This narrative has been published in partnership with the Guardian.
My name is Fatema*. I am 32 years old and a mother of six children: four sons and two daughters.
Every day, my sister Marzia and I wake up at exactly 4 a.m. and light the oven. During this time, we also pray and prepare food for our children, though we do not have time to feed them until 9 a.m.
My sister Marzia, who herself has four daughters and four sons, and I run a small home bakery in western Kabul. Our bakery is located inside the courtyard of the rented house where we live.
Women from nearby and distant neighbourhoods come to us with dough they have prepared at home the night before so we can bake their bread. This work has been our only stable source of income during these five difficult years.
I always remember our mother, who taught my sister and me the art of bread-making. She was a wise woman. She encouraged me to attend school so I could learn the Quran, and she taught me sewing, baking, and caring for my children. All these skills have helped me survive.
Just as my mother taught me, I light the oven with wood. But the price of wood, which used to be 60 afghani per seer, has now risen to 110. Our income is not enough to cover this increase so we also use almond shells as fuel as they are slightly cheaper
Fifteen seer of wood and ten seer of almond shells last about three days. We also buy the almond shells from wood sellers. They are cheaper, but their bitter smell stays with me until the end of the day.
The sewing skills I learned from my mother have been very useful for repairing my children’s clothes or even making their clothes completely from scratch.
I also sew my own work clothes. The clothing changes depending on the season. In winter, I wear warmer clothes; in summer, lighter ones. I always sew the cotton cuffs on my sleeves myself so they fit perfectly and do not burn easily. This helps maintain hygiene while working.
I have a thin headscarf for summer and a thicker one for winter, both of which I have sewn myself. I also have thick handmade sleeve covers, but I rarely wear them. I have become accustomed to working with the heat of the oven.
The colour of my work clothes is always dark so that soot and dust do not show.
I pray my morning prayer while the oven is heating up. After the prayer, women begin arriving one by one. Some come from distant neighborhoods, carrying fear and worry with them. Sometimes they say, “The Taliban were in such-and-such alley today,” and sometimes they arrive silently, hand over their dough, and wait.
We bake the bread, and they return home with freshly baked loaves.
We charge six afghani for each batch of bread, although it used to be five. On good days, we may earn around 1,000 afghani, but usually we earn about half of that.
My family of eight and Marzia’s family of ten survive on this income. Although my husband and Marzia’s eldest son also work, they earn very little.
My eldest daughter is 12 years old, and my youngest daughter is eight. Last year, both of them completed sixth grade, so now they spend most days at home.
Our lives, like those of many Afghan families, have been lived under the shadow of Taliban restrictions and insecurity.
Beyond the difficulty of the work itself, my biggest worry is that I cannot do anything for my daughters’ education. I do not have enough income to send them abroad to study, and I have no hope that conditions inside Afghanistan will improve soon.
I wanted my daughters to study and have a more informed and comfortable life. But what if they end up like me with a difficult life with very limited choices.
My eyebrows and eyelashes have disappeared because of constant exposure to the heat of the fire. My eyes burn continuously. My knees ache at night, and I no longer feel the burns on my hands.
Work is good, but I never wanted such a hard life for my daughters.
When we came to Kabul from Ghazni after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, we had nothing. My husband was unemployed at the time and our money ran out.
It was this bakery that helped us stand on our feet again.
Our morning work usually ends around 9 a.m. I take off my work clothes, wash my hands and face, and return home where I eat breakfast and then rest for a while.
In the afternoon, I light the oven again, and the work continues until 7 p.m.
When women come and share stories about their lives, I realize that the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan have never been easy — and that they have become a living hell after the return of the Taliban.
*Fatema is a pseudonym. Tarana Mohammadi is the pen name of a Zan Times journalist.
