This narrative was told to Zan Times:
We are two orphaned girls who lost our parents when I was five years old and my sister was 10 years old. My father was a livestock farmer in Dolina district of Ghor province, and one day he was killed by a landmine. The heavy responsibilities of housekeeping and the intensity of agricultural labour caused our mother to have heart disease. She died two years later. When our grandmother heard of our situation, she came from the city of Firozkoh to take us home with her.
My grandmother’s husband was very old and unable to work. They have a young son who went to Iran, but they haven’t received any news of him. Yet our grandparents shared their little food with us so we wouldn’t starve. Still, we spent many nights hungry.
During the day, we collected cardboard, plastic, tree leaves, and other burnable trash to heat our room at night. We searched areas up to 15 to 25 kilometres away from our new home. Some days, we were insulted and beaten while collecting garbage. Shopkeepers claimed that we stole their goods and threw stones at us. Times were very hard.
One day while we were collecting cardboard and plastic in the market area, social workers of the Department of Labour and Social Affairs of the former government approached us. They were kind and said they’d take us to an orphanage, give us food, and enroll us in school. My sister and I were very happy to no longer have to work on the streets. We threw away all the cardboard and plastic we had collected and went with them to the orphanage. There were many children there; some were playing, some were lying on the couches. I felt like I was in heaven.
My sister and I were given food, life necessities, along with education, which had kindled hope for a better future in us. For us, who survived by doing hard labour, fed on discarded food, and who lived in the house of our old and poor grandmother, the orphanage was a safe place – it was a dreamland. For the first time, we slept on beds and had time to play and make friends among the 240 boys and girls who lived there. We were very happy. In that one half year, I felt like a child who had fun and played.
This happiness did not last long. After the Taliban regained power, they closed our orphanage in Firozkoh when they closed girls’ schools. Once again, my sister and I were forced onto the streets, searching for garbage. We returned again to our grandmother’s house. She embraced us and took us in, despite her many problems.
The Taliban took everything from us. Maryam wanted to be a doctor and I wanted to be a teacher. We wanted to help people, especially orphans like us. But I don’t know if we will achieve this dream anymore. Now that I see us back working in the streets, forced to scavenge and survive both hunger and cold weather, I have no hope that we will achieve our dreams.
My heart melts when I see other girls going to school or shopping with their parents in the market. I wish our parents were alive so that we were spared hard labour. With no money, my maternal grandmother and her family can’t afford to buy clothes for us. Our garments and shoes are dirty and worn. I don’t know what will happen to us.
*Mehsa Elham is the pseudonym of a Zan Times reporter in Afghanistan.
