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

You are my poems

Where should I go

to remove your footprints from my heart?

The morning breeze has the scent of your shirt

When it rains.

I remember that evening walking together

You were my umbrella.

The hottest days of Summer

And

Our promise under shadow of the mullbery tree.

You hold a sky of memories

in my golden moments.

You make the story of my being.

I can’t hide you anywhere.

You live in my poems.

You are my poems.

You are my poems.

By Roya

Math Class with Tanya

During my first year at university, I had to work to support myself and my family. I didn’t want to ask my mom for money. I knew women love saving money, and my mom was a woman who loved to save money.

Finding a part-time job is like dreaming of going to space! It is very hard, especially since I was teaching English privately and searching for a good job at the same time.

One day, a man came to the office and asked for someone who could teach math in English. The teacher in the office looked at me and said, “Roya is good at teaching English and she studied math too.” The man told me the address of the school that needed a teacher, and asked for my address and phone number. I took a math exam and was the most successful among 50 teachers. I didn’t think I was good at math, but it was impossible to turn down the job. I promised to try my best and teach as well as I could.

The reason I was not good at math was the angry faces of my former teachers who used to punish me for my homework and used metal rulers to hit students’ hands. I had tried to remove all math relations from my life because of this experience! So with my new students, I didn’t use a stick to hit or force the students to learn math. Instead of punishments for not doing homework, I had bonuses for the best homework. The bonus was a tasty chocolate from my kitchen. (Once my mom was searching the kitchen for chocolate, but she couldn’t find any—all the chocolate was in my bag.)

All the math classes were games, and math hour was the happiest time. When I entered the class, the students were clapping, and when I left they were crying.

I was surprised at how well the students were learning math. One day, the father of one of my students came to thank the principal of the school for having such a good math teacher. I was successful because I loved the students and I let them find a solution for every question themselves. I thought of all those students as my children and called them “my son” and “my dear daughter”! Even though I was single, I was responsible for more than a mother. It is easy to be a scholar, but it is hard to be a teacher!

Let me tell you a memory of one student that hurts me a lot.

Tanya was five years old and looked even smaller than her age. She was always clean, polite, hardworking, and very smart and talented. She always did her homework very neatly with nice handwriting. But she had pain in her face and was always deep in thought. One day, she was crying. She tried to hide her tears from me, but I asked, “Tanya jan, what is wrong with you?”

She cried and cried. She was full of words but all that crying didn’t let her say them. I let her cry and then I asked her again. She was waiting to tell me the secrets she couldn’t hide it in her small heart anymore. She said, “Teacher, today my father fought with my mother and he hit her a lot. He hit Mom’s head and I tried to stop Dad’s anger but I couldn’t. He hit me, too, and my brother.”
She cried, and then said, “You know, teacher, Mom is sick and can’t work. I do all the work. I clean the room, wash the dishes, and sweep the yard. I wash my brother’s clothes and mine too. But Dad is always angry. He tells Mom he will marry a second wife because she is sick. “
Tanya continued, “When I finish my house work, I do my homework. Teacher, do you think if I study and become a doctor, my dad won’t marry? Teacher, do you think Mom will get her health back?”

I stopped her crying and told her, “Tanya, I am proud of you. You are not like a child. You are like a doctor now. You are big, my big daughter.” But I was heartily sad, because Tanya was too young to suffer these things. She needed someone to take care of her and her brother, but at her young age, she was doing all the work herself and was suffering too.

We had 20 minute breaks at school. During the break, all the students had something to eat. Some ate a banana, biscuits, cookies, cakes, and chips. Some only had a piece of bread. But Tanya was always sitting in a corner, not eating anything. One day, I called her and gave her half of the apple in my bag. She said she didn’t like it. I said, “But your teacher likes it.” She accepted with a sweet smile and ate it.

Tanya was the most polite student in her class and her homework was the best, but she was the weakest student at break time. Because of this, I forgot that I was their teacher. I played with them, running and laughing, and they called, “Oh classmate, join the play!” I was playing with them for Tanya, to change her mood. I couldn’t forget that she told me she asked her parents to let her stay at school at night as long as she did all the work around the house. When she told me her request, I laughed and told her we couldn’t stay at school at night!

I stopped teaching at the school because of a schedule change at my university. One morning when I left my house, I was surprised to see papers hung on the walls of my house. They read, “I love you, teacher. I miss you, teacher.”

Tears were in my eyes. Not tears of pain; tears of happiness, tears because my students loved me and because I loved them, too. While I was thinking this, I felt as if a small shadow hugged me. It was my small Tanya.

Tanya was a symbol of patience. She was so young with such a big heart. She was a lesson for me. I compared her life to my childhood. When I was five, I was a dancing doll. I was queen of my dreams. I was thinking about playing with my dolls and my games, and what to eat. My mom’s hug was paradise, and my father’s smile was the reason I woke up every day.

Who knows what the future will be for children like Tanya? Will they study, or will they become criminals? If now is the time for them to start life’s pains, how will their tomorrow be? Or will they have a tomorrow?

By Roya

A Blue Dream

It was raining. I was walking the dusty streets of Shar-e-naw. The Kabul air was different; everywhere smelled like roses. Yellow leaves on the trees looked like a bride wearing a yellow veil.

It was Fall and under my feet, the yellow leaves made a sound: cretch, cretch, cretch…

I walked on a strange street: half dark and half very light. I grew afraid. I had never seen that before: Me in a light and dark way.

Should I step to the dark side, or the light? Where was I going? What if I lose the way?

We had a neighbor, a woman whose husband died in a suicide bomb blast. She had three children, and nothing else. Sunlight was her children’s only food and at night, although she was hungry herself, she sang to her children, “Lalo, lalo,” until they slept.

I was thinking about them: what will happen to her? Who will support her? I turned right on the street. At the corner was her house and I knocked on the door. Mariam opened the door. She didn’t have that disappointed face. She was not hungry. She wore new clothes and held a red apple in her hands. She smiled and said, “Roya! My dreams came true.”

Then she closed the door. I went back to the street again. At the end of the street lived my cute friend Shabnam. She left school at Grade Four to support her sick mother by selling plastic bags on the street. Once she asked me with tears in her eyes: “Roya, do you have any old clothes? No matter if they don’t fit me; I need to wear something.” Another time I asked her what was her dream. She said, “I want new clothes.” I know she never touched new clothes in her life.

But that rainy day, I saw her with new clothes and she was laughing. Shabnam told me she was not only the happiest girl, but all people were happy. The sound of her laugh was like a song sung for brides. It had hopes of beginning a new world, dreams and lots of desires behind it.

I was thinking everyone’s dreams had come true. But suddenly, everywhere grew quiet. Even the raindrops fell without noise; they as silent as a dead body. I heard a strange voice that I had never heard before. It was not the voice of rockets or bomb blasts. It was kind and friendly and asked me: “Do you know which dreams came true?”

I couldn’t reply. I was afraid. The voice continued: “All the dreams came true, Roya. They all prayed for peace.”

A drop of a tear was in my eye and words bloomed in my mouth: Peace, Peace, Peace.

I woke up; it was six o’ clock in the morning and Mom was praying!

By Roya