Down a street in Kandahar through a tall iron gate past a guard with a gun and into a courtyard, little girls let their bright veils slip and young women throw off their burkas. Eleven-year-old Bilqis Ehsan lives in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Pretty in a ponytail and red sweater threaded with silver, she speaks nearly fluent English. And she wants to be a doctor.
Never β no one can stole it from your mind, education. We can do everything by education. It will shine your life. In Kandahar, these luminous coverings are often light brown, so on the street they can appear like dust swirling in the wind. But it would be a mistake to presume that all the women underneath are frightened or even meek. Bilqis and other girls and young women are taking classes in English and computer technology at the Afghan-Canadian Community Center in Kandahar.
They want careers. They want to be treated by female doctors. Therefore, we need for female doctors. The girls who risk going to school in the heartland of the Taliban could be harmed or killed. But it would be a mistake to presume that all the women and girls are frightened or even meek. Within the walls of the school in Kandahar, protected by a tall iron gate and a guard with a gun, the burkas are gone.
Tahira Sadisaidi, 20, and Shahira Sadisaidi, 19, are sisters and classmates. He was teaching us. She really want to be studying. My mother never have gone to school because her father, her uncles, no one liked school but my mother liked school. One irony in Kandahar is that there may be more opportunities for girls who want to work when they grow up. There are also desk jobs for women who can use computers and speak English at construction companies and the cell phone giant Roshan.
Somehow, every girl and her family must come to terms with the possibility that harm could come to her. Nurzia brushes off the threats that the community center has passed on to her parents. Her family chooses to view threats as intimidation by the Taliban or warlords or drug dealers β anyone who might benefit from fear and disorder.
