Читать книгу Gathering Strength: - Peggy Kelsey - Страница 32

Zainab R

Director, Community Development Council

These mullahs always provide challenges and problems for me. They are very much against changing the minds of people. But we older women have one goal and that is to fight with this kind of thinking. We have to change the mind of the people.

When I told Shakila I was going to Bamyan, she suggested I interview Zainab R. We met up at the bazaar in Bamyan City and took one of the few taxis to Azdar Village, a new community built to house returning refugees. Zainab’s house was built of traditional mud bricks even though it was relatively new. Inside, light from the large windows illuminated the nicely plastered, painted, and carpeted living room. She was tired after her long day, and I found out afterwards that she was having some lung issues. Two days later, when I was scheduled to photograph her, she was in the hospital with pneumonia. In spite of her poor health, I could see the activist fire burning within her.

Zainab was born in Yakolang Province in the central highlands of Afghanistan, but grew up in Bamyan. Her mother died when she was nine years old. Shortly afterward some Kuchi people, nomads of Pashtun ethnicity, raided her Hazara village and forced the villagers out. Zainab and her family went to Iran, where she earned an Associate’s degree in midwifery. Her father died when she was 15. Zainab has six brothers, a husband, four sons, and nine daughters.

The family returned to Bamyan after the Taliban were driven out. She now works in the hospital there and became head of the Community Development Council (CDC).