The Rain

The smell of fresh grass made me think of you
While sitting all alone behind the broken old window of my room.
My dear friend wrapped in your wet clothes
Running all over the grassy, muddy yard,
Calling my name.
On that day,
I was sitting behind the blurry window
Fogged from the heat of the room
Observing the heavy drops of rain
Hitting the tall green grass
And enjoying the fresh smell of it.
I came out
Quick and easy
Jumped down the stairs to hold your hands.
I felt the heavy cool drops of the rain on my face
And the coldness and wetness of your hands
Which made me shiver.
We started singing
An old folklore song
Gul saname gul saname gul saname…
And dancing together
With lots of joy and laughter.
We were all wet,
From head to feet,
Muddy up to our knees
With big smiles on our faces
Dancing in the heavy rain.
Now when it rains,
The smell of fresh grass
Reminds me of the good times
That I spent with you
Reminds me of the good times
That I spent with you,
My dear lovely friend.

By Fattema

Hope Always Helps Me Move On

Once, I was an interpreter for a lady who was making a story on women’s lives in Afghanistan. We went to the Herat Shelter for Women. There, I heard different stories. One is the story of a young Hazara (an ethnic group in Afghanistan) living at the shelter.

“I am happy that I am here with my son, and hope for a much better future for both of us,” said Sara, a twenty-year old woman with eyes full of happiness and hope. “I don’t remember that much of my childhood. I know my mother was pregnant with me when I lost my father. My father was a general and he died in war. After that, my mother remarried because she could not afford living alone and providing for herself. She gave me to a family, and from that time I was living with them and knowing them as my parents. My late father had another wife too, and I had two step brothers who I hadn’t seen.

“My house was in a city outside Bamiyan. It was a muddy house. We just had two rooms. My family was very poor and they couldn’t provide the things I needed. I was around 13 years old when one of my step-brothers found me. He was living in Kabul. He came to my city and wanted to take me but my parents wouldn’t let him. So he bought me from them. He gave them money and they let me go. I didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad. But I was a little happy because he was my brother somehow and now I had a real family with me.

“I lived with my step-brother’s family for almost two years. My step-brother’s family was poor too. They couldn’t even afford their daily needs and my step-brother was deeply in debt. I was around 15; it was a dark and rainy day, early in the evening, when my brother came home half wet. It was raining very hard like somebody was pouring water from the sky. I made some tea for him. He started talking to me in a very nice way like he hadn’t before. I realized he wanted tell something very important that related to me. He was telling me that one day every girl has to marry and go after their own fate. He told me I had to get married. I was surprised because I was still very young to be married. But my step-brother told me I didn’t have any other option. I went to the other room and tears started to come down from my eyes like a river. I was crying so hard that I was shaking. I wished that my parents were with me so I could put my head on my mother’s lap and she would caress me. She would tell me nice and hopeful things. She wouldn’t let me get married at this early age. I cried and cried until I went to sleep.

“A few days later, I realized he had sold me to a married man who was living in Iran with his family. I tried to think positively. I still had hope. I told myself maybe this time I would have a good life; maybe I am going to taste the happiness that I haven’t tasted in my fifteen years. After a long journey, we arrived in Iran, my step-brother and I. He took me to my husband’s house. When I first saw him, I couldn’t believe my eyes. My husband was much older than me. He was Afghan but he had an Iranian wife with four children. His oldest child was twenty years old, older than me.

“I had thought I might have a happy life but that didn’t happen. My husband always told me: ‘Your brother took a big amount of money from me, but you didn’t bring anything with you from Afghanistan.’ (There’s a tradition that when a girl marries, she brings some trousseau to her husband’s house.) His rival wife didn’t treat me good either. I was like a servant at their house. My husband would beat me sometimes, and when I argued with him, he beat me more.

“I couldn’t tolerate more, so I went to the home of another step-brother who lived in Iran. I stayed there a few days. One day when nobody was home, I opened the gas. I didn’t want to live anymore. I was fed up with this awful living, all this violence, beating, crying, shouting, arguing and nobody there to care about you and love you.

“But my step-brother came home early and found me unconscious on the floor. He took me to the hospital and I survived. He took me back to my husband’s house. My husband’s behavior was even worse than before. He was beating me more with different things like his belt, a broom…

“Again I tried to commit suicide. I threw myself from the second floor of my step-brother’s house, but again I survived with lots of injuries. But this time, when they took me to the hospital, I found out that I was pregnant. Oh, I couldn’t believe it. My step-brother took me to his house. I was at his house until I got better. When I was well enough to walk, I left my brother’s house with no clear destination. I was walking along the side of street paying no attention to my surroundings, very lonely, tired and disappointed with my life. Suddenly, I heard a crash and I was unconscious. When I awakened, I found myself at some stranger’s house. There was sitting a middle-aged lady with a scarf on her head and a tray of rice before her which she was cleaning. I tried to sit up. She came and helped me. She asked: ‘Why did you want to commit suicide?’ I told her my story and she said she would help me. I told her that I would never go back to either my husband’s house or my step-brother’s.

“She took me to the police station and told them I am an Afghan who wants to go back to her country. So they deported me to Afghanistan. I didn’t have any close relatives to live with. There was my step-brother, but I didn’t want to see or live with him. From the border, they sent me to a women’s shelter.

“It’s been more than three years that I am here. I delivered my baby a few months after my return. Now he’s almost two years old. Whenever I see his round, cute, innocent face, I think what is going to happen to him in the future…

“When I came here, I didn’t know how to read and write, but in here I took literacy classes. When I was illiterate I thought I had no identity, but now that I am literate I am happy and more hopeful. Now I am living my life for my son, Mujtaba, with a hope for a better future for him.

“My husband called me a few times and asked me to go return to him. But I didn’t want to. I told him about our son and asked him to come and take him but he didn’t. He said ‘I have my children here and I don’t need any more children.’ I told him that because I thought my son would have a brighter future with his father, since I am not able to provide the things that my son needs, and that way my son might be able to experience having a real family.

“I told him to divorce me but he resisted and told me: ‘I won’t divorce you till your hair turns white like your teeth.’ So I applied for absent-divorce. The process is long, but hopefully at the end, it will be the way I want it to be. In absent-divorce, the officials call for the husband and if he doesn’t come for three years to the police or to court, then they announce the divorce. Now my case is in Supreme Court. I am going to get my freedom papers, my divorce papers, pretty soon.”

It was her story. It brought tears to my eyes, although it is usual to hear such sad stories in Afghanistan. She thanked the staff of the shelter for all the good things they taught her and for being such a nice family to her. She doesn’t know what she wants from the future. She says, “Whatever God has ahead for me, I would go with that.”

By Fattema

My Cousin’s Story

It was during the Taliban regime. In that time, my cousin was a shopkeeper. He had a gold shop. His shop was in a four-story market in the old town. He was young, maybe around 18 or so, and my younger brother was working at his shop as an assistant. During that period, boys were not allowed to grow their hair long or shape it in a nice way. There was a special truck that would come and just take every one that had short and styled hair and a short beard. Every time that the Taliban arrived with their truck, everyone would escape and hide some place.

One day my cousin was on his way to his house and the Taliban arrested him because his hair was short. They took him to jail. The jail they took my cousin to was actually an old muddy room with a hole in its roof. There were around ten other people in that tiny room. Most of them were in there because they had short hair or short beards. When the Taliban arrested people and put them in jail, they kept them there for three days or until their hair or beard was long enough! My cousin decided he did not want to stay there. With the help of other men, he managed to escape from the hole of that room. When he was on the roof, he looked around. He ran and jumped down into the neighbor’s house. He ran to the door, opened it and started to run in the tiny block. As he was running, he saw two Talibs before him. One of them hit my cousin with his gun and the other one grabbed him by his patu (a big scarf that men wear.) But my cousin managed to run away.

My family and I were at my aunt’s house when my cousin arrived. As soon as he came in, we understood that something was wrong. He came and sat down. He was touching his head and we saw blood on his hand. My aunt and my mother both asked him what happened. They became very worried. He told us the story. When he rolled up his sleeves, his hands were all scratched and there were cuts on his hands. His head was cut too. He had pain in his arms. Those cuts were burning.

“Now that I think about the jump that I did and about my escape, I can’t believe how I managed to do that,” my cousin said. My aunt and my mother argued with him why he had done such dangerous thing, and what those Talibs would have done if they had arrested him.

By Fattema

The Evening I Will Never Forget

I was waiting for this evening for a long time and counting down the days. I bought the tickets two weeks before that. This was my high school Prom. It was my first time participating in such event. I was very excited. I had to get ready to go to prom.

I had to buy a prom dress, a pair of shoes and other stuff that girls usually need! I went shopping for a week looking for a nice dress. I did not want to buy a very open dress so I had to look for a longer time. I went shopping with my friends. They also wanted to buy dresses and shoes. I tried on many dresses. Finally I found a nice dress that I liked and I bought it. Now I needed a pair of shoes that would look nice with my dress. I went shopping for shoes with my host dad. He has good taste in shopping. I got a nice pair of shoes. It was a masquerade prom party so I had to have a mask as well. I looked for a mask but I did not find any that went with my dress and more importantly, that I liked. I found a good one at home that looked nice with my dress. It was two days before prom, I had a pedicure and manicure in a nice beauty salon. It was my first time. It felt so good to sit on that chair and put my feet in the warm water. After the manicure and pedicure was done, the lady applied nail color on my fingernails and my toenails.

On the day of the prom, I went to a hair salon to have my hair done. When I went home I called my friend who was a photographer to come and take some pictures. Then we both went to my other friend’s house. There were my two other friends that I was going to the prom with. We started posing for the camera as my friend was taking pictures. It was so much fun, we enjoyed it a lot. After taking photos, we headed toward a restaurant that our friends were waiting for us to have dinner together. During the dinner, we talked and we took a few pictures.

Finally I got to the prom with my friends. Inside it was a little dark. There were colorful lights spreading color around. There was a DJ playing the music very loud. Most of the girls and boys were dancing, some of them were sitting and talking and some other were eating candies. My friends and I went and sat down holding our masks. After a few minutes, since I do not like sitting down especially when I am at a dance party, I asked my friend and we both went and joined the dance crowd. A nice music was on and everybody was enjoying it. Although I had very high heel shoes on, I did not stop playing around and dancing. I saw a few of my classmates and my friends among the crowd. We made a small circle and danced together. Then I got thirsty, I went and had a drink. There was a small chocolate fountain too. I went there, took a strawberry on a stick and dipped it in the flowing chocolate. It tasted really delicious. When I had a few, I went to my friends. We started taking pictures again. It was so much fun. Then we started dancing again. After a while, I went upstairs, WHERE there were some boys and girls playing a game. I played with them for a while. Then I heard someone was talking on the microphone. They had a game like a lottery. We all had tickets and they were announcing ticket numbers. If somebody’s ticket number was announced, they would go and take their prizes.

They also announced prom queen and king whom I did not see because I was upstairs! It was near mid-night that the party was almost over. Everybody was going to his or her houses. My friends and I also left to go home. My friend had invited us to spend the night at her house a week ago, so we went to her house.

In her house, although we were a little tired, we started taking pictures again. We posed for the camera again and again acting like models. We were three girls having fun together by posing for the camera, which was set on self-timer. We took many pictures that way. It was early in the morning that we finally went to sleep.

That was one of the evenings that I will never forget. The wonderful time that I had with my two friends will stay fresh all the time in my heart and my thoughts.

By Fattema