By Ahmad and Atia FarAzar
On Friday, September 30, at least 55 people, including 50 Hazara girls were killed in a bloody attack on the Kaaj education centre in western Kabul. Since the Taliban closed middle and high schools for girls last year, these girls were studying in private facilities. With support from their families, they were trying to improve their futures by taking the university entrance exam. That Friday, all their dreams and goals were buried under the ground along with them.
The night before the mock exam, Humira did not sleep. She had studied hard in order to achieve a score higher than 340. Her goal was to become a surgeon. As Ali Ishrati, her elder brother, recounts to Zan Times, “She was very talented. She was able to answer every question I asked in her lessons. There were many times when she knew [the material] even better than I did. Most of the time, her classmates came to our house to learn from Humira.”
Many times, Ishrati saw that his sister did not have money for taxi or daily expenses, yet she never asked her family for help. “My sister was a thrifty girl. She didn’t waste a single penny. She didn’t argue about buying clothes or other things. These were not important. The future was more important to her,” he says. “Kaaj education centre was half an hour away by car, but Humira usually went on foot.”
His 19-year-old sister was determined to achieve her goals. Last month, she had passed another mock exam, but with a score of 333, which was just seven points below the 340 needed to guarantee her entry to medical school at Kabul University. That was why she worked harder than ever this time to get a score higher than 340.
Humira was one of those killed in the Kaaj terrorist attack. This incident shocked her father. He doesn’t talk much, silently staring at his daughter’s awards and encouragement letters. All he says is that “I wanted my daughter to become a doctor, to wear the doctor’s white uniform, but I saw her body wrapped in a white shroud and buried her with all her dreams.”
Najiba was another woman whose hopes died in the Kaaj education centre. Until recently, the 20-year-old’s dream was to be an artist. She had a passion for theatre and painting. However, she knew that art would not be popular under Taliban rule. The day before the bombing, she visited her sister, Sakina. “Najiba came to me the day before her death and asked my opinion about her choice for the entrance exam,” Sakina tells Zan Times. “I told her that you are interested in painting. Therefore, choose art, but she said that under the Taliban, art has no value, so she would study hard to become a doctor.”
Looking at her sister’s coloured pens, brushes, and drawing sheets, Sakina says that her sister wished to hold a painting exhibition. “Najiba painted whenever she had free time. She used to say, ‘I must learn more and paint well, and if things improve, I will hold an exhibition.’” Najiba also worked with the Qasidak YouTube channel. She discussed the state of painting in the shadow of the Taliban in her last video.
Another woman who died that day is 18-year-old Shakiba, the daughter of a poor family in Daikundi province. To prepare for the entrance exam, she left her family and hometown to study in the capital. During her stay in Kabul, she lived with relatives. Mehdi, her cousin, tells Zan Times that Shakiba taught reading and writing to several children to earn a little money.
According to Mehdi, Shakiba walked to the education centre and didn’t eat lunch in order to save money. She sent what she could home to her family. After the bombing, her body was sent back to her father’s house in a village in central Daikundi province.
Throughout their childhood, Marzia and Hajar were close friends. Both wanted to become engineers and were confident they would pass the university entrance exam. Reading novels was also a passion for them, and they often shared their new books.
Marzia also had a gift for writing and kept a daily diary. Her older sister, Anisa Mohammadi, tells Zan Times, “Every page you turn in her diaries, you find her self-confidence radiating in it.”
She reads an excerpt: “I believe in myself and I will improve and achieve a lot. So that my parents would be proud of me and would say that this is our daughter.” She knew she was smart. “Marzia used to say, ‘If I get the first score on this year’s entrance exam, how will the media find our house to interview me?’” her sister recounts.
Hajar’s older sister, Parwana, says that she often talked of her plan for the future: “Either I study engineering in Afghanistan, or I study abroad.”
In addition, Hajar loved reading novels so much that her sister says she read Elif Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love in 24 hours, non-stop.
Marzia and Hajar had big dreams. Marzia dreamed of meeting Elif Shafak while Hajar wanted to meet Rachel Hulse, dreams that never came true and are now buried beneath the ground.
