Sylvia's Journal

We finished phase two of the leadership program. It was good to have sat in the back because I now know better where my work is. I sometimes wished I could look inside people’s minds to find out how the program affects (or not) their thinking. During the closing reflection I tried to pry loose some of these invisible thoughts but here, as a foreigner, one never knows whether the answers one gets are genuine or attempts to please the foreigner. Or whether the clichés I hear are attempts in a language not fully mastered to express thoughts constructed in their own. As I learn the construction of Dari sentences I can recognize when this happens.

Today was SOLA class after work. This time 5 girls showed up, unlike last week when no one did because of exams. Those are now over and we resumed our session about vision and learning how women in Afghanistan are able (or not) to overcome their thousand and one challenges. I had asked each girl to interview a woman, any age, to whom they look up for accomplishments in the face of all these challenges.

Fatima had interviewed their cleaning lady. She read from her handwritten notes. It started cheery enough. She quoted her cleaning lady as saying, “one beautiful day, when I was nine years old, I was coming home from tending the sheep in the fields when my mother told me that I was going to be engaged. I was very happy because it meant I would get new clothes. But then when I got married my world became hell. I had a baby at 12…”

At this point Fatima’s interview was cut short because the cleaning lady could no longer hold her tears. There were, presumably, another 30 intervening years of hell, during which the husband was killed by the Russians and the 5 daughters grew up. Although it is an intensely sad story, I was happy to hear that this story will not repeat itself anymore. Three of the five daughters are now doctors, one is sitting for her high school exams and the last one is in middle school.

Hila read her story about a girl who had lost both her parents at age 12 and then became the primary caretaker of an 11 day old baby while going to school and educating herself. This orphan is now a 25 year old lady doctor. Everyone clapped when Hila finished her story with the surprise revelation that the 11 day old baby was Hila herself and that this lady doctor, although not her biological mother, is the one she calls mommy.

The last twenty minutes we listened, holding our breath, interrupted now and then by gasps and some tears, to another story of a 16 year old, engaged, married, beaten, miscarrying a boy (her fault) at 17, betrayed, beaten, abused and shunned by her husband. We were all looking sadly at each other but then things took a turn for the better and the story became a story of redemption. The husband cut loose from his overbearing parents, choosing his wife over them. He repented, and helped his wife escape from his parents’ house and moved her to her sister’s while he went overseas for a job. Now he is back and preparing for another posting, this time everyone comes along. There is a job, money and love. It was a combination of Cinderella and the frog prince. Safia wiped her tears and everyone sighed. It is then that I realized that these are not stories as they are for us – these are real life experiences surrounding these girls on all sides, sometimes uncomfortably close.

Next week we will start our reading program, now that we have explored their visions and fueled them with stories of women who overcame mountains of misfortune and are now successful, either themselves or their offspring. We explored possible books to read and choose Khalid Hussein’s A Thousand Splendid Suns – a bit of a stretch language-wise, but familiar terrain. This weekend I will be hunting around town for 6 copies and prepare the assignments.