Driving with Mr. Gil: a retiree teaches Afghan women the rules of the road

Bibifatima Akhundzada recently drove a white Chevy Spark through downtown Modesto, California, as he practiced turning, braking and navigating intersections.

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

Her teacher was Gil Howard, an 82-year-old retired professor who happened to have a second career as a driving instructor. And not an ordinary instructor. In Modesto, California, he is the teacher for women from Afghanistan, where driving is off limits for almost all of them.

In recent years, Mr. Howard has taught about 400 women in the 5,000-member Afghan community in this part of California’s Central Valley. According to local lore, it is thanks to “Mr. Gil,” as he is known in Modesto, probably drives more Afghan women in and around the city of about 220,000 people than in all of 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 long and public transportation is limited. So when Mr. Howard realized the difference driving made for Afghan women, teaching became a calling: education was provided for free.

He has a waiting list of fifty people and a cell phone flooded with text messages from people looking for a spot. Through word of mouth, he recently received an inquiry from Missouri.

After the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021 and imposed a strict Islamic regime, they banned girls and women from schools and universities and banned 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 relatives.

In the United States, Afghan newcomers tend to maintain religious and cultural practices: most women wear headscarves or hijabs. Many who learn English prefer single-sex classes. Married women interviewed for this article only agreed to be photographed if their husbands agreed, and many allowed men to speak on their behalf.

But when it comes to driving, many Afghan women are keen to assimilate – although you won’t hear them calling for gender equality or empowerment. Their main motivation? Getting from point A to point B.

“My goal was to drive to help the family,” said Latifa Rahmatzada, 36, who got her driver’s license last September.

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

Nearly 7,500 miles away in Modesto, she had no trouble convincing her husband, Hassibullah, to give her the green light to drive. “I immediately supported her. It was so stressful for me to do everything,” he said, which is why he contacted Mr. Howard.

These days, while her husband works nine-hour shifts stocking shelves at Walmart, Mrs. Rahmatzada often sends a 1992 Honda Accord (there were about 190,000 registered before it was donated to them) to their sons’ elementary school, the grocery store and other places in the city.

The United States is home to approximately 200,000 Afghans, concentrated in California, Texas and Virginia. About 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 lanes, lights and signs were virtually non-existent, even men driving in their home country face a major adjustment to the rules of the road in the United States. Some do not feel qualified to teach their husbands.

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

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

“She has to drive to deliver groceries and bread and to go to the park with the children,” Mr Akhundzada said.

Ms. Akhundzada speaks little English, but California offers driving tests in 38 languages. She passed the exam for her learning permit in Dari, the most spoken language in Afghanistan.

She then waited several months until Mr. Howard could get her on his calendar.

Mr. Howard, who is quietly firm with his students, uses simple English and hand gestures for instruction. But he also learned key words in Dari, such as left, right, stop and go, to communicate with his students, and he used them as he crossed Modesto with Ms. Akhundzada.

“You learn pretty fast,” he said, after she parallel parked. “Just another lesson or two and you’ll be good to go.” Mrs. Akhundzada responded with a giggle.

Mr. Howard, who lives alone and has adult children, moved to Modesto in 2012 after decades teaching operations research and mathematics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

“I thought I would work on my garden and do some traveling,” he said.

Moved by images of migrants When he drowned while attempting to cross the Mediterranean and reach the West, Mr. Howard decided to volunteer with World Relief, a nonprofit organization that helps settle refugees in the United States. He soon furnished apartments for refugees, took them to appointments and handed out second-hand bicycles.

Many of the refugees had fled Afghanistan after their lives were threatened for working with US forces. Mr. Howard took a keen interest in some families.

Unexpectedly, his 65 years of driving experience came in handy.

In 2017, two Afghan sisters, who had settled in the area with their mother and young brother, asked him to teach them how to drive.

Mr. Howard dedicated them in an empty parking lot.

“I had never seen a woman driving a car in Afghanistan,” recalls Morsal Amini, 24, one of the sisters. “It’s so difficult here if you can’t drive.”

“D is for drive, R is for reverse, P is for park,” Ms. Amini recalled Mr. Howard telling her.

Once the sisters had mastered the basics, they began riding along country roads and then through city streets with their instructor, who Ms. Amini described as an “angel, reassuring and patient.”

There was a close call when a truck stopped in front of her – and Ms Amini did not immediately respond. “Didn’t you see the brake lights?” Ms. Amini, now 24, remembers Mr. Howard asking her. She had no idea what they were.

It took a few tries, but both women passed their driving test and bought a car. “Our lives changed completely,” Ms. Amini recalls.

So did Mr. Howard.

He soon received a steady stream of requests to teach other Afghan women. Many of them had taken an “English for Driving” course at Modesto Junior College. Initially, some were accompanied to classes by chaperones, such as an older brother or a male relative, who sat in the back seat.

When women were ready for the test drive, Mr. Howard usually accompanied them.

Demand for his tutelage soared after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, ushering in a new wave of Afghan evacuees to the United States, including Modesto.

To keep track of his ever-increasing number of students, he created a spreadsheet on his cell phone and prioritized those with learner permits that were about to expire.

Some days he teaches five consecutive classes, each lasting from 90 minutes to two hours.

His only problem, he said, was that his blood pressure has risen from all the oil and salt in the rich Afghan food he gets from students as a token of their appreciation.

On a recent Wednesday, the second student of the day was Mr. Howard Zahra Ghausi, 18, whose test drive was scheduled for the following week.

The student was driving along a residential street as she approached a school. “Watch your speed,” Mr. Howard said, resting his hand on the handbrake, just in case.

He told her to take highway 99. At a speed of 100 kilometers per hour, Ms Ghausi sped past the almond orchards along the highway and changed lanes to pass a truck loaded with metal plates. The speedometer showed 70 km/h

“This is one I don’t have to say ‘go, go, go’ to,” Mr. Howard said. “She goes.”

Ms. Ghausi got off at Taylor Road and rushed to California State University in nearby Turlock.

“I just love driving,” she said as she drove onto campus. “I also really like sports cars. Hopefully one day I’ll drive a racing car.”

Mr. Howard then returned to Modesto. There was another student waiting for a lesson.