Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan (27 page)

Some families are aware that the Quran says women should also inherit a share of what their parents or closest relatives leave but most women and girls are not included and they suffer like Janpary. They are too frightened to go to the courts and petition for their rights because going to a court is seen as a shameful thing for a woman to do. Women
who fight for their share of inheritance usually fail. In a male-dominated society like Afghanistan, it is the men who decide their fate and, of course, they mostly make their decisions to suit themselves rather than the women.

Janpary was left wishing she had never consulted Bibi. Sometimes it pays to remain ignorant, she thought. She told her children that their mother should not have stretched out her legs beyond the duvet; she should not have tried to reach beyond her means. Women like her should stay silent and accept their lot.

The next day, Janpary had bruises all over her body but she returned to Bibi’s house. She accepted this experience as part of her fate and continued to work in the big house as a cleaner.

If you go to an Afghan village and ask a woman who has not been to school and has no education about her Islamic rights, she would probably tell you about all the traditional rules that she has followed and that her mother, her grandmother and aunties have always followed. Information about Islamic rights and the law of the country is very limited. Some human rights organisations have started to give this kind of information to women in villages, but access to those women in remote areas is very limited.

I remember accompanying my mother to a party at the home of an Afghan family who were marking the birth of their son after four girls. It was a happy atmosphere, and we were all served delicious Afghan food. When the party finished and we were going home, the boy’s mother gave gifts to my mother and other older women who had come to the gathering. I asked her why she was giving us gifts when she had already gone to so much effort. She said, ‘I have given birth to a son!’

‘But have you given gifts on the birth of your daughters?’ I asked.

‘Oh no! If I don’t do this on the birth of my son, as my mother says, I will be committing a sin!’

To me this illustrates how mixed up my country’s traditions have become with its religion. There is nothing in our religion that says you
must give away gifts on the birth of your son or you will be seen as a sinner. But many women justify their behaviour by convincing themselves that a custom is in fact religious law or duty, when in fact most religious rules are limited to prayers and fasting. Lack of education is chiefly to blame, but these traditions are also maintained at home in each family, and passed down from mother to mother.

Layla was sitting in front of the
degdaan
(a wood-burning stove made of clay) cooking a meat stew called
shorba
for her family As she stirred the pot, she sang quietly to herself.

The light of the fire under the pot of
shorba
gave her face a glow; her eyes were red and bright. She dried her tears with the edge of her scarf and wiped her nose. Layla wasn’t paying much attention to the pot or to the
degdaan
. She kept stirring, and with each movement of her right hand she remembered the innocent faces of her children. She wondered what they would be eating, how they were sleeping and who was looking after them.

Suddenly she heard Shakira, her sister-in-law, shouting at her. ‘Layla! Layla! What are you doing? Can’t you smell the food burning?’

Shakira grabbed the spoon from Layla’s hand and waved it in front of her face. ‘You crazy woman, this meat doesn’t come free. My husband has to work hard all day for it. All you have to do is cook it but you can’t even do that properly. Move out of the way, you useless woman.’

‘I’m sorry. I was just thinking about—’

‘What were you thinking about?’ asked Shakira. ‘Another man?’

Layla started crying and got up to fetch water for the pot. When she returned Shakira passed her back the spoon.

‘When you’re asked to cook, cook properly. Concentrate and don’t
mess up expensive food. Otherwise what will we eat, the poison you bring to our house? Hah!’

Layla didn’t look at her sister-in-law. Instead, she examined the stove, moving some of the wood so the fire burnt better. Layla was wearing a light blue dress that had lost its original colour over time and was covered in dark patches from soot. Her skin was dry and flakey from washing pots every day; it was a long while since she had used any cream on her face or hands, and it was even longer since her face had glowed with happiness. She checked that the
shorba
was ready, lifted the large black pot for boiling water, which she had filled from the well earlier, and put it to stand on the last flames of the fire. Before going back in the house she rearranged the scarf on her head, making sure it covered her chest.

The family was all sitting together. Shakira was talking with her husband and the children were watching the television, powered by the generator. Shakira would only allow the generator to be on for a few hours at dinnertime so she and the children could watch their favourite programme. Layla was never allowed to watch the soaps she so enjoyed. She glanced at the TV as she walked into the room. Shakira’s eyes were on her.

‘Layla! We’re hungry; hurry up and bring us the food. Your brother here wants to wash his hands too.’

Her brother broke in saying his son could bring the water for washing hands but Shakira said, ‘No, can’t you see the poor child is busy watching television and he’s hungry.’

Without any fuss, Layla went to fetch a pail of water and all the family washed their hands as she poured for them. She lay the food out on the
desterkhan
and the family gathered round it. Then Shakira took charge, distributing the meat to her husband and children and selecting the biggest piece for herself.

Layla sat in the corner of the room – she wouldn’t touch the food until her sister-in-law gave her permission. Finally, Shakira looked at the bowl of
shorba
and said, ‘Layla, there’s not enough meat for you so you may have what’s left of the
shorba
.’

As Layla served herself, Shakira turned to her husband. ‘You know
the price of food has gone up; it’s become really expensive and it’s very difficult for me to feed an extra adult.’

Layla stared into her brother’s eyes. This wasn’t the first time she had felt a burden to her brother and his family. Nor was it the first time she had been humiliated for eating her brother’s food. Shakira was always complaining that Layla was an extra mouth to feed, and forever instructing the children to tell their aunt to leave.

Layla gathered up the
desterkhan
, then went out to the wood-burning stove, carrying a little oil burner so she could see her way in the dark. She poured hot water onto the green tea in the pot and brought it inside for Shakira and her husband. Shakira told Layla to get the beds ready for the children and said she could sleep too after doing that. Layla just nodded and left the room.

Layla slept in a small room in the corner of the yard. She had spent the whole day doing chores in the house and she was very tired. After taking off her scarf she got under an old and unwashed duvet. She tried to sleep because she knew she would have another exhausting day of housework ahead of her, punctuated by Shakira’s nagging, but every time Layla closed her eyes, her thoughts would go back to the circumstances that had led her to be living in these conditions.

She remembered a time when she was a young girl in this same house; she remembered a Layla who was loved and cared for by her father and mother and close to her brothers. At that time she hardly ever came to this room, the one she now slept in. It had been a storage room before destiny had brought her here. As memories of her childhood and teenage years came back, she found herself smiling – but where was the joy and happiness now?

Layla’s life story was brought to Afghan Woman’s Hour by Tabasum, one of our reporters, who had been on a trip to Takhar Province. Takhar is one of the most developed provinces in the north-east of Afghanistan. It has twelve districts and the provincial capital is Taloqan; it is connected to Tajikistan by the Amoo River. Before the civil war
people were able to cross the border using small boats. The Amoo River makes the land around it green and fertile for growing crops. Someone from Takhar once told me, ‘My province has such rich land that even the mountains are covered not with stones but soil. We grow wheat, rice and corn everywhere. We even gather food from our mountains, and in spring they’re a beautiful mix of green and yellow colours.’

Uzbeks are the main ethnic group in this province, followed by Tajiks, Pashtuns and Hazaras. Like every other region of Afghanistan, national traditions are followed. Boys are more valued than girls, parents arrange marriages for their daughters, and women and girls are dependent on the men in their family. However, both girls and boys go to school. Families tend to allow girls the opportunity of education but there are still young marriages, and it is common for a girl to stop going to school once she is married. People from Takhar are mainly farmers; the men work on the land and the women do household work and weave
gelims
(carpets).

Layla grew up in a very poor family but she was happy with what she had: her mother, father and brothers all around her. She used to go to the girls’ school in the village every morning, and she was lively and popular with her classmates. Like other girls in her village, Layla had been taught weaving and embroidery by her mother, and her perfect embroideries were much admired. Her delicate stitching would be applied to make clothes for the neighbours’ babies; and with the money she was paid Layla could buy herself things she wanted: notebooks, pens, hair clips, bangles and scarves. But when she was thirteen years old her life changed very abruptly, just as it did for many ordinary Afghan girls in her village.

After school, Layla and the other girls used to rush to the village man who sold iced water from a cart in front of the school. Dressed in black dresses and trousers with white scarves around their heads, hundreds of girls would come streaming out in groups, all hurrying to get to the cart first. They were boisterous and loud. Layla was known as the girl who always made it to the cart first to buy cold, fresh water. She was
popular among the girls and they would follow her everywhere she went. One hot, sunny day, Layla ran fast in the dust to get to the cart.

‘Uncle, I need five glasses of water with ice.’

She was breathing heavily from the exertion.

The ice-water man laughed. ‘Once again, Layla, you have beaten all the other girls to get here first. I’ll give free cold water to the winner.’

Layla and her friends drank the water and then walked in a line, holding their books on the top of their heads to protect them from the sun’s strong rays. At around three o’clock in the afternoon, Layla arrived at the front of her house and said goodbye to her classmates. The chickens were sitting quietly in their cages; the dog ran towards her, barking with excitement. She stroked its head and said hello. Her mother came out smiling and kissed her daughter on her forehead. Layla was happy to see her mother but thought it was unusual that she should greet her in this way. She asked her mother if she had missed her a lot and asked why?

Her mother put some sweets into her mouth and said, ‘The time has come. You have grown up. This is your own sweet.’

Layla understood what her mother meant: another family had come to their house to ask that Layla should marry their son and today her parents had decided to give Layla to them. She ran into the house because she was very shy and only thirteen years old. Getting married at that age was customary among the people of their village. Layla didn’t mind about the marriage: she knew the family would give a large amount of money to her father who was poor and badly needed it. But she also knew that she would be paying a high price for this, as she would no longer be allowed to go to school, and this was a bitter disappointment. She suggested her mother could ask her in-laws if she could continue to go to school, but Layla’s education meant little to her mother and she didn’t want to damage the chances of the marriage taking place by putting conditions on it. Layla had no choice but to accept the marriage and leave school.

Layla’s fiancé was a member of the national army. His family wanted to have the wedding soon and Layla’s family agreed with them. Layla started family life with her in-laws in Takhar. Her husband was kind
and considerate to her. He was a young soldier and Layla was quite happy with her life. He was a softly spoken and caring man and Layla soon came love to him. At the age of fourteen, Layla had her first baby. Her husband, who was usually away on duty, could only come home once or twice a month. Her life now consisted of waiting for her love to return; every time he came back safely she thanked God for her good fortune. During wartime many young soldiers didn’t make it home.

During the civil war between the communists and Mujahedeen, the loss of a father, husband or son was an everyday occurrence. One day my mother stopped to count the war widows in our own family. There were six women who had lost their husbands in the fight with the Mujahedeen in my family alone. One of my mother’s cousins, a soldier, was killed in a battle with the Mujahedeen in the east of Afghanistan. My first cousin, Abdul Karim, was killed in a fight with Mujahedeen forces in Kandahar. He was a commando officer during the Soviet era in Afghanistan. I remember my auntie crying for her young son on the day of his funeral. The whole family gathered at my uncle’s house in Kabul. My auntie kept hitting herself and calling out the name of her son. I had wished it had been his older brother who had been killed. At the time I thought my auntie loved Abdul Karim the most and that if the other brother had died she wouldn’t have been so upset, but these were just the confused thoughts of a nine-year-old girl upset at her auntie’s distress.