| The Afghan Women?s Writing Project |
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| by Masha Hamilton and Stacy Parker Aab |
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The new Afghan Women’s Writing Project matches female Afghan students with overseas teachers and readers. Volunteer writers lead online classrooms and the resultant pieces are posted on the project blog http://awwproject.wordpress.com/about/ . Reader responses are not only welcomed, but highly appreciated by the young women writers. Please check out their poems and stories and let them know that they are heard. Here are a few recent pieces by Roya. Share Love Moment of Patience Every morning when I start my day, I pray for the soul of my father. I put red roses on his grave and I kiss his grave soil and I think: where I kiss is heaven. God bless my father. His holy words were as if from messengers: they remain in my mind. The friends my father chose for me will never leave me. Once he told me: “These friends won't forget you until you forget them.” Those friends were the books he gave me. My father once took a trip to India and he asked everyone what he should bring back. My brother asked for ice cream and my other brother wanted a very big kite. I asked my father to bring me some nice books. I kept the books my father gave me in my only box of clothes. They were like undiscovered land for me. Now I know that when I was a child, my father gave me the chance to feel grown up. When I was in seventh grade, my father bought me a nice brown cupboard with many shelves. His gift was so dear to me. I shifted my books from my box to the cupboard, which had locks. I locked the books and hid the keys under a floorboard in my room. Locking things up, I felt like I had the keys to the White House! Eventually, I started a friendship with books. I studied some books which were interesting to me. During the Taliban government, we were required to stay at home. Staying at home was disaster! I felt bored, tired, depressed. It was like tolerating a headache all the time. I was a bird in a golden cage. Our next door neighbor's daughter spoke with me every day at four o’clock in the afternoon. She stood by the window and I put the ladder on the wall of the yard to see her and talk with her. Her name was Helaha. She told me that she was studying books and asked me if I studied books also. But Helaha talked about detective books and romantic novels. When we talked about becoming adults, Helaha said she wanted to marry a policeman: all the time she was talking about police worlds! Years passed, and she married a man but he was not a policeman. On those black days, when I had to tolerate life like a broken hand, I can't forget the kindness of my father. At the beginning of every year when it was time for school to start, he would buy school supplies for my brothers, and he bought for me too. After five years of Taliban government, my room was like a bookstore. I kept all of my school supplies and I named my room “Knowledge House.” My father loved my room and he called me his “scholar daughter.” He said: “You won't stay at home. You will study. Be hopeful.” But although I trusted my father, looking at my unused school supplies hurt me. It was like visiting an apple garden and the gardener forbids you to eat an apple. Have you ever counted the seconds for your desires? You, my dear, I ask you, the reader of these lines? Have you ever counted seconds and moments? I honestly did. One day I decided to go to the bazaar and go window shopping. I wore my burqa, a special hejab worn during Taliban time. It was called chadariy in Farsi. I went to my favorite place, a stationary store. It was not like a store; it was a very small, dusty shop and on the walls there were shelves for pens, pencils and similar items. The shopkeeper was very young man, but with a beard and a tired face. He looked like very old man. I was searching the shelves for something and suddenly I found it. I told myself, Roya! It is here, but why should I buy it? I will stay at home and who will ever know that I loved to study? Who will know, who will know? I was talking to myself. The shopkeeper asked what I wanted. I asked about the price of some dusty old books on the shelf. He told me those books were not for sale. I was surprised. “What! For rent?” I asked him. He replied: “Yes, each book rents for 1 Afghani (Afghanistan’s currency) for 24 hours.” I felt very happy and asked: “Can I rent these books too? Do you want money in advance?” I was worried because I didn’t have the money for I went only to window shop! “No, just don’t try to come every day, and don’t come alone. Taliban will hit you,” he replied. I took a book from him and, with a world of desires, I went home. It was the first day I began to read novels. That book was named The Night Without End. After that, my mood changed. I read books like men use drugs, nonstop, paying rent to the shopkeeper. I wished I could meet these writers, I thought. I would love to share stories with them. But all the writers of the books I was reading had died long years ago! Finally that dark history came to an end. I had been blind, and now I was released from that golden cage with a certificate of patience and tolerance. My father's words came true and I began going to school. I began to buy books of all kinds, poems, novels, Islamic books, English books, psychology books and many others. I loved classic poems like Rumi. I read books from Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartine, Nietzsche. But now I love to read modern poem books because these writers talks about the present time, what we feel, touch, smell and taste. I wonder how they can so deeply discover our souls. I love Sohrab Sepehri's poems in Farsi, and Forugh Farrokhzad, a poet from Tehran. I also enjoy reading young poets. I have a classmate at university, Zobair, who is a poet. He always encourages me to write and he tolerates my writings and listens to what I write. He says “All great poems were first works like yours, Roya!” Now I have a small library at home. I am the queen sitting in my room and studying my books. I have all kinds of books. I have to tell you a secret! All my saved money is spent to buy books. Don’t repeat this to my mom or she will get angry! I really love books but I love readers too, do you know? Especially I love the reader of these lines. Trust me, if you weren’t reading my writings, I would only be Roya staying at home and cooking lunch and dinner. You read my writings and I breathe with you, I breathe with words and I breathe with my writings. I love you, love you, love you. Because of that, I translated my favorite poem and now dedicate it for your eyes: Apple's Garden |
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