This was an outstanding true life story of a girl born in Afghanistan who ends up in America as a refugee. She saw Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, during the communist rule after the Soviets left, through the warlord days, and when the Taliban came to power. She left Afghanistan and was in Pakistani refugee camps for years and eventually was accepted in an American program to help some refugees with relocation and assistance.
The story is very sad. The life for an Afghan girl was hard enough, but Farah had a problem. When she was eight years old she stepped on a land mine on her way to school. She lost one leg and the other ended up unable to bend at the knee after numerous surguries. After the accident she was evacuated to Germany for many years for surgery and rehabilitation. She was alone all of that time. No family was allowed to travel with her.
Eventually she was able to return to her home only to find it ravaged by war. Her home ended up being destroyed by rocket attacks. Her father and female siblings were all killed in the attack. She only had three brothers and her mother left. The three brothers had to flee to Pakistan shortly after. They would be forced to join the very army that killed her father and siblings if they did not flee. Not only that, but they were Hazara people and would have been treated very poorly. She and her mother never heard from the brothers again.
Later the two women went on a harrowing exodus to Pakistan themselves. The stories she related of that experience were quite disturbing.
Years passed in a horrible existance until one day, when she was thirteen, they were accepted in a program that relocated some refugees to America. There she found some good hearted people who treated her with kindness and took care of many of the needs these two women had.
The story she tells as she adapts to life as an American teen is very interesting.
These kinds of stories NEED to be told. People like Farah are examples to us all.
No comments:
Post a Comment