My Eid is my daughter’s dance
My Eid is my daughter’s dance
Freshta, translated by Dr Negeen Kargar
Spring 2024, California, USA
My alarm sounds at a quarter past six. I remember that I am not at home: I’m waking up in a small room thousands of miles away from my beloved homeland. I look at my hands: they are colourless. There are no patterns of henna on them, no bangles on my wrists. I remember I was up late last night, baking our Eid cookies, and go to check how they are. I taste one but can’t swallow it; it brings out my grief.
My husband calls after me from the bedroom, reminding me to get ready quickly. We have to leave early this morning to register with the local county. This is a very important appointment for us, and we must not miss it: it is the registration that will establish our resettlement here. At 7.30, a car provided by the county will come to pick us up.
Outside on the street, the only colour comes from a traffic light revolving slowly through its cycle of green, orange, red. I feel as if the world is dead, that we are in a city without a spirit, where humans and animals do not breathe. The smells of freshly baked bread and cookies and pilau do not come from these houses. Everyone is busy with their own life: no one knows each other; no one goes in and out of the houses in colourful new clothes and jewellery. A deep silence rules these streets. I feel my culture vanishing.
I try to hide my tears. I don’t want anyone to notice them and come to the conclusion I have been abused at home or God knows what else. When we arrive at the county registrar’s office, I get out of the car, along with my thoughts. At the counter I collect a ticket for waiting.
When our number flashes up, we are invited into a meeting room. The interviewer is a young American woman. She seems angry or stressed: perhaps she is just tired, I think. She doesn’t smile once. But she asks us many questions and fills out forms for health insurance, food and childcare. My two-year-old daughter is restless and naughty throughout the process. She keeps reaching for things on the lady’s desk, and we try to keep her in check. All this worsens my tearfulness.
It is half past two in the afternoon when we come back from the immigration office. I see the cookies I baked last night, laid out on the small table. This time, hungry, I take one and eat it. It is delicious.
I tidy up our home in case someone comes. I place some dried fruit and a thermos of tea next to the cookies on the table. For a moment, I think I should put on my traditional dress. I change my mind, but I dress my daughter in hers, with its blue and red embroidery. She loves the dress. After an hour and a half, I ring my friend Farzana and ask her if I’ve got the day right? She replies, ‘Yes, today is Eid but unfortunately, I am at work. In this country you have to forget about our celebrations. You just work the whole year until the Christmas holidays.’ I don’t say more: I don’t want to take up her time while she’s at work.
My daughter is still happy to be in her dress, so I turn on a lovely Afghan song on the TV: its lyrics are about a traditional Afghan dress. I can believe the singer is singing just for my little girl, dancing on her tiny feet, with colourful beads around her ankles. She looks like a rainbow after a shower, turning around and around to the beat of the song.
Freshta, translated by Dr Negeen Kargar
Spring 2024, California, USA
My alarm sounds at a quarter past six. I remember that I am not at home: I’m waking up in a small room thousands of miles away from my beloved homeland. I look at my hands: they are colourless. There are no patterns of henna on them, no bangles on my wrists. I remember I was up late last night, baking our Eid cookies, and go to check how they are. I taste one but can’t swallow it; it brings out my grief.
My husband calls after me from the bedroom, reminding me to get ready quickly. We have to leave early this morning to register with the local county. This is a very important appointment for us, and we must not miss it: it is the registration that will establish our resettlement here. At 7.30, a car provided by the county will come to pick us up.
Outside on the street, the only colour comes from a traffic light revolving slowly through its cycle of green, orange, red. I feel as if the world is dead, that we are in a city without a spirit, where humans and animals do not breathe. The smells of freshly baked bread and cookies and pilau do not come from these houses. Everyone is busy with their own life: no one knows each other; no one goes in and out of the houses in colourful new clothes and jewellery. A deep silence rules these streets. I feel my culture vanishing.
I try to hide my tears. I don’t want anyone to notice them and come to the conclusion I have been abused at home or God knows what else. When we arrive at the county registrar’s office, I get out of the car, along with my thoughts. At the counter I collect a ticket for waiting.
When our number flashes up, we are invited into a meeting room. The interviewer is a young American woman. She seems angry or stressed: perhaps she is just tired, I think. She doesn’t smile once. But she asks us many questions and fills out forms for health insurance, food and childcare. My two-year-old daughter is restless and naughty throughout the process. She keeps reaching for things on the lady’s desk, and we try to keep her in check. All this worsens my tearfulness.
It is half past two in the afternoon when we come back from the immigration office. I see the cookies I baked last night, laid out on the small table. This time, hungry, I take one and eat it. It is delicious.
I tidy up our home in case someone comes. I place some dried fruit and a thermos of tea next to the cookies on the table. For a moment, I think I should put on my traditional dress. I change my mind, but I dress my daughter in hers, with its blue and red embroidery. She loves the dress. After an hour and a half, I ring my friend Farzana and ask her if I’ve got the day right? She replies, ‘Yes, today is Eid but unfortunately, I am at work. In this country you have to forget about our celebrations. You just work the whole year until the Christmas holidays.’ I don’t say more: I don’t want to take up her time while she’s at work.
My daughter is still happy to be in her dress, so I turn on a lovely Afghan song on the TV: its lyrics are about a traditional Afghan dress. I can believe the singer is singing just for my little girl, dancing on her tiny feet, with colourful beads around her ankles. She looks like a rainbow after a shower, turning around and around to the beat of the song.
The following two extracts are from My Dear Kabul: A year in the life of an Afghan
women’s writing group (Coronet, 2024). This is Freshta writing in July 2022
and, a further six months earlier, in February 2022.
*
Freshta
Dushanbe, Tajikistan, July 2022
Both of us are liars.
‘What are your thoughts?’
‘Nothing. I hope good news comes.’
I fall silent because I know what he means by ‘good news’.
He hides things from me, and I hide things from him. We both worry, although it disturbs our sleep. He falsely comforts me, and I do the same for him. I try to convey that everything is alright, all will be fine, and we can live a happy life. We are both liars. Deep inside me, there is a worry that won’t let me rest. Five months ago, we had a lovely daughter, but she doesn’t have any documents. She doesn’t have a passport, and right now it is so important to have an official identity.
I have been waiting to receive an email for 280 days now. This email will determine our future, especially my daughter’s future. This is about my application to have our family resettled in a third country as refugees. They’ve told me that the application is being processed, but they haven’t said yes or no yet. If they would just reply, I’d know what to do next. If my inner world was filmed, the world would be shocked: I cannot lessen my fears, I cannot go to Afghanistan, and life is hard in Tajikistan.
My husband and I are both impatient to receive this email. Whenever I get a notification, I immediately look, but they are always just Facebook notifications. I feel anxious and worry about what might happen if I received the email and didn’t notice. Even if I try to stop thinking about it, I cannot. In reality, this email seems to exist only in my head.
*
Freshta
Dushanbe, Tajikistan, February 2022
My contractions were increasing. I wasn’t sure if this was labour or not, because for a month I’ve had these pains. But my husband knocked on the neighbours’ door. They have a car and they drove us to the hospital at midnight.
The initial assessment showed I still had time. So, that night passed and then another day. Then the doctors decided to put me on a drip to induce labour, because the contractions were not strong enough. After four hours, the doctor came and examined me again. The pain was so intense. It was three in the morning. The doctors were attending me, but my husband was not allowed to be present. I asked them to let him in. I wanted to tell my husband, ‘If I die from this pain, please do not take my daughter to Afghanistan.’
I was born during the first dark era of the Taliban, and now the same thing is happening to my daughter. We sent an asylum application to Canada a while ago, and my application is still being processed. In labour, all I could think of was to see my husband and tell him not to go to Afghanistan, not to let our daughter’s life be destroyed and please to follow up the asylum application to Canada. At 3.30 a.m. I was taken into the operating theatre for a C-section. When the drugs had worn off, I thought about my daughter and asked the nurses to take another message to my husband. I asked them to let him know I was glad our daughter was healthy and I was alive to see her.
My Dear Kabul: A year in the life of an Afghan women’s writing group (Coronet, 2024) was published on 15 August 2024, the third anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan. It is a collective diary kept by twenty-one writers – among them the five contributors to this guest edition – in which they recorded and responded to the changes they lived through in the first year of that change.
*
*
Freshta
Dushanbe, Tajikistan, July 2022
Both of us are liars.
‘What are your thoughts?’
‘Nothing. I hope good news comes.’
I fall silent because I know what he means by ‘good news’.
He hides things from me, and I hide things from him. We both worry, although it disturbs our sleep. He falsely comforts me, and I do the same for him. I try to convey that everything is alright, all will be fine, and we can live a happy life. We are both liars. Deep inside me, there is a worry that won’t let me rest. Five months ago, we had a lovely daughter, but she doesn’t have any documents. She doesn’t have a passport, and right now it is so important to have an official identity.
I have been waiting to receive an email for 280 days now. This email will determine our future, especially my daughter’s future. This is about my application to have our family resettled in a third country as refugees. They’ve told me that the application is being processed, but they haven’t said yes or no yet. If they would just reply, I’d know what to do next. If my inner world was filmed, the world would be shocked: I cannot lessen my fears, I cannot go to Afghanistan, and life is hard in Tajikistan.
My husband and I are both impatient to receive this email. Whenever I get a notification, I immediately look, but they are always just Facebook notifications. I feel anxious and worry about what might happen if I received the email and didn’t notice. Even if I try to stop thinking about it, I cannot. In reality, this email seems to exist only in my head.
*
Freshta
Dushanbe, Tajikistan, February 2022
My contractions were increasing. I wasn’t sure if this was labour or not, because for a month I’ve had these pains. But my husband knocked on the neighbours’ door. They have a car and they drove us to the hospital at midnight.
The initial assessment showed I still had time. So, that night passed and then another day. Then the doctors decided to put me on a drip to induce labour, because the contractions were not strong enough. After four hours, the doctor came and examined me again. The pain was so intense. It was three in the morning. The doctors were attending me, but my husband was not allowed to be present. I asked them to let him in. I wanted to tell my husband, ‘If I die from this pain, please do not take my daughter to Afghanistan.’
I was born during the first dark era of the Taliban, and now the same thing is happening to my daughter. We sent an asylum application to Canada a while ago, and my application is still being processed. In labour, all I could think of was to see my husband and tell him not to go to Afghanistan, not to let our daughter’s life be destroyed and please to follow up the asylum application to Canada. At 3.30 a.m. I was taken into the operating theatre for a C-section. When the drugs had worn off, I thought about my daughter and asked the nurses to take another message to my husband. I asked them to let him know I was glad our daughter was healthy and I was alive to see her.
My Dear Kabul: A year in the life of an Afghan women’s writing group (Coronet, 2024) was published on 15 August 2024, the third anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan. It is a collective diary kept by twenty-one writers – among them the five contributors to this guest edition – in which they recorded and responded to the changes they lived through in the first year of that change.
*
Freshta
Freshta worked as a journalist in Afghanistan. She and her husband left the country in 2019 after the Taliban threatened the radio station where she worked as a reporter of women’s affairs. They crossed the border into Tajikistan; there they made multiple applications for resettlement in other countries and waited for an email informing them of the outcome. Their first child was born without any paperwork to register her place in the world. After three and a half years in Tajikistan, the email did finally come, and the family have recently arrived in California. Freshta is an editor and reporter with the Zan Times News Agency; she is a contributor to My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2021), Rising After the Fall (Scholastic, 2023) and My Dear Kabul (Coronet 2024).Dr Negeen Kargar
Dr Negeen Kargar is a senior research scientist with a keen interest in literature and languages. She speaks Pashto, Dari, English, Urdu and German. She has worked as a translator for nearly twenty years and with this group of Afghan writers for Untold Narratives since 2019. She is a translator of My Dear Kabul (Coronet, 2024).‘My Eid is my daughter’s dance’ © Freshta 2024; Translation © Dr Negeen Kargar 2024
My Dear Kabul © Untold Narratives CIC 2024; English translation © Parwana Fayyaz and Dr Negeen Kargar
Extract read by Ellie Dobing