Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan

by Zarghuna Kargar

  Our relationship started to falter, and soon there were long periods where we would hardly see each other. He would leave the house earlier than me and I spent more and more time at my parents’. I would try to be asleep when he came home at night, and those nights that I was awake I would pretend to be asleep so we didn’t have to talk. My self-esteem was at an all time low; my respect for him and any residual love I felt for him was fading fast. Talking to Wazma showed me that this was not the only way to live. You don’t have to feel like a prisoner in your own home, even if, like Wazma, your home is on top of a mountain in Kabul with very limited facilities.

  I was in hospital for a long time. I was given a lot of morphine because my leg hurt so much. The pain was so bad, I couldn’t think clearly. After a while, it did get better but then I started to worry. My parents came to visit me every day. They would bring me food and look after me. Each day I would ask for my husband and daughter but they never came to visit me in hospital. I missed them so much. I couldn’t wait to hold my daughter in my arms again. After more than a week, I had heard nothing from them. I kept asking my mother where they were and why they hadn’t come. She made all sorts of excuses, saying that they had visited the other day but I was asleep or that Farah was ill so they had had to stay at home. The stronger I became, the more determined I was to see them. Weeks passed and I didn’t hear anything from my husband. I became convinced that my parents were hiding something from me but the truth was worse than I could possibly have imagined.

  One afternoon, my mother came with cherries on a plate. She had just washed them. She kissed me on the forehead and said, ‘Wazma, my child. You look so pale, as if you don’t have a drop of blood in your body. I’ve brought you some cherries because the doctors told me they’re good for the blood.’

  I took my mother’s hand, placed it on my head and told her I could see how much she loved me. She reassured me that she did, but wanted to know why I was holding her hand so tightly. I replied, ‘I’m a mother too. I also have a daughter. Can you feel my pain?’

  I tightened my grip on her hand.

  ‘Where are Farah and Waheed? Swear on my life that they’re safe.’

  I began to shout and cry. My mother started crying too. She said they were safe and coping well without me. She told me to concentrate on getting well myself. At this point, a doctor came into the room. He took my blood pressure and told me I was ready to be discharged.

  ‘Wazma, you’re a strong woman. Your life will be different now. I want to wish you all the best for the future. Don’t lose hope or strength. Our country is going though a difficult time.’

  I thanked the doctor for looking after me. My mind, however, was really on my daughter and husband. I was upset that in all these weeks they hadn’t visited me even once but at least now I was being discharged and I would see them again.

  My mother packed my things into a bag, helped me into a wheelchair and pushed me in it to a taxi. It felt strange to be in the fresh air again, seeing and hearing the sights and sounds of the street. My parents were strangely subdued. I thought they would be pleased that their daughter had recovered enough to go home but perhaps they were upset they had a disabled daughter.

  I didn’t dwell on this, though, as all I wanted to do was to see my daughter again. In hospital, I had planned to be angry with Waheed and find out why he hadn’t visited me, but now the moment had come to see him again I was just excited and happy. When we got into the taxi I heard my father tell the driver to take us to Khairkhana. I protested. ‘No, wait. Why are we going to your home? I can come and see you later with Waheed and Farah.’

  Instead, I told the driver to take us to Deh Afghanan. I informed him it was my home and my husband and daughter would be waiting for me there. My father told me to be quiet in front of the driver and he would explain everything later – for now their home was my home once again. I didn’t know what to make of it all.

  When we arrived at Khairkhana my father and brother lifted me out of the taxi and into the wheelchair. I expected Waheed and Farah to be waiting for me inside my parents’ house. I searched the room full of relatives for the only two people I was desperate to see. I wanted to see Farah in the new dress I had made for her and had sweets in my hand for her. I asked where Waheed was but nobody would tell me. Eventually I lost patience and started shouting and crying.

  ‘Where is Waheed?’ I screamed. ‘Why will no one tell me what is going on?’

  At this, people averted their eyes from me. Some even started crying. My mother came up to me and put her arms around me.

  ‘You won’t see them again, my darling.’

  She held me closer to her. ‘They are not coming back to you.’

  My heart sank and I began to feel sick and faint. I asked her to repeat what she meant. Why would I not see my daughter?

  ‘You can’t see them and you won’t be able to live with them.’

  I began to weep. I couldn’t understand what was happening.

  My mother was crying now. ‘Wazma, my child. That bastard husband of yours has said now you’re disabled he can’t live with you. He’s going to marry someone else.’

  I felt as though my whole world had come crashing down. I couldn’t believe that my beloved husband would do or say such things. My baby, my little girl, was being taken away from me. All my dreams were crushed, my feelings torn to shreds. At that moment, the world became dark.

  Wazma was crying and said, ‘Dear Zari, this was the worst thing that happened in my life. The pain in my leg has been nothing compared to this.’

  I could barely believe the story Wazma was telling me and I could feel tears welling up.

  I told everyone that I loved and needed Waheed and Farah. I promised I wouldn’t get angry with them or ask why they hadn’t come to see me in hospital. All I wanted to do was go back to my own home and see them again.

  My relatives looked on helplessly as I cried. My mother was crying with me. Finally she spoke. ‘All right, Wazma, my child. We will take you to see Waheed but you will have to be strong.’

  My father objected, calling my mother crazy for entertaining such an idea. He asked her why she wanted to take me to that arsehole’s house. He didn’t want his daughter to see him again because he was not worthy of her. But my mother was calm and firm. She said it would be better for me to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears. Only then would I believe what kind of person my husband had become.

  I still couldn’t believe what she was trying to tell me. I couldn’t stop crying. My heart was beating furiously. I had difficulty breathing. It was as if someone was suffocating me. My father wasn’t convinced by my mother’s argument but he still went to find a taxi for us.

  I was carried into the car. It took my parents and me up the steep mountain road to my house. I started to feel cold and began shivering. I prayed that everything my mother had told me was a lie. I hoped for a miracle and pictured Waheed holding me in a tight embrace and my daughter welcoming me in her new dress with a beautiful smile.

  It was beginning to get dark by the time we arrived at my home. Waheed and I had always sat outside our house in the summer and gazed at the stars. Now I looked up at the sky and examined those same stars for messages. Were they telling me not to go in? Were they giving me news of a happy reunion?

  The taxi couldn’t make it up the last part of the journey, so my mother and father struggled to push my wheelchair up the narrow stony path. Some of my friends and neighbours came out to greet us. They seemed surprised to see me but still stopped to kiss me. They put sweets into my hand, as is our custom to show they were happy to see me alive. All this made me feel better but the most important man in my life did not come out to welcome me home.

  My mother approached my door. I stopped her and said I wanted to knock on it myself. I felt some strength and anger return. I would knock on my door and find out what lay behind it for myself.

  I noticed how dusty it had become. I tried to clean it with my slee
ve but the dust wouldn’t go. Then the door opened. Waheed appeared. I could see from his eyes that he immediately recognised me, even though I had grown thin and pale. But even though he saw me, he wouldn’t look into my eyes. I began to weep.

  ‘Waheed!’ I shouted. ‘Waheed jan. It’s your wife here, Wazma. I know I’m not strong and beautiful any more but I swear to God and I swear on the life of my daughter that my love for you is as strong as ever. I’ve come back to you.’

  Waheed began crying but still he wouldn’t look at me. And when I asked to be allowed in to see my daughter he raised his hands as if to bar my entry.

  ‘You can’t come into the house. It’s not your home any more.’

  I begged to be allowed to stay so that I could at least be with my daughter, but Waheed shook his head. ‘I want to be happy,’ he said. ‘How can I live with a wife who has no leg? You can’t even look after yourself, so how can you take care of my daughter?’

  At that moment, Waheed died for me. He became like a small insect in front of me. I had lost my leg, I had lost my love and now I realised I had lost my baby girl. I heard his words and yet I didn’t hear them.

  ‘I am planning to marry again, so you are free from my side. You can do whatever you want but you can’t see my daughter again. Now you are disabled I don’t think you can look after my daughter properly.’

  I asked him why he was being so cruel. It wasn’t my fault that a rocket had landed and taken away my leg. I had only lost a leg. Everything else about me was the same, especially my love for my daughter. I pleaded with him, as a mother, to let me see my daughter. But no matter how much I begged, he stood like a stone at the door. After a while, he went back inside the house and closed the door. At this, I fell down weeping and shouting. My parents pulled me away, lifted me into the taxi and took me back to their home.

  What choice did I have but to live with my parents? It wasn’t easy for them because they were getting old and I needed a lot of help. My leg also gave me a great deal of pain, which required medicine. My sister-in-law resented my presence because I was eating their food, which was paid for with her husband’s earnings. I was becoming a burden on my family and even my parents were starting to blame me. I became depressed. I would cry all the time and not do anything or talk to anyone. I was just wrapped up in my feelings and desperately missed my daughter.

  One day a neighbour mentioned that there was a centre for disabled people in the Qal-e-Fatih Ullah area of town. I asked my father to take me there. They encouraged me to sew clothes and with their help I became a tailor. I am now earning, which means I can give my parents money and contribute to household expenses. They no longer criticise me or moan about me: having money makes me important!

  I was very upset by what had happened to Wazma but I admired her for her determination and hard work and asked if I could ask her a few personal questions. She said that after all the hurt she had suffered, talking about her feelings was easy. I asked her what she would have done if the rocket attack had taken Waheed’s leg instead of hers? Wazma smiled and replied that she would have stayed and looked after him. She would never have left him. She said she knows that she was cast out because she is a woman. She could accept this abandonment, but the worst thing is being separated from her only child.

  ‘I miss her! Sometimes she comes to the centre to see me. She knows I’m her mother and she’s nice to me. I’m happy that I see her sometimes. Life has been unfair to me but at least I’m still alive and able to earn a living sewing.’

  Wazma is not alone. Hundreds of women in Afghanistan suffer like this. According to the United Nations, the decades of war that have plagued Afghanistan – the rocket attacks, landmines and bombs – have left more than a million people disabled. Some have lost legs and arms, others their sight, and many their peace of mind. You don’t have to walk far in Kabul before you come across a disabled person. There is a special ministry in Afghanistan called ‘The Martyrs and Disabled Affairs Ministry’. This ministry is responsible for providing assistance to those disabled through the war, helping them to find suitable jobs and offering them financial aid. Some of the officials are disabled themselves. I ask myself, would my country have such a ministry if it weren’t for the war?

  It is not unusual to find a man like Waheed with a heart made of stone, as Wazma puts it; a man who would reject his wife because she had become disable. However, there are many women – young and old – who are married to disabled men and take care of all their needs. It is easier for a disabled man to find a wife because the woman has no say in the marriage, but it is almost impossible for a disabled woman to find a man who will accept her.

  I made a special radio programme on Wazma’s story, dedicated to Wazma herself, in which we invited experts to discuss the lives of women in her situation. As a journalist, I couldn’t demand that Waheed return Farah to her mother; I wasn’t a judge in court but at least I could tell the world her story. The essence of the programme was that disabled people have the same rights to family life as anyone else. I hoped this programme would have a deep impact on the audience and especially on Wazma’s family.

  The next day when I went to the office, I was still thinking about Wazma. Her story had affected me, too, and I had spent the night thinking about her. A colleague came up to me and told me that I had to be at my desk in an hour’s time because someone was going to call me from the United States. I was surprised because I wasn’t expecting a call. I asked who the caller was and my colleague just shrugged and said the person only asked to speak to the presenter of Afghan Woman’s Hour.

  An hour later, I found myself speaking to an Afghan living in America. He told me how he had heard yesterday’s programme and it had made him cry. He hadn’t been able to get the woman who had lost her leg in a rocket attack out of his mind and wanted to help her. He offered to provide Wazma with money on a regular basis. Fortunately, I was going to Afghanistan later that month and was able hand her the money in person. Wazma’s story had touched someone in our audience to the point where they were prepared to do something.

  Janpary’s Story

  During my time at Afghan Woman’s Hour, not a day would pass without a reporter sending us a story about a family or woman living in extreme poverty. The war has deprived so many people of their homes, land, jobs and income, and they now find themselves trying to survive in plastic tents in Kabul city. If you’re on your first visit to the capital and compare it to the provincial cities of Afghanistan, Kabul might appear to be quite developed and wealthy, but look closer and you will be shocked by the number of beggars standing in the road.

  Out in the field, whenever I was talking to women and gathering stories, people would run towards me, eager to show me their torn clothing and wretched-looking children. They would assume I belonged to a non-governmental organisation (NGO) or the United Nations, there to distribute food or some other aid. There have been many occasions when I have told these women that I’m from the BBC and not from a charity, and seen their hopeful faces fall with disappointment. Once I met a little girl who was carrying water to her home from a nearby well in a village on the outskirts of Kabul. Her hands were frozen and she was crying with cold. I felt useless and wished God could give me millions of pounds so that I could help these people.

  Each time I go back to Afghanistan and am confronted by extreme poverty, I think how grateful I should be to God for everything I have. When I walk into a supermarket in London I’m faced with a bewildering choice of different types of bread and I’m aware that in Kabul a girl will stand at the roadside and beg all day long just for a crust of bread. When I first started returning to Afghanistan I used to give a few coins to beggars on the street but I found that within seconds I’d be swamped by a crowd of people – men, women and children – all desperate for money. A colleague soon warned me against doing this; he worried that if I didn’t give every one of them money, I might be attacked. It was certainly frightening to be surrounded by a dozen beggars in a busy ci
ty like Kabul with all the security risks.

  According to a UN report, a third of the Afghan population lives below the official poverty line. In many of the poorest families the breadwinner is disabled, has fallen ill or even died. And these families do not have a relative in the West who can send them money every month. So those who have no one to care for them starve, their children starve, and they die from the freezing cold in winter or the stifling heat in summer.

  On one trip to Afghanistan I encountered a woman begging on the streets. She was carrying her baby daughter who looked only a few months old. I tried to talk to the woman about her life, but she said, ‘Sister, if you’re going to give me some money then it’s fine to stand here and talk to me. Otherwise, please don’t waste my time.’ I’ve found it hard to get this woman out of my head, holding her child in the middle of a chaotic and busy street in the centre of Kabul. It was dusty and noisy and bitterly cold. The baby’s lips had turned blue and the mother wore plastic shoes with holes in the soles. I looked at the two of them, both stiff with cold, and I urgently wanted to help, but there was so little I could do. I gave the woman some money and left. As I walked back to the office, her words were ringing in my head. She was right. Why would she waste her time being interviewed by me when she could be attracting the attention of passing cars and people and getting money for food?

  In January 2008, when I was working on the programme in Kabul, one of my colleagues from the BBC’s news team came into our office asking for donations. He said his friend had called him from northern Afghanistan to tell him that a family there had sold their newborn baby girl for five hundred dollars because they were so desperate. The father did not have enough money to heat the house or buy food. We all gave some money so the father was able to buy back his daughter and get food and fuel. Can you imagine the hopelessness of a mother who decides to sell her newborn baby to get money to feed the other members of her family?