This narrative has been published in partnership with the Guardian.
Today is June 11. I woke up at 6 in the morning and began by sprinkling water across the entire courtyard, then sweeping it with a household broom. After finishing the cleaning, I woke up my six-year-old sister so she could get ready for school. I packed her schoolbag and books and helped her put on her uniform.
I had no appetite for breakfast. My sister also seemed to have no desire to go to school. People often say that the beginning of the week usually starts with motivation and energy, but since the day Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and my studies were left unfinished, I have had no motivation to live. Morning and evening, day and night, every day of the week feels the same: dark and heavy.
My name is Fatana. I am 25 years old and live in one of Afghanistan’s northern provinces. When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, I was a third-year student of law and political science, living in a government-run dormitory. Since then, I have been deprived of continuing my education.
My mind suddenly drifts back to those days when I was filled with excitement and hope for life. I used to wake up early in the morning in a hurry, preparing myself to go to university.
At that exact moment, the sound of a zarang (rickshaw) horn pulls me away from those sweet memories and distant dreams, bringing me back to the painful reality. My sister and I get into a rickshaw and go to a private school where I have worked as a teacher for nearly two years. I earn a monthly salary of 4,000 afghani. It is a school where I experience discrimination every day.
Receiving my salary feels like walking through thousands of barbed wires. Not once have I received my pay without humiliation or being made to feel indebted. Yet, I deeply want to continue teaching there because it gives me the feeling that my existence on this Earth is not meaningless and that the Taliban have not been able to stop me from sharing the knowledge and experience I have gained with others.
I leave for school at 7 in the morning and return home at 12:30 p.m. I teach English to fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students, teaching a total of 30 class hours each week. Most of my students are girls between the ages of 12 and 15.
Alongside teaching, I try to encourage my students and help them understand that girls in this country must fight far more barriers and restrictions than others in order to receive an education and become literate. I tell them that they often have to work several times harder than boys to achieve success. I remind them that their resilience and determination are their greatest strengths.
I am the class teacher for fourth grade. Before lessons begin each day, I take attendance and update my class records. One of my students lost her father to cancer last year, and her family is struggling financially. She is a quiet and sorrowful girl who often keeps to herself. In addition to her regular school lessons, I teach her English for one hour every day through WhatsApp.
I deeply wish she had more opportunities to learn. Sometimes, I cannot escape worrying about her future. On one hand, she is an orphan facing serious economic difficulties; on the other, learning opportunities for girls are becoming increasingly limited. I ask myself how she will be able to continue her education when she graduates from sixth grade. Sometimes I also fear that poverty and family pressure could force her into child marriage, which is a fate that shapes the lives of too many children.
The most painful part of my work is seeing my students graduate from sixth grade. Their sad and hopeless faces on their final days are unbearable for me. Every time I think about the girls who have been deprived of further education and wonder what conditions they are living in today, my heart aches.
How many of them are still holding on to their dreams of education? How many have been forced into marriages they did not choose? And how many have had to abandon their dreams forever?
At this school, discrimination also exists in our salaries. The salaries of male teachers start at a minimum of 5,000 afghani a month and increase each year, reaching as high as 8,000 afghani. In contrast, female teachers’ salaries start at 3,500 afghani and only increase to around 4,500 afghani after several years at the school, despite the fact that female teachers often carry the heaviest workload.
I feel that some private schools are taking advantage of the growing number of unemployed women. They know that many women are forced to accept low-paying jobs because they have no other way to earn an income due to widespread restrictions on female employment opportunities.
After two years of teaching, my monthly salary increased to 4,000 afghani. I received my salary for the month of Jawza on the 15th of Saratan. Of that amount, I sent 2,000 afghani to my brother, who is a university student in a neighbouring province.
From time to time, officials from the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice come to our school for inspections and to emphasize compliance with the mandatory hijab rules. In the summer heat, we are required to teach while wearing black coats, scarves, and masks. Sometimes breathing becomes difficult and exhausting.
After lunch, I returned home, where I checked my students’ exam papers and then did some sewing. I just wanted to keep myself occupied because whenever I have too much free time, intrusive thoughts, and the pain of my unfinished university journey overwhelm me. Many times, I find myself cursing the Taliban in my heart and wishing deeply that a miracle would happen — that their presence and rule would disappear from this country, so that we could freely study and work again.
To prepare dinner, my mother went to the shop at the end of our street to buy okra. When she returned, she looked deeply worried and distressed. She told us that people in the neighbourhood were whispering that the Taliban had taken away one of our male neighbours. No one knew what his crime was. Some people said he had been a soldier during the previous government and that someone had reported him to the Taliban. Others believed he had been arrested on accusations of using drugs.
I love the darkness of the night. It gives me an opportunity to think and spend time with myself. Before going to sleep, I read a few pages of The Forty Rules of Love. Although I have read this book several times, I still enjoy returning to it from time to time. At school, I also read books in the library during my free periods. I also read stories and personal accounts shared on social media during the day.
I have an online group for the parents of my students where they share their concerns, problems, and suggestions with me. Through this group, I can better understand my students’ strengths and weaknesses so I can plan ways to support their learning.
Although today I dedicate all my efforts to educating and supporting my students, there was a time when I had much bigger dreams for my own future. My greatest dream was to become a lawyer and defend people’s rights. With the return of the Taliban, that dream was put on hold. It remains only a dream.
*Fatana is a pseudonym. Raha Malik is the pen name of a Zan Times journalist based in Afghanistan.
