“Just a year ago, I was in class right now. college. this time today i clean the house” he commented Vajiha F. noon last Wednesday. there is so much that young man Woman Afghan Since the Taliban came to power I could have done it a year ago, not anymore.
At 25, Wajiha F. has a professional past she already longs for, a lost vital and intellectual horizon, and a lot of pain to manage. Just before the west’s hasty retreat Afghanistan taught youth at an institute, studied as a nurse and midwife at a university-affiliated center Kabul and was waiting for an internship at a hospital. A year later, one of them Thousands of Afghan women are de facto prisoners in their homes today.cannot work or work with a mobile phone as the best window out there.
Wajiha spoke to EL PERIÓDICO, a newspaper belonging to the Prensa Ibérica group and this media. avoiding disclosure of their whereabouts, a house somewhere in Afghanistan that the family takes turns watching. One of the first measures he, his parents and siblings had to take was to change addresses in the face of the Taliban threat. Maybe it’s because all the women in the household have developed their minds, because a sister holds a leading position in the overturned Justices administration, or one brother was part of the regular army Crashed after the flight of NATO forces.
Since August 15, 2021, the life stage of Wajiha is the walls of his house. He explains succinctly: “I can’t go out. I’m at home all day“Difficult not being able to go out, being at home all day, is a sentence that only two members of the family manage to escape from. exile. The rest cannot work anywhere. To monasteries such as the Vajiha, men and women Taliban dictatorship turned into molesthey are also surrounded by poverty: “We lost all our income – he says – so we sell our stuff to buy food”.
in the morning
At five in the morning Wajiha gets her feet off the bed. Since her family is old and her mother is sick, her routine entrusts her with the task of preparing breakfast; your sister has children to take care of; and her brother goes to bed at that moment Another one of those sleepless nights.
Preparing breakfast at Wajiha’s house is not a time-consuming task; unfortunately it has become a strict activity: “We usually only eat tea and bread for breakfast. We have no income,” he recalls.
And all the work and academic hustle and bustle that once awaited him after breakfast simple and steadyclean my house“.
Cleaning the house, tidying the house, tidying the house is in the midst of the melancholy: “I miss my high school teacher friends and students,” she says, “They are 13 and 14 year old girls. They are very upset that they cannot go out.Desperate”.
At noon on August 15, 2021, while Wajiha was teaching at her high school, her boss appeared: “He came and said: “Go home, the Taliban is taking Kabul.” I couldn’t believe it. It was very difficult for me to leave the class, but I believed that I could continue my studies and studies.”
All schools and universities were closed the next day. And the situation gradually became more complicated, “when they said we couldn’t go out to study or work.” Wajiha doesn’t go shopping either because she has no money. How much do you go out to see the doctor: “I put on a headscarf, covered my face with a mask and went outside.”
afternoons
In the pre-Taliban period of Wajiha’s life, classes ended shortly before two. The family is sitting at one in the afternoon today eat a menu that consumes less and less all vegetables. Previously, there was rice with meat, cardamom and raisins on the table, traditional Afghan bat qabli. Now the usual dish of the house is a casserole of eggplant, tomatoes and onions; legumes if possible.
Gradually, in the isolation of the F. family, his capital was abolished, sell household items to survive in a year of no pay, full of resignation. “I can’t forget the time my sister had to sell her jewellery,” she says. “We sell our bedding and rugs too…”
After lunch and a nap comes the most boring free hours. “Previously, I was either with my students at five or on my way home. Now I have nothing to do,” he says.
Nothing but watching the news. But it’s a painful activity. “the news makes me sad“, says Professor Wajiha. You have access to free press and social networks, because the Taliban regime, like Russia or China, failed to cover them up. “I see news every day, but it saddens me: there is always bad news for young people”, Wajiha insists.
Theocracies and dictatorships wage war on the youth. Wajiha transmits a link to the Facebook page where she reads: news of the day told by digital media in Pashto eight in the morning: A girl killed in the Panshir district. He was 16 years old. He went out to get water. The media blames the Taliban. The cover is illustrated with a photograph of the victim wearing a headscarf and half-smiling. On the left, highlights include this surreal ad: “Zabul Taliban Sets Deadline for Office Workers to Grow Beards.”
Nights
At seven o’clock Wajiha will turn on the stove to heat the potatoes with beans for dinner. Then, after washing the plates, cutlery, and pot, she’ll sit down with her nephews and let them study before the living room TV takes over.
They go to bed at about 11. Bedtime will come, but not recession. All night long the two men of the house are awake, watching. Today in Afghanistan, as in thousands of houses, vigils are kept at night, because there are many people in the country who could not swear that an attacker would not visit them that night.
The family is threatened. Two days after the Taliban’s return, they became suspicious as they moved into the house and soon confirmed, four days later, with the warning of their former neighbors. “They told my brother: ‘The Taliban came home, they wanted you and your sisters,’” the teacher explains.
And not only men are awake. Wajiha sometimes heard a niece’s scream at night. “Because of nightmares; kids have nightmares, Explain. On one of those bad nights he asked the boy what had frightened him so much. And she told him: “I dreamed that they broke into the house and beat my grandfather.”