Beyond Belief Video Summary and Analysis

"Beyond Belief"

On Tuesday night, I attended the last event from the "Women's History, Women's Lives" series. The film was called "Beyond Belief", which was about two American mothers Susan Retik and Patti Quigley. They are two wives who lost their husbands in the September 11th, 2001 tragedy that happened in New York City at the World Trade Centers. The two women were from towns near each other, and connected after hearing about their similar stories to support one another. When they met, one of them did not have their wedding band on which shocked the other. At the same time, it made her think about taking her own wedding band off in order to start the process of moving on from the tragic event of losing her loving husband. The two women came up with the idea to reach out to the Afghan widows who experienced the same unfortunate situation from the wars in their country. Unbelievably, there are over 500,000 widows in Afghanistan as a result of the 23 years of constant war in their country.

Susan and Patti turned their pain into determination, and created an organization to raise money, awareness, and to undo the hate for the Afghan widows. In order to raise money, they rode their bikes from Ground Zero to Boston while getting donations to sponsor the ride and accomplish their goal to help the widows in Afghanistan escape the vicious cycle of poverty due to losing their husbands. At first, the woman were very uneasy about traveling due to the dangers and the fact that they are single mothers with children. To make matters worse, an aid worker who they spoke with was actually captured and held hostage for multiple days before being let go by the Taliban in Kabul.

Susan and Patti finally decided to go through with the trip and arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2006. A huge difference that they had to deal with was the fact that they had to wear burqas, which cover their heads, and also wear long sleeves and pants to cover the rest of their body. When Susan...