Translator: Joseph Geni
Reviewer: Morton Bast
When I was 11,
I remember waking up one morning to the sound of joy in my house.
My father was listening to BBC News
on his small, gray radio.
There was a big smile on his face which was unusual then,
because the news mostly depressed him.
"The Taliban are gone!" my father shouted.
I didn't know what it meant,
but I could see that my father was very, very happy.
"You can go to a real school now," he said.
A morning that I will never forget.
A real school.
You see, I was six when the Taliban took over Afghanistan
and made it illegal for girls to go to school.
So for the next five years, I dressed as a boy
to escort my older sister, who was no longer allowed
to be outside alone, to a secret school.
It was the only way we both could be educated.
Each day, we took a different route
so that no one would suspect where we were going.