There are many challenges that have changed my life and all the girls in Afghanistan. Life is full of difficulties, it is full of ups and downs. Sometimes, we face some obstacles which will be so hard to overcome. Yet we should never give up in overcoming those challenges. I had some challenges in my life, and the hardest thing I have endured is overcoming them. But I overcame them. 

The first challenge that I had was when the Taliban came to our country. I was in 11th grade and my family and I had already immigrated two times in another village before the Taliban captured the country. The first immigration that we had, was not proper because some people made a rumour that the Taliban came to our country, and they would kill all of the people. On those days, all the people collected their materials and all the things that we had. At night, we did not have enough sleep because at night all the people collected their materials and immigrated to other villages. When we heard that the Taliban are near to our city, we went to our village too, that our village is far from the city center. On the way I saw lots of people walking to their villages, there were lots of crowds and cars. Finally, when we arrived there at night. We slept and the next day we saw the people coming. After that, about two or three months we went back to our city because the Taliban did not end up coming.This time period was so stressful and dangerous for me and my family.  

The second challenge or ‘scare’ that we had was one or two months after the first revolt . At night we heard that, ‘Tomorrow the Taliban will come’ to our city. In those two months, my father got a new job in a city and he was living there . That night, we called my father and some people said that the Taliban would come to the city and he said that they were mistaken, and the Taliban would not come to that city. We went to sleep and it was near the morning that we went to our village. That day all my uncles and my family members were there and they were discussing what we should do. We then heard that the Taliban came to our city. We called my father and he said that he would come to our village immediately. When my father arrived there he said that when he was traveling he saw the Taliban and said they were coming. Amidst all of these scares and threats we ended up being fine. After three or four months, we went back to our city. We went to school and we continued our lessons and worked on exams, and we were passing exams and doing well in school. 

The last challenge I want to speak on was when I went into 12th grade. At this time, and still currently, the Taliban do not allow girls to go to school beyond 6th grade in schools. They also did not allow girls and women to go out in public or go to work. I was able to only go to a couple courses. One day, a classmate of mine said that we will have an exam that we should pass in one day for all the subjects. It was very hard to study all the subjects for about two or three days, even though we did not go to school and study all the subjects for these courses. After all of my work and studying, I thankfully passed the exam. After that, they said that we wanted to take a specific exam and our teacher said that we can register our names to take it. After that we went to a preparatory course to learn and get ready for this exam. After some months the Taliban said that boys should just take this exam (which is catered to males) and not females. This was extremely frustrating and we faced many challenges while participating in this course. Now we cannot study or go out too.

Throughout life, we may face many hardships. Yet, we need to be strong enough to find logical reasons and ways to solve them.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story,

– Paksima

 

Letter received from our students participating in our Mentorship program. Name and text altered for protection of our students and for grammatical changes.
Published On: November 25th, 2024 / Categories: Student Essays from students in ASDD's English & Mentorship Programs /

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