Afghan Girls continue to look for paths that will take them closer to their dreams

I never went to university, and I finished school only out of necessity, despite all my struggles with learning, after that dark night I so often recall in my writings. The longing for university and the collapse of the future I had carried with me since childhood became a daily torment, heavy and unrelenting.
After sinking into depression and despair, I sought refuge in books and writing; books became my first lifeline from the darkness that followed that night. I no longer cried, and my voice fell silent within me.
I grew to prefer the silence, isolation, and private space I had built for myself, even though in school I once read poetry with passion every day and at home sang songs for my mother.
My mother was the first woman to shape my life, a woman of letters, full of feeling and compassion, a woman of my own kind, mirroring so much of me.
She was also a final-year fine arts student in Russia when she returned to Afghanistan to visit her family. Soon after, the government collapsed, and the Taliban came to power. My mother never had the chance to go back to Russia, and in a state of despair, she was married off. I am the fourth child born of my mother’s marriage to my father, a dignified and kind man.
My father had studied health sciences in Pakistan, and he, too, was a man of books and writing. They say that at night, he and my mother would sit beside the lantern, reading. Since their books were borrowed, they had to finish each one in a single night. The next day, each would recount what they had read, so together they absorbed two books in one night.
As my mother used to say, I am the luckiest member of our family. I was born just as my parents, brother, and sisters finally left behind a life of renting, and we stopped being tenants.
Here, we began life from a simple mud shelter, and its walls were built up as we grew. My parents worked during the day and spent nights laying mud bricks, striving to leave that shelter behind as quickly as possible. Time passed, and with each day, we added another brick to the foundation of our lives.
Our house was made of mud, with one side of the wall built from stone. Each day, we began our mornings playing in the yard’s dirt, and sometimes we went to bed with scraped heads from stones and tear-streaked faces.
I still remember how, at times, we would scream and run into the street at the sight of a cockroach or scorpion.
After applying the last layer of mud to the walls of our house, my parents also pressed their wedding rings into the wall along with it. To avoid damaging the wall, they never tried to remove them. It was the most beautiful act of commitment I had ever witnessed in my life.
We grew up, my parents grew a little older, and our house, though built on a foundation of mud, still holds us in its embrace. I would not trade this place, not even for God’s paradise.
In the small room within our house, I made space for myself. There, I write, read books and poetry, and sometimes the walls seem to listen to my whispers.
It is a tiny room, just two meters across, yet it holds me, full of longing and dreams, every day, sometimes late into the night, along with all my wishes. I have named it: the Room of Dreams.
During a period when all opportunities seemed closed to me, I discovered “Golden Needle.” After persistent efforts, I succeeded in attending it. Golden Needle, following the Uranus Bookstore, became my second safe space. Before that, I would walk daily to the bookstore to borrow books.
I was compelled to pass through the streets under watchful eyes, passed by boys from the neighborhood and occasionally men my father’s age, to reach the bookstore. Gradually, I became acquainted with the bookstore community, who are now among my cherished circles.
Of course, visiting the bookstore was not without challenges. My father would caution me against going out too much under such circumstances, and my mother, who had always supported me, was no longer on my side in this matter.