Voices of Afghan Women

Recently I did a reading. Not the fortune telling type or the spiritual type. The type that writers do. 

In the writing world, a reading is an event where a writer promotes his or her work at, say, a book launch party or at bookstores. I, however, was not reading from my own work, but from the work of someone else. I was nervous, not because I would read in public but because I was asked to lend my voice to the work of a woman who doesn't have a voice, not because she can't speak, but because she is an Afghan woman. 

The Afghanistan Women's Writing Project (AWWP) is an organization that has enabled women living in Afghanistan to share stories about their everyday lives, their trials and triumphs, their dreams and disappointments, and to provide the outside world with a peek into the often-harsh conditions they endure.

How does this work in a country where it is dangerous to be a woman, let alone a woman writer? AWWP is an online project, founded by writer and journalist Masha Hamilton. It connects Afghan women with writing mentors in the USA who provide them with guidance on writing skills, grammar and sentence construction, and then AWWP posts the women’s writing on their website. The results are some of the most powerful and haunting personal essays and poetry available on the web today.

The essay I chose to read for the occasion—an AWWP fundraiser held in the living room of a New York apartment—was called “Museum of Memories.” It was written by a woman called Roya who was born in Kabul and remained in Afghanistan during the Taliban period. She is one of the foremost contributors of stories on the AWWP website, with more than 75 submissions, and she hopes to continue her education and obtain a Masters degree. She has been quoted as saying, “The AWWP gave me a voice to tell my life stories, gave me the power to feel that I am a woman, and gave me a title, the title of writer, Afghan woman writer.”

Read her personal essay below. If you wish to see more of her writings, and support the voices of the Afghan women, visit the AWWP website: http://www.awwproject.org because the more we lend our voices to their works, the more they will begin to reclaim their own voices.

Museum of Memories

By Roya

I am full of memories. I keep special gifts in my small room, from different friends, my family, and different times of my life. I named my room Museum of Memories.

It starts from my childhood clothes: funny pants—dirty, dusty, some parts torn. They have the smell of my childhood, when I played in the dust with my friends and built mud houses and spent hot days of summer in the sun. When I see my childhood clothes I remember my sunburned face and the pain of my nose when I washed it with warm water after.

I am in a different world with different feelings when I look at the postcards in my album. I remember my teenage times, the days I went to school.  I remember Fahima, my school friend who gave me a Bollywood postcard and told me that she was in love with the picture and would marry the superstar after she graduates from school. She was a simple girl with super dreams and I was too—I believed she would marry the superstar!

When I look at other items in the corner of my room, I see the jumper I took from Laila by force; she became angry at first, then when I helped her carry a bag full of potatoes one snowy winter day, she gave me the jumper for my birthday. I see the green chadar (veil), I pick it up and look at it, it was Karima’s favorite color and with that I remember the happy spring memories I shared with her.

The Taj Mahal sculpture on my dressing table is a memory of my very close friend Sela. It reminds me of the romance and the love she shared with her boyfriend. She couldn’t keep the sculpture herself so she gave it to me.

I also have a collection of songs, which relate to different memories, and when I play them I want to cry for those moments past. I sometimes play the song called “Last Night” more than ten times over.

Everything in my museum has a special cost. They are unique and dear to me, as dear as my friends. The two most precious things have to do with my dad. There is my watch, which my Dad had sent for me from a trip, and the other is what I see in the mirror, my lovely shiny hair. Dad told me never cut it. He said, I love girls with long hair. Now, every day when I comb my long brown shiny hair, I remember him.

I have lost only one thing, which I still can’t forget the pain of. I lost my love letters, which I hid in my grandfather’s winter coat 15 years ago. Last Sunday my husband gave the coat to a poor man!

The objects I have kept are all reminders of golden times, happy moments and long sorrows. They are like alarms waking me up, reminding me that no matter how bad things are in Afghanistan, that I should be happy, and understand the value of friendship and learn the lessons of ever-constant love.