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An Afghan teacher. Photo: Yunus Tuğ/Unsplash+ I was sitting in the staffroom of the school where I teach. It was a hot afternoon, and the weather made everything feel heavier. The room was small and crowded, with furniture pushed tightly against the walls as if it had been forced into place years ago and never moved again. Beside me stood an old grey metal cupboard where we kept our daily lesson plans. Its doors were stiff and heavy, and sometimes we had to push hard just to open it properly. The room had only one window. Because the building was above the second floor, the window had been built high into the wall according to local customs, so people could not easily look into their neighbours’ homes. From where I sat beside the cupboard, I could glimpse the sky. It was pale blue mixed with grey, but the sunlight spread across it so harshly that it almost looked white. The brightness felt distant, as if it belonged to another world outside the room. Beside me sat Basira, one of my colleagues who had studied architectural engineering at university. Sometimes she looked at that window and spoke about the years she had spent drawing designs and construction plans, believing she was building a future for herself. She once told me that architecture had taught her to think about light, openness and possibility. Now she sat in a room where even the architecture carried silence and limitation. It was a private school, because that was the only place I could find work. In Afghanistan, private schools are usually attended by the children of businessmen, powerful families and those who can afford better educational opportunities. I studied in a public school myself and I have always believed that education does not depend entirely on the type of school someone attends, but on the determination and enthusiasm of the student. But when I went looking for a job, my opportunities were restricted. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women were stopped from teaching boys over the age of seven, and girls over the age of 11. Many high school teachers lost their jobs, their profession, their source of independence, stability and participation in society. Some of them moved down to teach at primary school. At the same time, women from other professions, like Basira, went into teaching because it was the only job open to them. The result is that a private school in Kabul or Mazar has an infinite supply of highly qualified women teachers and can treat them as badly as they like. We live under threat. As one of my colleagues said to me once: “Bring a knife and kill us instead. How can we live after being fired with no future and no place in society?” A simple example: laptops. I was expected to bring my own – but I did not have one. This article is typed on a phone. I use my phone for my lesson plans and everything else. But even our phones had to stay hidden most of the time because teachers were not supposed to use them openly during school hours. The administration believed phones distracted teachers from teaching and worried they would spend time scrolling through social media instead of focusing on students. Cameras were installed in every classroom and hallway, and teachers were constantly watched by the school administration. At break, 17 teachers shared the staffroom. Now, four were outside supervising students during the break, while the rest of us squeezed together wherever we could find space. Sometimes we sat so close it felt as if we were sitting in each other’s laps. Beside me sat Freshta, who had studied English literature and spent two years studying nursing before her education was interrupted. She had dreamed of becoming a doctor, but now she taught Oxford Science to young children in a private school. I was studying medicine myself, carrying my own unfinished hopes quietly beside me each day. Across the room sat Yalda, who had studied law and imagined a future in the courts, before the Taliban returned. Teaching was never supposed to be her life. Susan was one of the few who truly loved teaching. She studied mathematics and taught the Afghan curriculum, while I taught Oxford mathematics, which was slightly more advanced. But even Susan was easily replaceable. Our headteacher often spoke of our students studying for their future, but all the time his teachers were learning how temporary they were. Sometimes the worry of losing this last remaining job reminded me of The Metamorphosis, where Gregor worries about work even after turning into an insect. When it comes down to it, people care less about who leaves than about who can still be useful. Across the room one of our middle-aged teachers, Ustad Ziba, was struggling. She suffers from heart problems and finds it difficult to breathe while teaching in a mask. One of her hands constantly pulls the mask down and pushes it back up again as she gasps for air. We thought we were lucky to be in a school where, after much discussion, women teachers were not required to wear the full burqa inside. Instead, we wear a hijab, a headscarf that covers a woman’s hair, neck, shoulders and sometimes the chest, so that not even a single strand of hair is visible. It is worn with a long, loose dress that covers the entire body. In addition, all teachers wear a medical face mask, which covers the nose and mouth. On hot days though, even this lighter face covering is restrictive. Before these rules, long dresses were my favourite clothes. But after they became mandatory, my feelings changed. Whenever I wear them now, I feel as if I am tied with ropes. As I walk, I am constantly afraid of slipping because the long skirt sometimes gets stuck under my feet. When I move around the classroom while teaching, I often think, “What if I suddenly fall in front of my students?” Even simple movements no longer feel natural or comfortable. I was eating a biscuit with a glass of green tea when our male headteacher, a man around 37 years old, came in. In school, he wears local Afghan clothes because in formal workplaces it has become compulsory for men as well as women. Today, he was wearing a long tunic (perahan), loose trousers (tunban) and a long outer coat. No face mask for him though. I could see his kind, anxious face. Our headteacher is an educated man and has two daughters. From the time he started at our school he has always spoken to us in a calm and respectful way. Unlike many others, he did not seem happy about the restrictions placed on women. I felt that he understood our struggles, even if he could not openly speak against the rules. He was part of the school administration, but always afraid that Taliban officials might suddenly arrive without warning to inspect the building. It was always a shocking event: dusty white pick-up trucks would roll up, armed men sitting in the front. The back opened onto a space for carrying groups of fighters. Truckloads of dust and fear. They would enter our school without even asking permission from the administration, park their vehicles outside the gates and step out with guns hanging from their shoulders. They’d walk through the corridors as if they were searching for a fugitive or someone who had committed a terrible crime. Their radios crackled in their hands while teachers and children lowered their eyes and became silent. Even before they spoke, terror spread through the building. That day, the headteacher told us about something he had heard the day before. A woman walking beside her husband in the market had been stopped because her mask was not covering her face properly. As he spoke, I imagined the scene clearly in my mind. In many provinces, women are beaten with whips by the morality police. This time though he said there were also female workers with the Taliban patrol. They surrounded the woman in the crowded market while male officers stood nearby watching. The woman resisted, perhaps only by trying to protect herself or pull her veil closer around her face, and then the female officers were ordered to beat her. Afterward, they grabbed her by the arms and pulled her toward the waiting vehicle to take her away. All the people watched silently, as if a film scene were unfolding in front of them, yet no one dared to speak. Fear held every voice down. I imagined the dirt roads of the market, the carriages and carts parked around the crowded streets, and the salesmen with tired faces standing helplessly behind their vegetables and goods. Dust hung in the hot air while the woman was dragged away, and everyone pretended not to see because in that moment even looking too long could be dangerous. He lowered his gaze and looked down. There was a kind of silent shame on his face, a silence that many men in Afghanistan seem to carry when they witness these restrictions, but cannot openly oppose them. The weight of it all bore down on the room. We teachers looked at each other. Yalda pressed her mask tighter against her face, as if trying to disappear into it. Freshta looked down, as if she was searching on the floor for the lost sparkles in her eyes. I stopped eating my biscuit. For a few seconds, no one spoke. The silence was so deep that it felt like even breathing had become louder than usual. The headteacher said: “Dear teachers, your dignity is more important than anything to us. We don’t want any of you to be beaten or arrested on the excuse that you are wearing makeup, using nail polish or not properly covering your face and body.” After that, he left the room. But the heaviness of his words, and the heaviness of these rules, stayed in the room. At that moment something inside me tightened. The room felt even smaller. I looked away and stayed silent. I thought about all the years I had spent studying and working for a future I believed in. I had worked so hard to become someone. Yet now, even the smallest choices, how I dressed, whether I covered my face with a mask on a hot afternoon, no longer belonged to me. I realised that I wanted to scream. Not just a sound, something deeper. I wanted to scream that I exist. That I am a human being. That I have thoughts and a heart and a voice. But the scream did not come out. It stayed inside my throat like a stone that I could not swallow or remove. I wiped my tears before anyone could notice. Outside, life continued as normal. Inside us, something had already changed, even if nothing around us did. I can still feel that scream now. I’m putting it here. Rahmati is a 24-year-old and lives in Kabul, Afghanistan. She had been studying at Kabul University for two years, but her education was stopped. She currently works in education and writes under a pen name for her safety. Some personal details have been adjusted to protect her identity and her family. This story is very personal to her. It reflects the emotional reality of living under restrictions and the silence experienced by many Afghan women. Writing has become her only way to express what cannot be safely spoken in daily life. She hopes that, through publication, these experiences will be seen and understood by a wider audience. READ MORE

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