I am living in a country in the heart of Asia. I learned how to write my country name from my literature instructor in the first grade. You can write it without practicing, but I have practiced a lot. I am living in a crowded, dusty, and insecure city which is known as the capital of my country, Kabul, Afghanistan. In the morning, you cannot see the sky clearly like in Ifrane because of smoke. You know, I have never felt proud of my country because I have never felt safe, comfortable or free like a human being. Everyone has a definition for me. My mother defines me as a weakness of herself because she has been treated like that. My father defines me as a guest because I was born to be married and leave his house. My brothers define me as a weakness and a guest because they got these definitions from my mom and dad. Clergies define me as source of problems in the society and root of men’s weakness in faith. Finally, Taliban defines me as mindle ess. As a result of these definitions, we have never felt like a child. Our childhood television programs were shocking news about bomb explosions. Our first drawings were of a white bird that held the peace message to the world, but it seems that bird was not successful in this mission because we have never received an answer. Our ministry of education’s gift was a declaration at the beginning of the year not allowing me to sing in public because I had become twelve years old. Since my generation and I were fourteen, we heard about peace negotiations that are still going on until today. I do not know – I turned twenty, but it seems peace is still a child and, like us, couldn’t be persuaded to stay in Afghanistan for even a moment. However, we are not hopeless. Still, we are drawing those white birds with peace messages in the hope that we will have it one day. Afghani girls will not wait for peace. They are doing whatever they can to be involved in the community and live the life that they were dreaming of. For achieving their goals, they gave up on their girlish clothes and dressed up like boys. I have never seen a girl ride a bike in public, but now we have a girls’ cycling team. All of these girls dressed up like boys and acted like a boy to learn how to ride a bike. Most of these girls’ eyes were not visible because of they had been hidden from others. These girls never had the chance to think about weather conditions because thinking about the weather meant giving up on learning how to ride a bike. They were harassed in the street when men found out that they were girls, but they merely changed the destination of their riding. In the twenty second century, when the ministry of education declared the banning of singing girls in public after twelve, it was a shock. We felt that Taliban was taking over our government. We hated to become twelve more than before because it was the age that illuminated us. However, we did not keep quiet. We wore more colorful clothes, put on more make up with bright red lipstick and started singing and posting on social media to impose on the world to take our hand and to remind our government that it was the twenty second century. A woman’s voice will not hurt your faith. We are the girls who were represented by Indian Bollywood on social media because putting our own photos would have been shameful and disrespectful. Despite all of these boundaries, these girls are the best writers, these girls are inventors who are competing with the best competitors from first world countries and defeating them. We are on the waiting lists of foreign universities for scholarships because we are thirsty for learning and no excuse can stop us. This is the real side of Afghanistan. We are not terrorists and my country’s political problems cannot define me. Scholarships because we are thirsty for learning and no excuse can stop us. This is the real side of Afghanistan. We are not terrorists and my country’s political problems cannot define me.
