Oh my goodness, my mercy

My name is Yalda, I am seventeen years old, and I am Afghan. I was five when we fled from the war in Afghanistan, my mother, my four sisters, my brother, and I, leaving overnight to Istanbul empty-handed, with no belongings, then to Pakistan, where I lived for ten years in the dust. I saw on television my country drowning in ignorance and backwardness, and the women’s presence disappeared under the Taliban. At fifteen, I returned to help Aunt Shakiba, who had established a non-governmental organization, with the help of the French, to work in Kabul. When she and one of her French friends suggested I go to continue my studies in Paris, I thought: this is my lifetime opportunity. How happy we are to see through our eyes, as through Yalda’s eyes, our civilization and its qualities, as well as its flaws and mistakes that do not catch our attention while we are immersed in the life we are in. And also with surprise, but sometimes with a heartache, one discovers a country, her country, with all its customs and differences. The description came in a style of returning backward, with a cold tone and a light but deep warning in meaning, sometimes making us feel how small we are.