McKay - Thunder Over Kandahar

SHARON E. McKAY

THUNDER
over
KANDAHAR

Photographs by

RAFAL GERSZAK

To the women of Canadians in Support of
Afghan Women (CSAW).
Your commitment and ongoing tireless effort
to better the lives of women and girls in
Afghanistan will not be dismissed or forgotten.
Most especially, Liz Watson, Linda Middaugh,
Bev Le Franois, and Christine Vasilaros.

The world of humanity is possessed of two wings:
the male and the female. So long as these two wings
are not equivalent in strength, the bird will not fly...

Abdul-Bahai

We are Afghan people
We are Afghans of the mountains

We have one stance and one way
We have one faith and one hope

We are Afghan people
We are Afghans of the mountains.

Popular childrens song,
originally in Dari

Contents

Chapter 1
Yasmine

Herat, Afghanistan

C ome, put on your scarf. We will walk through the park to the university, meet your father, and buy ice creamchocolate, your favorite.

Smiling, Mother held Yasmines hijab between two pinched fingers and made it dance. It was gray and ugly. Well, maybe it wasnt actually ugly, maybe it was really quite nice, but Yasmine looked away anyway.

I dont want to go out. Yasmine spoke softly. She meant no disrespect, it was just that going outside meant being careful about where she looked, whom she spoke to, what she said, what she wore. It was exhausting... and boring.

Yasmine sat on the floor on a big pillow with a book opened in front of her. Getting used to the furniture in this new place had been hard, too, although one low, brass-topped table and a bunch of pillows could hardly be called furniture. They had lived in Herat for almost a year nowten months, to be really accurateand Herat, Afghanistan, was a long way from Oxford, England. It was like living on Marsassuming that there were camels on Mars, and goats, and land mines.

Mother put aside the headscarf and sat beside Yasmine. I know these past months have been hard on you, but look at all you have accomplished. You speak Dari well now, and your teacher says that you are the best student in the class.

Yasmine shook her head. It was easy being head of the class. Half of the girls could barely read, and every week one or two left school to get married. Married! At fourteen!

I want to go home, she whispered.

Yasmine, this is our home.

Yasmine looked up past Mothers shoulder to the windowa window that looked nowhere. All the windows in the house Baba had rented either faced a wall or were covered up. Mother said that during Taliban times the windows in homes were blackened or covered to prevent strangers from seeing the women inside, and when the Taliban left the window coverings had stayed, just in case. In case of what? Baba said that the Taliban had been beaten by the United Nations forces, but at school they said that the Taliban had only retreated, they were never far away. Which was true? Really, how could this place ever be home?

You will come to love this country, youll see. And you should be very proud of Baba for deciding to come back here to teach. Your father is an important man in the West, but here is where he can do the most good. And soon I will go to work, too. There are not many women lawyers in Afghanistan.

But we were all happy at ho... in England. And I miss Grandfather, said Yasmine.

Your grandfather understands why we are here. I was born in this city. Herat is a city of writers and poets. Come now, the flowers are in bloom and the cypress treesthey are so beautiful, emerald green. Wait until they turn as red as fire. Imagine, trees so brilliant that they almost light the way! We will be happy here, youll see. Exasperation was creeping into Mothers voice. She handed Yasmine the headscarf and picked up her bag and house keys.

Yasmine tied the hijab under her chin, careful that it hid all her hair. She did not wear headscarves all the time in England. Thing was, she didnt mind wearing a hijab in England because she didnt have to. That made all the difference.

Trailing behind her mother, Yasmine walked from the back of the house, which was the family area, to the formal sitting room at the front, the one reserved for guests. The house had four rooms and a courtyard. It might have been nice, had the bricks on the outside walls facing the street not been damaged and repaired and then damaged all over again. Yasmine knew the history of Afghanistan, Baba had explained it over and over. First the Russians had invaded. Mujahideen guerrillas, Afghans, fought the Russians. Then the Russians left and the warlords fought each other. And then came the Taliban times, and now the United Nations forces were here to fight the Taliban. With so much war, it was sometimes amazing to think that any buildings still stood, or that any people were still alive!

Never mind the condition of the outside of the house, the inside was pretty rough too. There was no air conditioning or central heating inside. They had already lived through one freezing winter. Mother had bought lots of nice Afghan rugs, and they had plenty of blankets, but nothing could make this house as wonderful as homeand England was home, no matter what Mother said.

In Oxford their flat was cool in summer and warm in winter, and they had huge windows that looked out across a city crowded with church spires, brick chimneys, and stone buildings. Rain or shine (mostly rain) Yasmine would stare out the windows to the streets below. You couldnt actually see the pastry and flower shops, clothing stores, coffee houses, libraries, and movie theaters, but they were there! Inside, bookcases reached the ceiling. Some books were written in foreign script, Dari mostly, while others were writers she too was beginning to read; Twain, Waugh, Tolstoy, Kipling, Donne, Wiesel. Plump sofas and overstuffed chairs cozied up every corner, and Mother always put tall, fresh-cut flowers in a giant vase in Babas study. Best of all, Yasmine had her own room, with a canopy bed, and her own television, too. Here in Herat she was supposed to sleep on a big mattress stuffed with cottonon the floor!

Mother smiled again as she locked the courtyard door behind them. I love the park.

Yasmine nodded half-heartedly. They had been to the park many times, and it wasnt that great, not like the parks in England. Why didnt Mother see it?

The sidewalk along Jada-e welayat was made of colorful tiles. It might have been amazing a long time ago, but now it was dirty, and the tiles were damaged and chipped. Mother said that the city of Herat was beautiful, but there was garbage in the streets, and lots of the nice old stone buildings were being replaced with great big ugly glass-and-metal ones. Many of the shops were boarded up or covered with corrugated tin or chain-link fence. Behind the main streets was a labyrinth of laneways and homes hidden behind mud walls. They passed