Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan Read Online Free PDF

in our neighbourhood, but we felt like prisoners in our own homes, unable to go out in the streets and actually see what had happened. Then, as the news programme came to an end, Muzgan would always grab the radio and turn the dial to another station, one that played cheerful and lively music, and we girls would try to enjoy ourselves. The men, meanwhile, would embark on serious discussions about what the United Nations should be doing and what was to become of Afghanistan. None of them had jobs any more, and both money and food were fast running out.
    For my mother this was a time of enormous pressure, as my father had already fled to Pakistan, having seen how some of his former colleagues had been assassinated or abducted. Before he left, though, there was one occasion at around midnight when we’d heard a knock at our door. My mother had looked through the peephole and seen a man with a scarf wrapped around his face carrying an AK47 rifle. She had asked what he wanted. The man replied, ‘Open the door. I want to talk to Akbar Kargar.’ My mother didn’t open the door, nor did she let my father speak to the man. We never did find out who he was. He may just have been a thief, but whenever someone came and asked to speak to my father, we would all get frightened. We lived constantly with this fear, never knowing whether he would still be alive from one day to the next.
    Once my father had left Kabul he wrote to tell us that he had arrived safely in Peshawar, but after that we didn’t hear any more from him for a while. His silence meant that my mother was uncertain about what to do, because she was waiting for my father’s instructions. Life wassimpler for us children, though: we would just do what Muzgan told us to do – she would play some music, and we would all clap. I realise now we girls listening to happy songs must have annoyed all those adults burdened with anxiety, and remember how Muzgan’s mother would reproach her. ‘Muzgan, you shameless girl! Can’t you see we’re in terrible trouble? There might be no food for us tomorrow. Any of us could die. You should be teaching the girls to pray for the war to end.’ But Muzgan was not ashamed. ‘I don’t care and anyway, I don’t want to die feeling sad. Who knows? We might all die tonight, but I want to die when I’m dancing. I want to die happy. When you die, Mother, you’ll die worrying.’ Then her mother would snatch the radio from Muzgan, ignoring our pleas to be able to listen to the music and saying, ‘Your brother doesn’t have any more batteries left and we need to save the radio for the BBC news.’
    As these domestic squabbles continued, the fighting outside became even more intense. In the end, things got so bad we had to leave our home in Microrayan – which had become the stronghold of two different rebel groups – and move to Shahr-e-naw, another district of Kabul. Shahr-e-naw is right in the centre of Kabul, and at that time was considered to be a safer neighbourhood than Microrayan. We left Microrayan together with three other families, and as there was no time to pack we left with only the clothes we were wearing. We stayed in a friend’s house who had already fled the country, and had offered his home to refugees like us. Our living conditions there were cramped and squalid. All the women and children had to sleep together in one room, and as there was no hot water we couldn’t shower and we didn’t have clean clothes either. The food supplies were running low, and we had no idea what had happened to our homes, although we did hear from a neighbour that our apartments had been looted by the Mujahedeen. This news upset my mother greatly, particularly as she had been waiting and waiting for word from my father. My father is a writer and an intellectual, and the collection of books he had amassed at home over the years was his pride and joy. One large room in our apartment had been filled with shelf upon shelf of books –