It was so stressful for me doing everything,” he said, and so he contacted Howard.

These days, while her husband is working nine-hour shifts stocking shelves at Walmart, Rahmatzada is often steering a 1992 Honda Accord — it had logged some 190,000 miles before it was donated to them — to their sons’ elementary school, the supermarket and other places around town.

The United States is home to about 200,000 Afghans, concentrated in California, Texas and Virginia. Roughly half of them have arrived since the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, and more are on their way.

Coming from a country where traffic lanes, lights and signs were virtually nonexistent, even men who drove in their homeland face a big adjustment to the rules of the road in the United States. Some do not feel qualified to teach their spouses.

“All Afghan women and men are happy with Mr. Gil’s classes,” said Akhundzada’s husband, Sangar.

It became essential for Akhundzada, 22, to learn to drive after her husband started driving for Uber several days a week in San Francisco, 90 miles away.

“She needs driving to bring groceries, bread and for going to the park with kids,” Sangar Akhundzada said.