Editor’s note: When the American attacks on the Taliban began in 2001 our writer was a child and her family sought safety in a village where they lived with six families in one house, with a yard and wall around them. Later, they fled to a Pakistan refugee camp.

The weather was rainy. My body shivered violently, but I couldn’t move my hands.
The whole place had an incredible stillness.
Streets were hazy, and my eyes searched through the mist.
I chose my steps carefully.
I heard a voice and felt led to it, a whimper of a child looking at me.
Her eyes were like bright stars, but behind the light was fear and grief.
I peered deeply at her to uncover her secrets—when I moved closer,
I found that her whole body was shaking and her feet were bare.
She stood in the still, dark street.

She reminds me of my childhood.
Of a time that I sat in a big enclosure, a closed yard.
I didn’t have the right to play with my friends.
At every sound of a bomb that rang in my ears, I ran to my mother’s arms.
This dreadful sound became the song of my life that separated me from the world.
Every time I tried to get out of the enclosure I couldn’t.
I tried to see outside the wall of our home, but I was scared.
Even my dreams were not my own. Every night I dreamed that someone wanted to
take my father from us, and he is the closest person to me.
But among all these nightmares, a beautiful woman appeared, saying,
“My daughter, this is life. “
I would hide myself in the green trees and grass.
My mother tried to calm me with sweet words, but during that time, among the bombs,
I was crying and incapable of seeing everyone around.

I was a child, an Afghan girl who will always fight the difficulties of those years.
Yes! I saw children in doorways, waiting for their mothers who were dying,
who would never come home.
I am a witness to a young boy who died, a mother’s only child.
I told myself, “I am a refugee child outside my country,
I don’t have the right to make choices, I must live poorly.”
I cried behind closed doors; my cold bed was full of teardrops.
My mother sat next to me and said, “We will again have the right to hope for our country
and for our lives. We will again wear new clothes in our country.”
But I can see that even in this green and beautiful world, girls still do not have many rights.

By Hila

AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq

World is a small word
From the eyes of my burqa
There is no geography
I can’t see my right,
Nor can I turn to my left
Hot in the summer, cold in the winter.

Wearing a burqa, I wear a tent
That hides my beauty
My mouth is blind
I have to eat my voice
My hands are locked in a cage
Sentenced to move or shake.
My legs too ashamed to walk
My long burqa sweeps the dust
I don’t know who I am under the tent
My heavy burqa,
You can’t see my pen
Nor my paper.

Under the burqa
I am an Afghan woman writer
Searching for a house of freedom.

By Norwan

When I was about five years old, my grandmother had a big mulberry tree in her yard. She would sweep the mulberries that already covered the yard in the early mornings. The neighbours and relatives sometimes came to my grandmother’s house to eat fresh mulberries.

One time on the eve of the New Year, my brother Farhad, who was two years older and one of my best playmates, was staying with me at her house to celebrate the beginning of spring, the New Year. My brother and I were playing in the yard, and he was trying to climb the mulberry tree. He could not reach the branches so I tried to convince him that we should pick the berries form the ground and wash them and eat them, but he said he had to get up on the roof so he could reach the very ripe berries.

“I want to go to the roof to pick some red and fresh ones,” he said.

The roof was very high, about six or seven meters off the ground. But it was flat and there was a way to get up to it from the yard. There were some stairs at the corner of the house. He stepped carefully up the stairs, holding his hand to the wall. When he got to the roof he waved to me. He picked some berries and then he went right to the edge of the roof and reached out to a branch of the tree full of mulberries.

Suddenly he fell like a heavy ball down into the yard. I was scared. I thought he had died. I screamed for my mother to come. He lay on the ground without moving. 

My mother came running out with a scared face and with her voice shaking said, “What happened to my son? Farhad! Farhad, are you OK?” We were all looking at him, and I was standing above him and I looked at his face.

Then he opened his eyes and said, “Where is my mulberry?”

I smiled and said, “On the floor.”

He was okay!  His arm was hurt and his neck hurt, but in a week he was fine. I was very happy that it was not serious.

Later my grandmother moved to a new house and so we don’t go back there now to see the mulberry tree. My brother and I sometimes talk about the time he fell. We were both young and can’t remember everything clearly. But I think it was a miracle in my brother’s and my lives.

By Rahela 

My sweet sweet
Chocolate-flavored days
Of playing everywhere
Running like horses, jumping like deer
Drawing the sun in the mud
Counting the stars at night
My childhood, my cute days
Come again, hug me again
Just like the time mum did

Childhood!
I love to see your face
Forget the burdens of the world
Play with the kids
Think about if mum is awake
If she will comb my hair with her fingers

I laugh and play by myself
Then I cry:
Mummy!
Where is my cradle?
I am tired of this world

By Norwan

Photo by Robert Romano

I enjoy my life, but that doesn’t mean I am always happy and passing sweet moments. Sometimes life is sad and sometimes it’s happy. I like all the variations. Life is like a sandwich, and that means it should have different ingredients to be delicious. You have to feel different every day to enjoy your life. If it’s always the same way, if you are always sad or happy, life will get boring and you won’t want to continue it.

For me, this enjoyment is the result of one person: my oldest sister, Shakila. My sister is an angel. She is 30 years old. My mother always says, “Your sister is more than a mother. You have to be thankful for her forever.”

The first gift Shakila gave me was to encourage and take care of me. She was the only person that I could ask for anything I wanted. If I had asked my silly questions of anybody else, they would have laughed at me, but she was different and she still is. She always encouraged me to ask many things of her.

One of the funny questions I once asked her was this: “Shakila, who do you love more, me or God?” When my older brother found out about this, he made fun of me and he told others, “Fatima is just a fool. She wants to compare herself to God. It is incredible. And she also wants Shakila to love her more than God. See how stupid she is? I am ashamed to call her my sister.” He told this to everyone he knows and they all made fun of me.

I don’t know why, but I felt Shakila could love me more than God. I love her more than anyone else—even God. Then I felt guilty, and I told myself, “God will eat you, Fatima. Stop what are you saying.” But Shakila told me my question was smart and only stupid people can’t understand it. She said, “Never let others put you down!”

Shakila helped me and my younger sister go to a private school; she paid for our transportation and all the materials we needed. I wasn’t good at school—I was never a position holder—but she never complained about this. I always fought with my teachers and especially my principal. When I told Shakila about it she used to say, “I am proud of you. You are brave.”

The most important thing Shakila did for me was to change my views. She changed my world. She brought me to a world that was full of enjoyment and love. She taught me that independence is the most important thing for a mature person and respecting other people’s ideas is the most important thing for a human.

I don’t know how to express all the things Shakila has done for me. I don’t know. I just want to tell her through my writing that I love her and I will never forget the things she did for me.

By Fatima H.

There are some friends who, once friends with you, stay friends until the end.

Maali is my best and dear friend whom I met in my Iraqi school. Her sister was my aunt’s best friend at the university in Malaysia, so she asked if I could be friends with Maali, and I was very happy to have found myself a new friend.

Now Maali was defiant, but she was very cute and honest, and quiet and intelligent too. She is a very strong girl and she would never let anyone bully her. In high school life, when a new student comes in, the other students either become friends with the new student or they try to bully the new student. When Maali came to school, the boys tried to bully her because she was shy, but she stood up against the boys.

Maali would never let her friends down. She was always there for me whenever I needed her and she was the kind of friend that everyone wanted to have. Maali was never a materialistic person; she didn’t care what others were wearing or what brand they were using.

After I had come back to Afghanistan in 2002, I lost contact with Maali and I couldn’t get in touch with her, even through my aunts. But one day my mother was talking to my aunt in Canada, and she learned that Maali was in Dubai.

I couldn’t believe my ears because we were in Dubai! I asked my mom to get the phone number and I called Maali and I met her in Sharja Emarat in the Carrefour mall. She was wearing a very beautiful blue hijab. I remembered how she had liked the cartoon character called Hello Kitty, so I bought her a bracelet with the character on it. She loved it and wore it that instant; it made me really happy. We exchanged email addresses and cell numbers, and from that day on I have kept in contact with her.

I have many other friends whom I don’t want to lose, no matter what. And there are some friends who will be by your side until death do you part. This friend’s name is Farukh. Farukh was the first person I became friends with when I began at university. He’s been there to help me with studies, he protected me, he knew what I was thinking and what my wishes were. I couldn’t even tell Farukh how precious our friendship was because I didn’t want to lose it. Then one day last spring, he confessed his feelings and asked me to marry him.

And of course I said yes. Farukh is a friend who will stay with me until death do us part.

By Aisha

Early this morning I woke up and as I went to pray, I saw a lot of snow. It was the first snowfall in Kabul this winter. I came back to my bed and my eighteen-month-old son was finishing his milk glass. He looked at me and smiled. I kissed him and said good morning.

His small face is so beautiful when he smiles and looks at me. He is not talking yet—he just says Moma and Papa, and smiles and looks. I feel he wants me to hug him. That is why I like his smiling face. And whenever I hug him he puts his hands on my shoulders and he is even happier.

We stood and watched the snow through the windows. My son laughed when he saw the snow in the yard. He does not remember the last snow because he was too small. For him, this is his first winter of snow. That is why he laughed and looked at me. I felt he wanted to ask me, What is this?

I said, “You know, it is sugar.”

He smiled and then I said, “Snow is very cold.”

I wanted him to go back to bed but he wanted to stay and watch the snow. He cried and wanted me to hug him and stay and watch the snow, but it was time for me to go to my office.

When I went outside it was very beautiful. Everything was white. The trees, the land. Each season has its own beauty. I saw children playing games. Yaakh Malak is a popular game for children in our country. When the snow falls, the children gather it and make a hill of snow. Then they stand in lines, climb to the top of the hill, sit on the top and slide down. The children were enjoying this game. I said to myself what a beautiful time of our life, childhood. I remembered my own childhood playing in the snowy weather. My favorite game was Barf jangy. In this game, a group of children divide into two teams. They make snow balls and the game starts when the children hit each other with the balls. One child acts as a referee to calculate the number of hits. In our neighborhood children cleaned snow from their gardens and rooftops to play this game.

But at the same time, I also remembered the sad incidents of terrorist bombers, those attackers who destroy the peaceful lives of our people. I remember the mother of an eight-year-old child. Last month she lost her child in a bomb explosion. A suicide car bomber killed 18 people—including five US soldiers—and injured 52 more. The poor mother lost her two sons. She was able to find one son’s body but she couldn’t find the body of her eight-year-old. Among the dead were also lots of women and girls. I heard later that they were students going to university.  

Remembering that sad story made me cry. I asked myself why do I not feel very good in this beautiful season and snowy weather. Then I said, “No, we are not like European or American people. We are Afghan and our history is war and war.” 

Why am I not from America? Why am I not from a European country? Why am I Afghan? That is why I am not happy with my life. That is why nothing makes me happy. Spring, summer, winter, fall—nothing makes me happy in my heart. I think of my people. I think of my country. I forget to laugh. I forget my smile. I think of emigrating and becoming a refugee in a peaceful country, but then I say back to myself, “No, I will not escape from this situation. It is my country. It is my home.” 

By Mariam

AP Photo/Altaf Qadri

Writers at the Afghan Women's Writing Project space in Kabul. Photo: Cheney Orr

From the Capital New York online magazine, a terrific overview of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project by Juliet Linderman.

In Crown Heights, the Nerve Center of a Project to Mentor and Help Protect Afghan Women Writers

On a recent Monday evening, eight female comedians gathered on the fourth floor of a warehouse on an industrial stretch of Sunset Park, east of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. They sat in a circle, on threadbare rolling chairs, and one stepped into the center.

“When God created me, he put a world in my heart,” she said. “A world of grief, a country of blank deserts, a sky full of clouds. He put all my desires in a sack of winds; told me go and find it—I run after the winds in the blank deserts; find nothing but dead wishes.”

What she read, called “Sack of Winds,” was written by an Afghan woman called Norwan, who is one of 82 participants—many of whom write in anonymity or under a pseudonym, almost all in secret—in a virtual writing lab that spans the 6,700 miles between New York and Afghanistan.

On Jan. 21 and 22, those comedians (Jessica DeBruin, Corinne Fisher, Dawn J. Fraser, Chrissie Gruebel, Stephanie Masucci, Tracy Mull, Roopa Singh, and Katie Sullivan, seen rehearsing below)—plus Rachel Dratch of Saturday Night Live fame—will lend their unlikely voices to the women who wrote these poems in a fund-raiser titled “Comedians of New York for Afghan Women Writers.” The reading is to benefit the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, an organization that mentors Afghan women writers and distributes their work to a global audience.

Continue reading on the Capital website.

I was so happy that Abdul Muhammad wanted to marry me. From night to morning and morning to night, I was making plans for a new life with Abdul Muhammad and I was singing songs for myself. I made a castle for myself, with all my hopes and wishes.

In the first days, I didn’t know that Abdul Muhammad had another wife. I grew to understand this by listening to my father and my brother-in-law talk. The first time I heard it, I thought the roof of the sky had descended on my head and destroyed my entire castle of dreams. But I also heard an inconspicuous voice saying to me: you will marry Abdul and will love him.

My father went to Zabol just across the border in Iran with Abdul so he could find out more about Abdul’s family. When my father came back, he was unhappy. My father said, “Abdul is a liar.”

When I heard my father, I was confused. I thought that I’ve lost Abdul forever in my life. I thought by myself and then decided to ask my mother’s advice. The next night I said to my mother, “If I’m not married to Abdul, I will commit suicide.”

I was an innocent lover. I loved his voice, and his voice gave me power. I was afraid that this kind of love could become madness. I thought if he doesn’t marry me, I could not live.

When the promised day came, we married. The first time he took my hand in his hands, I felt the world had given me a gift from God. I wanted to give my love to him and I wanted to sacrifice all my life for him.

Days and nights were spent with him; there was a strong love between us. I loved him from then until later, when someone said to me, “He has another wife.”

I didn’t want to accept this fact and I said, “This is not true.” I thought it was a mistake. My heart beat for him.

Four months of our lives were well spent. During this period Abdul went to his other wife who lived with Abdul’s father’s family in Zabol Province in Iran. They were Afghan refugees in Iran.

I became pregnant. Abdul and I were happy and selected a name for our baby, the name we wanted for our baby when he was born. The name was Masood.

But our happiness did not last long because he beat me, and the baby was aborted. It was a serious blow to my soul. But I had to live.

The days went by and gradually I realized that he was indifferent to me. I still loved him. He would beat me. I especially hated this because my father beat my mother and I had heard the cries of my mother, saying to my father, “Please, don’t beat me.” So my love began to turn to hatred. It turned slowly, but I still blame myself for it.

I became pregnant again, five months after the miscarriage. I didn’t know that I had twins. I was so happy. I had again found happiness in becoming a mother, but this happiness didn’t last long. I had a miscarriage at seven months because Abdul beat me. I was beaten because I went to my uncle’s house without Abdul’s permission.

I was very broken. Abdul went to Iran to bring back his other wife and his father’s family. Abdul had lied to me. He told me he had divorced his wife because he didn’t like her, but this was not true.

After twenty days, Abdul came back from Iran and told me that I should leave my father’s house when I lived with Abdul and I must go to live with his father’s family and his wife. I accepted this.

When I saw his wife, she was really nice and kind. But Abdul was a capricious person. Our new life with his wife and his daughter started. We had two homes, one home was for me, and one home was for his wife, and Abdul spent one night with me and one night with his other wife.

His other wife was pregnant and his baby was born. It was a son and they named him Saeid. His wife went to her mother’s house. She told Abdul that she would not return if I lived there, and that Abdul must divorce me.

Abdul would abuse me and beat me. He would not let me go to my job as a teacher. He would not buy food. I was so hungry some days. During that time the weather was very cold, but he didn’t buy anything to keep me warm. He didn’t let me see my mother and father. But I had hopes for my life and so I loved him.

Three months after Saeid was born, I got pregnant again, but when I told Abdul, he was upset. He beat me and said to me, “I just got married on a whim.” When he told me this I thought even the sky became cloudy and it started to rain. My heart was broken; tears flowed from my eyes. I thought, I will miscarry again because he beats me so much. I had a lot of pain; I spent one week with pain inside. I begged him to take me to the doctor for treatment, but he refused.

In this time Allah opened the gates of the beneficent and sent my father to me. My sister’s child was born and my father came to take me to their home. When my father saw me that time, he was surprised and upset, but he didn’t say anything. He was silent. I wore my veil and I looked at Abdul; I wanted him to tell me, “Come back. I am waiting for you.” He didn’t say anything to me. He was staring silently into my eyes, his way of telling me to come back.

But I was tired of all the sacrifices and love and I no longer wanted to be the kind girl. My kind heart was turned to stone, my love turned to hate. I no longer wanted to go home and live with him because he didn’t like me, he gave me pain and beat me and destroyed my hopes and dreams. My hopes and dreams were like the soil. I thought about this, all the time looking for the right way, and not finding anything but despair. I decided to divorce him. I divorced him when I was seven months pregnant.

Two months later, I had a baby boy and now he is my hope and dream after the hard life with his father. I love him a lot and I want him to be a good person. He is six years old. Now I live with my son and with memories of being with Abdul. I cannot forget him because I innocently loved him. He betrayed me and broke my heart, but I will love him still. I want to be loyal to him, so that the meaning of love will not go away.

By Nasima

Editor’s note: This is the second part of our writer’s autobiographical narrative. The names have been changed for security.  In her first story, our writer told how she was born in a camp for Afghan refugees in Iran. She will continue with her story in future parts. Photo: Salma Zulfiqar/IRIN