Hesitantly, Friba approached the front of the class. “I have decided to punish you to remind you not to forget my lesson,” the teacher said. “You have disrespected me by not remembering the assignment and not doing your work. Shame on all of you. Friba! You are not even prepared to give me yesterday’s lesson, but you can make noise in the classroom.”

Then she turned to me and said, “Freshta, give Friba a slap on the face.”

“Barqaa Amaddddddddddddddddd! Electricity came!” we heard a child yell. The call then resounded throughout the group of children playing in front of a Soviet-built Microrayan building in Kabul. “Barq! Electricity!” Whistles and shouts in Pashtu and English could be heard from one end of the playground to the other. “Let’s watch Alla-u-dinne cartoons. Let’s watch Tom and Jerry cartoons,” came the cries fading into doorways as youngsters rushed inside to turn on their TVs.

You are my eyes / Without you, I can’t see the world / Do not close our eyes / Do not flicker.
You are my blood / Without you, I am lost / You are my arm / Oh please! Do not flicker.

“Where is the international community now?” a widow cries over her husband’s dead body. “Where are the human rights commissions to hear me? They are always speaking about human rights. Which human right allows you to kill two persons while arresting an accused person? You judge.”

The woman’s husband, Hamdullah, was killed early in the morning of Nov. 19, 2009, when three helicopters brought a group of American soldiers with guns and barking dogs to a family compound in the ancient city of Shelgar, located in the Ghaznai province in the south of Afghanistan. The soldiers attacked the compound, looking for an accused Al-Qaeda member. The bloodcurdling sounds woke all the villagers, but no one left their houses for fear of being shot.

“I am burning,” says the school. / “Who will save me?” cries the school. / “Where are my students, the teachers, our friends?” / “Why do the Taliban burn me?” They are not literate.