Being a Woman: My Only Sin

(Eds Note: This essay was written by one of our writers, but contains no identifying information due to security considerations.)

I love my job. I know it can help bring changes in women’s living conditions in my province. But there are obstacles.

Recently I received a death threat from Taliban. I was on my way to work when a neighbor called out to me and said, “You must return home because we found a letter from the Taliban threatening you, and you must quit your job right now.”

“I want to see that letter,” I told him.

He said, “That is fine,” and gave me the letter, which said the Taliban in my province were planning to kidnap me, my sister and my father and then kill us.

As my family was at risk, they decided to move to another city. They were not happy about leaving me alone and asked me to come with them, but I thought about my responsibilities for the women in my province, so I remained behind for my job. I am not living with my family any longer. I only go out covered in a burqa. I am still working.

My early life began like this: when I was seven years old, my mother got sick, so I began to take care of our home, washing clothes and dishes, cooking. One night during the Taliban regime, our family left Afghanistan at midnight and headed to Iran. It was cold and dark. We were traveling in a car and the roads were unpaved and dusty. Finally we reached the Iranian border. We found a place to stay for the night, and in the morning we crossed a river and then took another car to Zabol in Iran.

In Iran, we started another life with many difficulties. My father was working and my mother and I began to work also. We deshelled nuts for a shopkeeper who paid us about 1000 toman so we had enough to buy bread. I have many bad memories from that time. I remember when I was eight years old; I went to bakery to buy bread. I was the first in line, but the baker did not give me bread because I was an Afghan. I waited until 10 p.m. that night. It got darker and darker and I was afraid, as our house was very far. Finally I got the bread and was running home and, on the way, crying. When I got home, my mother was waiting at the gate, also very worried.

At that time I wanted to study, so I tried to enroll in official Iranian schools, but as I was an Afghan, I was not allowed to attend the schools. I did find a literacy class and I started my primary education there until sixth grade. That meant when we returned to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, I could go directly to school to learn subjects, not simply to learn to read.

The first day of school in Afghanistan, I was so glad. I felt I was floating in the sky. It was a sunny day. I was with many Afghan girls standing in the yard of school and waiting for our teachers. It was 2001 and I was in the sixth grade. We did not have chairs, desks, books, or a blackboard and our floor was dirt, since everything was lost during the Taliban regime. I was an intelligent student and the teachers loved me. I never missed a day, even though my mother was sick. I got up early in the morning to clean the house, make breakfast and cook lunch.

In 2004, my life faced another tragedy. My family forced me to marry an uneducated, older man. I was sixteen years old. The man I was engaged to was my father’s relative. From the beginning, every day, I was beaten by him. He wanted to prevent me from going to school; he never allowed me to see my friends and relatives. I tolerated everything because I was an Afghan and it was shame for my family if I complained about my husband.

After three months, my husband sent me to my father’s home and left me. When I was 17 years old, he came and divorced me. I was pregnant. I was happy that this cruel man would leave me alone, but I was worried about my child. After he divorced me, people started to say bad things about me because they did not accept a divorced woman. My child was born in a hospital but since then, I have never seen him. It was a boy and my husband’s family came to take him forever.

There was no way forward for me except to continue my education. I finished my pre-university classes and wanted to go to a university. But my mother was again sick and required an operation that cost the equivalent of eight-thousand dollars. So I worked for three years to help raise this money. My mother had the operation and is now fine. I feel so happy to see her finally healthy after 17 years.

As for my own future, I don’t know what it will be. I know I want a university degree someday, and I know I will keep trying.

By Anonymous

Women Walking Alone

I am from long line of women who have walked alone …
From a land that smells of the blood of innocent people
From a people who have lost everything in war – sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers
From a people feeling hopeless
I am from long line of women who have walked alone

I am proud to be the daughter of a brave woman
Who never gave up and showed her children the right way
Who sacrificed herself,
Who in childhood slapped me once to remind me
How important it was to concentrate on my lessons
She was the best mother in the world

I am from long line of women who walked alone…
From a place where I could never hear what my heart told me
And I could only follow what family told me
From a place where I couldn’t express my wishes and I hid my hopes
Where I couldn’t support my rights and I had to accept
Where everybody said
You can’t do it
You can’t go ahead; you can’t achieve your goal

I am from a place where girls are exchanged for money and forced to marry
Where I was humiliated for being for a quiet girl
Where a teacher told me, “I don’t care what you think
Because you can’t do anything.”
I am from a discouraging world that killed my talent because I was girl

I am from long line of women who have walked alone…
From women who failed many times in different situations
I lost my confidence when I lost my mother
Feeling alone without her guidance and losing hope
Feeling afraid to gain knowledge in case there is no freedom
From a culture where girls never see the outside
Sitting in a cage like birds who don’t know how to fly
When my mother leaves me, she tells me—
“Find your way. I cannot always be with you.”
She passed on the responsibility to me.

I am from long line of women who have walked alone…
I know now how to enter society
And find my answers though I’m alone
Learn from my experience though I have failed many times
I never give up
I find my way and learn nothing is impossible to achieve
I ignore those things that destroy my mind
I learn that no one can help me except me
I accept reality and I’m ready to face any problem
Now I have ambition to achieve my goal
To help my people bring peace to the next generation

I am from long line women who have walked alone…

By Shogofa

Which Election?

This election was not the same as the first one. Then, I had hopes and desires for the future of my country. I voted for Masouda Jalal, the only woman who wanted to be president in our country’s history. I was waiting to see a bright future for Afghans and a government that works for the people.

But when I look back over the last five years, I see we didn’t have the president people wanted. I know President Karzai came at a time when everything was destroyed and needed rebuilding. I appreciate some of his work, especially the fact that I could continue my education. He faced a lot of challenges. There was no real democracy, no real security, economic difficulties, and other problems big and small. People grew disheartened during the last five years. They wanted to see real changes. They wanted food, job, security, education, and health care.

This election ate my heart out. Everyone was worried about everything. For example, could people vote in the election? Everyone wondered: will there be changes? Will the situation be better or worse? My family was worried. My mother bought some food and everything we need for the coming three to four months. I was sad. What will happen with my education if the situation gets worse?

This year, I didn’t vote. I had no trust in any candidate. But my heart wanted to vote. I wish there was someone I could trust. I asked most of my classmates and families, and they didn’t vote either. Those who voted either had top positions in the government or full stomachs during the last five years.

I feel pity for Afghans who voted and lost their noses and fingers. Some lost their fingers because they had ink from voting on them. The Taliban did this in Wardak Province. A group of Taliban stood on the road and stopped cars and buses; they checked fingers and asked who voted and those whose fingers had ink lost their fingers. I also heard of a farmer who went to vote. Afterwards, on his way home, they cut off his nose and ears, and neighbors had to take him to the hospital. He was in critical condition. Then he was moved to a hospital in Kabul; he is alive but I think, how is life without nose and ears? I was very sad when I heard this.

I am sorry to say this, but I think we experienced a very invalid election. I watched the videos. Most people voted in their houses, children voted and those voted who had power and guns. I feel this was a pity. The money spent on the election could have been used to build schools, universities, hospitals. The security conditions got worse and worse. They couldn’t announce the results, and people were worried. They said if Karzai won, people would demonstrate and anything could happen.

Finally, as you know, the election went to the second round and Abdullah Abdullah boycotted. This was bad, I think; it was not the time to leave the country in empty space.

When they announced that Karzai was the winner of the election, I laughed and laughed and asked myself, “Which election?”

But I hope he will prove himself very good this time and work hard for our country. He can’t play with people’s feelings and trust. Those who work for the future in the government in my country from A to Z should know that they have the responsibility to answer one day to God.

They should do something for the family who lost their two young sons in Jahad. It has been years and years and now they can only look at a picture of them. They should care for those people who lost legs and hands in the war, and care for those who lost family members in suicide attacks. They should care for the old man with one leg who repairs shoes for 40 cents from morning till evening. They should care for the women who sell things at night in front of hotels to support their families. They should take care of the hungry and thirsty children who are not able to go to school and sell plastic bags on the streets. They should know people are full of expectations. Winning the election doesn’t mean having the opportunity to eat a $400 dinner, it doesn’t mean filling your pockets from the blood of poor people, it doesn’t mean living in modern buildings, it doesn’t mean sending your son and daughter to foreign countries for education, it doesn’t mean to giving jobs to your family members and forgetting others. It doesn’t mean sleeping on a golden pillow and letting poor people rest in a bed of pain.

I hope they understand the people’s needs, expectations and desires. Afghan people don’t want to go to space. People know Afghans as terrorists but we don’t fire upon the world. We only only only want food. And peace.

We want a new Karzai; this time, a president by all means. He should close the sad chapter of five and three years ago. We want change. We don’t want to die under the sky of wishes. We can’t see our country, land of blood, land of blood.

By Roya

1+1=1

I have faced a lot of challenges with my education. I know I am not alone in this. There are other hearts that are disturbed and suffer as I did.

I remember how I much I wanted to go to school. In my first class, I had my big bag full of books and notebooks, and my neat and clean clothes. I felt myself big from that time and loved being intelligent. I studied four years at school. But my school was closed in the middle of my fourth year because of war and rockets. The government announced that, without passing the final exam, we were promoted into the next class. My fifth and sixth classes passed with me coming and going to school while rockets fell like rain from the sky. I was not afraid of punishment from my teachers, or my parents’ anger or loss of my toys. I was scared of the voices of rockets: sheew, sheew, sheew.

While I was in seventh grade, the Taliban came and I stayed at home. My dreams of graduating from school meant nothing to them.

Students study twelve years to graduate from school but I spent seventeen years. All I desired was to study very hard and to have the best and intelligent teachers.

Until tenth grade, we didn’t have chairs to sit on or boards to write on. We didn’t even have a classroom. We studied under the hot sun or the spring rain. In my class, everyone brought small mats or pieces of logs to sit on, but I didn’t. My house was far from school and it was too heavy to bring something. Sand and small stones were my floor and my comfortable chair.

We didn’t have books to study at home or in the class. Only the teachers had books and we took notes. The only work I was doing at school was writing, writing, writing, so it is no wonder I am a writer now!

The government didn’t pay attention to education or teachers’ salaries. Most of our teachers were just school graduates, not bachelors in specific fields. The teacher who knew biology was teaching geography and the math teacher was the religious teacher. The English teacher had problems with the English alphabet—she was always complaining because the English alphabet had both small and capital letters!

It was not the fault of our teachers; with all these problems they were trying to be kind and teach the best they could. The cause was that our country was born in war. The cause is war, always war…

In tenth grade, I tried to prepare for University. I needed to study very hard and I did. At the same time, I was teaching English during English periods and translating Dari poems for my classmates during Dari periods. With a group of students, I created the first library in our school; members of our team brought books from their homes. I had some newspapers and magazines my father brought me. We created a department that was small but very good: it had a cooking section, knitting, poetry, and science. We also had charts of the best students and I was the first girl who hung my picture on the wall to encourage girls to do their best in education. We also created a small sports team. We didn’t have a sport facility—we didn’t even have a ball. But we could run. On the first day I started to run; at the end of the day my legs were not mine, I felt such pain.

The only thing which was very important for girls was to marry. A group of my classmates were engaged and they invited us to their wedding parties. After marriage, they couldn’t continue to study. Only some girls in our class were thinking high and dreaming of going to university.

After three years of hardship and studying hard, I entered Kabul University. I thought university would be very different from school; I thought the teachers would be the best of the best, but it was not so. Only 5.5% of our teachers were teachers we could count on to be kind, intelligent, keen scholars. Most of others blocked the way and did not promote the young generation. They brought up young students to be slow learners, lazy and crazy…

The education system in our country is always the same old system. Nothing is new here; always 1+1=1. Our country has 5000 years of history behind it but it didn’t grow up. It is stopped and has stopped growing like the mother who can’t birth a child.

But I still was happy to wake up every day to study; I learned a lot, I learned from nothing. I discovered most of the students at the university who lived in the dormitory didn’t have money to pay for study materials. Most of them, 78%, spent $20 they got from begging until the end of the year.

I was always fasting, no surprise that a piece of bread and a bottle of water was my breakfast and lunch. After four years, I passed my classes the university. At the end of my last semester, I had my first new clothes. I celebrated Eid with new clothes and I felt very happy.

When you read these lines, please don’t get me wrong. I am not complaining; I am satisfied. I love life’s pains, it is sweet, it is sweet. I just want to paint the life of Afghan students. I paint the life of a young generation that lives with poverty and is interested in studying hard. If you give them a chance, only a small chance, they will prove they are the best.

War took everything from us. This young generation is a son of war. I am a son of war, and the only thing war still can’t take from us and couldn’t take, is Hope. I was hopeful. I am hopeful and I will be. I will study for my Ph.D. and dream, dream, and dream.

By Roya

I am…

I am the daughter of a land in south central Asia
The daughter of the strong and hospitable people of Afghanistan
I belong to a nation which suffered three bloody decades in war
Which left us millions of orphans and widows
I am from those Afghans who migrated as refugees to our neighbor’s land
And returned homeland after a long voyage to find our identity

I belong to a loveable family with parents, five brothers and two sisters
I am from parents who come from south and west Afghanistan
Parents who had different ways of life since childhood
But after meeting, compromised and loved each other
I am from a kind, courageous and hard-working mother
Who protects us from the ills of society
Who teaches us the value of honesty, faith, and education

I grew up with siblings who held pen and paper instead of toys or kites
Who have been heroes in my life and good examples of success
I am from my eldest sister, who is like my second mother, caring, generous, and helpful

I am from young Afghan women with goals and desires
A woman who is educated, independent, and makes her own decisions
A woman with a friendly, softhearted nature
And a strong belief in Allah and His creatures
Enthusiastic about exploring cultures and lifestyles
Eager to travel the world to meet people and places
A woman who feels the pain of other deprived and vulnerable women
And wants to support them

Who dreams of Afghanistan as a peaceful place
No bomb explosions or suicide attacks, killing us like flies
No fear of walking to school and work, as if we’re entering hell
I imagine Afghans holding pens as weapons
Women walking in the gleam of education instead of the dark shadow of illiteracy
Children reading books with shining faces instead of begging and picking trash

I am from women with dreams and wishes
I am an energetic, optimistic, and responsible woman praying for a better Afghanistan
A woman wearing a green scarf as a flag
Protecting myself against winds that can take away my identity and homeland again
I am an Afghan woman from green mountains, wanting unity and peace for Afghanistan.

By Safia