Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan Page 4

  We finally came to a bus terminal where some local people were selling bread, but the dust in my mouth had killed my appetite. Here we exchanged our Russian truck for a smaller Japanese one, which would take us on the final leg of our journey to Peshawar. The Pakistani border police knew when they saw us that we were refugees who had crossed the border illegally, but there was an arrangement in place between them and the drivers. Our driver simply handed over some money to them, and we continued on our journey into Peshawar. We had with us the telephone number of a friend of my father’s who was living in Peshawar, and he was able to tell us where my father was staying. When we arrived at the house, my father was there waiting for us.

  I had always seen my father clean-shaven and in a suit, smelling of after-shave and smiling. Yet here he was now in a dark green shalwar kamiz (loose trousers and dress or top) looking older and greyer. My parents cried as they hugged each other, and we girls wept too as we clung to him, but my baby brother behaved as if nothing had happened while my baby sister stayed asleep. My dad ended up holding her in his arms for hours. After a while we became worried that she was showing no sign of waking, but my mother simply said she was tired after all her crying and the long journey, and would wake up later. My father, meanwhile, told the other women how grateful he was to my mother. He said she was his hero because she had managed to bring his family back safely to him.

  At last I was able to change out of my old black corduroy trousers and grey jumper, and have a hot shower. Finally, the smell of the head-lice lotion disappeared, and all the lice were dead. I think the journey had been as effective at killing them as the lotion had. In the evening my baby sister woke up, my mum washed her and she contentedly drank her milk, while we were given a traditional Afghan meal of Kabuli pilaw rice, lamb and spinach. The food tasted wonderful after so many hours of hunger and it was such a relief to be reunited with my father, but looking back I can see I didn’t fully appreciate what a narrow escape we’d all had. I now give thanks to God for keeping us safe in that old Russian truck, and for reuniting my family.

  After dinner that first night my father’s friend’s wife said to my mother, ‘Sister dear, you do know this is Peshawar, don’t you?’ My mother replied that, of course, she knew we had come to Peshawar. But the friend continued, ‘Sister, you must appreciate this is a very different kind of society to the one you’ve left behind in Kabul.’ My mother was now uncertain as to what she meant, and asked in what way it was different. ‘It’s very strict, and your daughters are not dressed appropriately. They will have to wear a hijab and cover their faces.’ My mother protested that we were still very young, but our hostess insisted that in Peshawar we would be considered women and it would be dangerous for us to go out dressed as we had done in Kabul.

  The next day while my father looked for a place for us to rent, my mother went shopping to buy us shalwar kamiz and hijabs, and for the first time in my life I felt repressed. In Kabul the restrictions on women and girls’ clothes hadn’t affected us that much; I’d had to wear a headscarf outside and for school a long black hijab, but I had also been allowed to wear jeans, corduroy trousers and blouses or sweaters. I’d been comfortable in trousers all my life, yet now I was expected to wear a shalwar kamiz, and even though I didn’t actually mind wearing one, I didn’t like the fact that I had to wear it. I asked if I could wear my jeans with a kamiz shirt, but was told I couldn’t. Worse still I had to wear a large scarf called a chador, which covered my head and face, and left only my eyes showing. For an eleven-year-old child like me, this was too much. The shalwar kamiz might have been a traditional piece of clothing for Pakistani women and children, but it wasn’t one I had grown up with. During my early childhood the dress code had been relatively relaxed before the Mujahedeen had made women wear the black hijab (something they’d enforced even in the refugee camps). I noticed now that some Mujahedeen groups treated Afghan and Pakistani women differently, and that they looked down on Afghan women and called them ‘Kabulis’, meaning they’d come from a liberal country that didn’t adhere closely to Islamic laws. And we were instantly recognisable as refugees because we had to wear the black hijab while the Pakistani women didn’t – instead they could wear colourful clothes as long as their hair was covered.

  Peshawar is in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the north-west of Pakistan and is one of the most traditional areas of the country, so its tribal code of conduct remains very strong. Women and men do not mix outside the family, boys and girls go to separate schools and men and women socialise in different rooms at parties and weddings. Compared to other cities in Pakistan like Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore, Peshawar is conservative, male dominated and practises a strictly fundamental form of Islam.

  My sisters and I found that men in Pakistan looked at us as if we were pieces of meat, and it frightened us enough to make us change our behaviour and act like older women. At this time we were sharing a house with another Afghan family, and as our family had only two rooms I no longer had my own bedroom and comfortable bed with a proper pillow and blanket. Our existence had become far more basic. I was no longer the daughter of a government minister. We were poor, and my father was looking for work. At that age I didn’t understand that my parents were doing the best they could for us under difficult circumstances, so my sisters and I would moan about how the food we ate was too plain and how it was uncomfortable to have to sleep on the floor. My mother told us off for complaining, reminding us that we should be thanking God for keeping us all alive. I’m sure that if I were ever in that situation again I’d be far more supportive of my mother, particularly when I think of everything she went through, coping with the war and holding the family together. I see her now both as a strong woman and as a role model.

  My sisters and I were soon given places in a school for refugees and even though I missed our house back in Kabul, life was much better than it had been during those long weeks of bombing and shelling, not knowing whether we would live or die. Gradually I adapted to life as an ordinary Peshawar schoolgirl, and my tastes began to change. I tried to make the best of having to wear shalwar kamiz by choosing ones made of brightly coloured material and searching out those in the most fashionable styles. When I was at school, though, I had no choice but to wear the black hijab. Our refugee school was directly funded by Saudi Arabia – a country supportive of the Mujahedeen – and it concentrated heavily on Islamic studies. I found learning Arabic extremely difficult because even though I could read it – as I’d learnt to recite the Quran – I had no idea how the grammar worked or what the words actually meant. When it came to Arabic exams, I remember crying because I found them so difficult.

  Life improved when my father got a job with an education project at the BBC World Service. He worked as a writer on a radio drama for Afghans, and was sufficiently well paid for us to be able to rent our own house in a better area of Peshawar. At this time, my father decided that my sisters and I should all learn English, saying it was vital for our future. So while we were already studying English at school, he also enrolled us in private language classes. They cost a lot of money, but he was adamant we should have a good education.

  After completing high school in Peshawar at the age of seventeen, I went to a university for Afghan refugees to study journalism. I chose journalism because I harboured an ambition to sing or speak on either the radio or the television. I was still young to be going to university at this age but had been able to jump ahead because I’d finished my school exams early. My real dream though was to be able go to Kabul University, not least because my father had studied there and my mother had always said it would be good to follow in his footsteps. My father had proudly told us about his old university’s high standard of education, and the quality of its teaching, but my ambition to study there remains unfulfilled. The collapse of the Soviet Union, followed by the period of rule by the Mujahedeen and then the Taliban, shattered those dreams.

  Before the fighting broke out in Afghanistan, my father wou
ldn’t have entertained the idea of arranged marriages for any of his daughters, but war changes every aspect of life. The basics of survival, food, shelter and safety end up taking priority over education. Our lives – like those of so many other refugee families – had changed forever, and there was no doubt that it was really hard for my father to be responsible for four daughters. He had not only to ensure our safety, but also our moral well-being. Many fathers ended up dealing with these problems by arranging for their daughters to be married to men living in Europe, where they would enjoy a better standard of living than in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Afghan men who had settled in the West were starting to come back to Pakistan in search of Afghan girls to marry. I consider myself lucky to have got an education before getting married.

  Once we were properly settled in Pakistan, I was able to think about my future and my ambition to become a journalist. Many years before, I’d dreamt of becoming a professional singer, but as it’s not a career choice held in high regard by my culture, I decided to become a radio presenter. While I was studying, the BBC World Service introduced a free five-day course in journalism for young Afghan refugees in Peshawar. Thrilled, I enrolled on it together with two of my university friends. When the course was over, I started work on an educational programme for Afghans. The programme was an international aid project set up by the BBC World Service Trust. I started to make short radio packages on subjects of interest to Afghan women in the refugee camps. I visited these women regularly and asked them specifically what kind of information they needed to hear about, and they told me they wanted guidance on a variety of health issues and more information about contraception. Some of these women had particular skills – like weaving – and I would interview them about their craft-making. After recording these interviews in the camps I would add in some material from relevant experts before editing the material into a radio report that was then broadcast on the BBC’s Afghan Service from London.

  It felt so good to hear my work on the radio. In fact, I loved it, although when I first heard my voice on the radio I was embarrassed, because it sounded so small and young, rather like a bird chirping. That didn’t stop my father being proud of me though. My sisters, meanwhile, were all busy studying and my not-so-baby brother was at a private school and doing well. My father also had a good job writing for the BBC’s ‘New Home, New Life’ educational drama, similar to Radio 4’s soap ‘The Archers’. The series has been on air for more than ten years, and is the most listened-to BBC programme in the whole of Afghanistan.

  Despite things continuing to get easier and life becoming more comfortable, it still wasn’t safe for us to be living in Pakistan. My father was far from secure in a city where both the Taliban and the fundamental Mujahedeen forces were free to pursue their particular agendas, and Pakistan was not a country that gave sanctuary to political exiles. A couple of Afghan politicians from my father’s era had already been murdered in Pakistan by fundamentalist Jihadis – those who had a vendetta against politicians from the Soviet era – and with the Taliban in control in Afghanistan we knew we weren’t safe in Peshawar. We worried every morning when my father left for work, and would remain anxious until he returned in the evening. In those days mobile phones were few and far between, so he couldn’t let us know he was okay during the day. Pakistan was only ever a temporary stopping point for us; we didn’t ever expect it to become our home. We’d always imagined we would eventually return to Afghanistan, but had gradually come to realise that going back to our homeland would prove impossible.

  When the Taliban came to power, Afghanistan became a state forgotten by the international community. By this time we’d spent more than six years in Pakistan, and many of our relatives were starting to ask my father if they could marry me or one of my sisters. We were now all in our teens, and in Peshawar it’s perfectly normal for people to get married at the age of sixteen or seventeen. Such was the prevailing culture then, that my parents accepted offers both for me and for one of my sisters to get engaged. I was just seventeen years old at the time, and was happy to do whatever my parents thought was best. In fact, I didn’t really stop to think about what I was agreeing to because I was so busy studying and working full time for the BBC as a writer and producer in a children’s radio drama.

  Towards the end of 1999 my father’s brother helped him get to the United Kingdom as an asylum seeker. Meanwhile my mother went back to Afghanistan with her brother to sell our damaged apartment in Kabul, even though it wasn’t safe for her to go back there as a former minister’s wife. Fortunately, though, my mother was not well-known and my uncle was just an ordinary young man whom the Taliban considered to be my mother’s mahram (someone who is legally related to the woman, as a brother, husband, father or uncle) and therefore a suitable companion for her. They went back to Kabul for just four days. At this time property prices were at their very lowest, as people had lost all hope of Afghanistan having a bright future. Unemployment was high, people were poor and my mother was not able to secure a particularly good price for our property. When she returned to Pakistan, though, we knew we had cut our last physical tie to our old country.

  Two years after my father had left us to go and live in England he was able to get a family reunion visa so we could join him there. The day I knew I was going to London I went back to dressing in the way I had in Kabul. I bought a new pair of jeans and left my big scarf behind in Peshawar. I felt like a bird being let out of its cage as I shed my hijab for ever. I had always complained about the strict dress code in Pakistan, threatening to throw off my hijab and wear a mini-skirt, and my older sister had warned me that as an Afghan girl I could never do such a thing as people would say I had lost all sense of my cultural values. Every time I would argue back: ‘My culture is not the shalwar kamiz, my culture is my clothes.’

  My mother would get angry with me for my defiance, but really she didn’t bother much about how I dressed.

  We arrived at Heathrow airport on 14 August 2001 – the air was clean and fresh compared to the polluted humidity of Peshawar, but I couldn’t enjoy my newfound freedom because my fiancé was waiting to meet me. I had no idea what he looked like, and knew only that he was the son of a family friend. When I saw Javed for the first time, I realised the engagement was real; it wasn’t something I could ignore. I was disappointed that he wasn’t the tall, handsome man I had imagined, and angry with my parents for arranging the marriage. I didn’t like Javed, didn’t want to talk to him and I spent a lot of time crying. Of course I knew that having a handsome husband was no guarantee of happiness, but I couldn’t help my naïve, idealised expectations. Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter how I felt, because in my culture once it has been decided that a girl should marry a particular man, it would cause immense problems if that agreement was not honoured. My mother used to tell me stories of families who’d changed their minds about an arranged marriage and then found that a close male relative of theirs had been killed. My mother reminded me that I only have one brother, and warned that she didn’t want him to inherit a dispute with another family.

  I used to believe in marriage. When I was a girl I thought it, and everything it entailed, was simply to be accepted. So when my parents chose a husband for me, I accepted their decision, telling myself, ‘Zarghuna, you’re a Pashtun girl and you should marry the man your family has chosen for you.’ I remembered the saying that a girl who accepts the wishes of her parents will never be unhappy in her future life. When I voiced any doubts, my parents told me to be a good Afghan girl and marry Javed. If I didn’t go through with the marriage, I would have to leave the family and become someone else’s daughter and never ask anything of them ever again. No matter how much I cried and told my parents that I couldn’t marry Javed because I didn’t like him, their response was always the same: ‘Hush! It’s not for a Pashtun girl to say whom she likes or wants to marry. In our family no girl has ever chosen their partner. If anyone in our family finds out you’ve been talking this way, they’ll gos
sip about us and we’ll never be able to show our faces amongst decent people again.’

  I was too young to make any drastic decisions of my own; new to Great Britain and the whole Western way of life, I was frightened and didn’t know what to do. I had a good job but it involved working with Afghans, most of whom knew my family; my social life revolved around going to Afghans’ houses where people would routinely curse girls who had rejected their families’ wishes and married a man of their choice. I felt like I had no choice, and decided it was best if I married Javed. I wasn’t to know that years later I would deeply regret this decision, or that I’d eventually find the strength to confront my family and community about my feelings. But it was July 2003 and I was only twenty-one years old.

  Like so many other Afghan brides, my wedding day began in the beauty parlour. At seven o’clock in the morning my hair was curled, my eyebrows threaded, my nails polished and I had proper make-up put on for the first time. When she had finished, the beautician picked up a mirror and held it in front of me. She told me to stand up and look at myself, said I was a beautiful bride and that the groom was a lucky man. I looked at my reflection and saw the pretty white wedding dress and the way the eye-liner and mascara made my eyes look larger. I was no longer the short, dark-skinned, plain Zarghuna but a taller, more sophisticated-looking person. The beautician insisted I looked beautiful, but I didn’t believe her. I had darker skin than any of my sisters, and I had always been considered the least good-looking in my family. After the beautician took the mirror from me, I looked down. ‘One thing I should say is that even though you’re a very beautiful bride, you’re a very miserable one. You should cheer up a bit and smile on your wedding day.’ I said nothing and waited for Javed to arrive and take me to the wedding in the specially decorated car, a ‘gulposh’.