Ahmad-Zia

Persian
Sometimes I feel so sorry for Afghanistan. It’s like a human who’s been dealing with different sicknesses for years and whoever comes to help her, does so only for personal advantage. It’s like a human with a wound just about to heal when another one attacks her. When she feels alright for a while, they leave her alone and in the depth of her loneliness she moves closer and closer to death. 

It’s not surprising that a 12-year-old kid who’s lived and worked in a city like Tehran, sees the world like a mature man at the age of 17 and can analyse it. 
When Ahmad-Zia was 17 he decided to go back to Afghanistan. He was only 12 when he came all alone from Afghanistan to Iran to work and send money for his family in Kabul. But he was so independent that even when he decided to go back, he didn’t want to go back to Kabul. He said: “ Kabul is a big city and very crowded. I cannot find a job in Kabul nor I can study and live there. I must support my family not to add another burden to them.” 

Ahmad-Zia went to Herat, a smaller city close to Iran’s border. When I went to see him, he had already been living there for a few months. He explained to me how different living was in Herat compared to Tehran. He said that the relationship between a man and a woman is very complex in Herat. The lifestyle the traditional beliefs of people in Herat had confounded Ahmad-Zia. He didn’t think that people could still be bound by traditional beliefs. I was glad that he analyzed and scrutinized the problems and came up with answers for most of his questions; he didn’t need my answers. Ahmad-Zia said: “I understand that people have lived through war, that women were imprisoned in houses."

I felt that Ahmad-Zia has more experience compared to his peers in Herat or better to say ‘different’ experience. This made him be compatible with the situation he was in and so he could better understand people. I could clearly see this difference in the way his friends from Herat treated him; their concern was something and Ahmad-Zia’s was something else. 

Ahmad-Ziad worked very hard. He studied at a night school and attended technical workshops during the day to learn electrical wiring. Now after a year and a half, Ahmad-Zia is employed as an electrician while studying at the same time. He travelled to Kabul a few times to see his family. 

Self-confidence, compatibility, scrutiny and criticality was the souvenir from Iran that he took with him to Afghanistan. He learned all these not at a desk in school classrooms but in struggling with life everyday in the streets and workshops in Tehran. He learned them from the people in the streets and those in children’s rights societies who leafed through the pages of life with these kids everyday. 

Now Ahmad-Zia can go to school and attend workshops; he can buy a motorbike and travel from one city to another; he can have an identity card, get paid for his work and have the right to spend his earning the way he wants. He can have dreams and expectations; expectations that can be obtainable. 

Maybe these are enough to make me optimistic about Afghanistan and not think that she will die in her loneliness. These are enough to make me smile and delight in Ahmad-Zia’s courageous decision; to make me think that apart from hatred and revenge, children learn love, self-confidence and independence from each other.