I always wanted to continue my studies. I had big dreams and great expectations: studying at the top universities and experiencing the best educational facilities in the world were among them.
I always dreamed of going to a prosperous and modern country. I wanted to study and work hard enough to achieve my lifelong goals: publishing great novels and having an art studio.
I always told myself that I would become a narrator of untold and bitter stories of women’s lives; that I will write plays and screenplays and, during my master’s and doctorate studies, present them on the biggest movie stages of the world.
I went on step by step. Although, when weighing my life circumstances on the scale of my life desires, the pan of difficulties and hardships was always heavier, I was still hopeful and optimistic; Because life was going on and, although there was a long way to go, I was also young and energetic.
All I had from my life was my bookshelf. My consolation was my diaries, covering my school years as well as four years at the university. My gleam of hope towards a bright future was the drafts of a number of short stories, as well as that of the ups and downs story of my life in the form of memoirs that were in the editing stage. I had lofty dreams for them.
We had just passed the dread and restrictions caused by the spread of Covid-19 when Kabul City fell to the Taliban on a summer afternoon. Another panic gripped the city, men and women rushed to their homes, and angry motorcycle riders occupied the city. Pol-e-Sorkh, known to be the uptown part of Kabul City, where various events -from Valentine’s Day ceremony to book fairs, book launches, and poetry events- were held, was lost.
I couldn’t believe it for the first few months. I used to tell myself, is it possible that warriors would come from the plains and mountains and become civilized? Is it possible that thousands of elite and educated people would immigrate to foreign countries? I used to tell myself that that situation would not last long, Kabul would breathe again, and the country would be free again. Nights passed, but the son did not rise; The youths and elites left the country, and the houses emptied.
By and by I believed, poco a poco I accepted the reality and desponded. My assets became worthless to me. I pulled my cherished books out of the shelf and gave them to a classmate who had a library. I also gave my notebooks to the students who were still eager to study. In the end, I threw my diaries and short stories -which, for years, I had taken care of like my child- into the stove to burn, and I cried unremittingly after them.
I put the university documents, English, computer, and public speaking certificates, as well as certificates of appreciation I had received from the institutions and libraries into a file and gave it to a neighbor. I no longer had a job and income to pay my living expenses and room rent. I had to move to the village; The place where I left eight or nine years ago to continue my studies.
I was ashamed of the people’s glances. I thought as if they were making fun of me that I had left the village to study but now I had returned with a tired body and a depressed mind. It is too difficult for me to accustom to village life and cope with the restrictions, deprivations, and hardships of rural life.
All night, in a cold room, I shake my baby’s cradle. I wake up very early in the morning to find time to be alone with myself; to take a breath and forget about the hustle and bustle of daily life and a busy house; to write and/or read some sentences; But I see that I have a bunch of works to do. There is no bread in the breadbasket, so I have to bake. Or, it has been snowing all night and there are centimeters of snow on the roof of the house, chaff house, and stable which I have to sweep. In a house where there are several children and an old mother-in-law, in which no one can help me, I have to do all the housework alone.
Housecleaning, washing dishes, baking, cooking, doing laundry, giving water and grass to the cows and sheep, collecting the dung of animals and drying them in order to be later used as a fuel source, chopping wood for the stove, taking care of the children and mother-in-law, helping them to wash their bodies, and countless household chores and animal husbandry in the village that have to be repeatedly done every day.
It’s maddening. It’s maddening to live in an environment where 18 out of 24 hours you are busy with work, scuffling, and noise. Living in the village, dealing with the people, going with the stream, and carrying out the rural customs and traditions require a lot of patience and flexibility.
I’d never imagined myself in the place where I am now. I’d never thought that one day, all my achievements will be multiplied by zero and I will return to rural life. I used to think that after 16 years of education and expenditure and hard work, I would achieve what I deserved and that the good days of life would finally come.
Think about how many other people, particularly women, have experienced and/or are experiencing the same fate. I don’t know what has kept them hopeful, but I am confused. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I really want to get rid of this chain, in the name of religion, that has tied my hands and feet. I want to return to that high point in my life which I arrived at after graduation; I want this point to be the starting point for the rest of my life.
