A Life of Horrors

Parvana was tired. She wanted to sit in a classroom and be bored by a geography lesson. She wanted to be with her friends and talk homework and games and what to do on a school holiday. She didn't want to know anymore about death or blood or pain. She was tired of living in an endless nightmare.

In our Language Arts class, we are reading the book, the Breadwinner. This was a passage from page 130 which I think was very well written. It would be very hard to live a life like Parvana. It would be very hard for me if I were Parvana. I would wake up early every morning, step outside and worry the whole day that if someone recognized me as a girl, I would be sent to jail, or maybe even be killed by the Taliban. I would grab my tray, and start the day by selling items I won't even be able to afford to have myself. I shove through the crowds, praying that I will make a sell, but no one is interested. When I'm finished with a full day of selling few things from my tray, I would count my money earned, and hope that the next day will make more profit. The days would feel endless with a heavy tray hung around my neck, standing outside in the hot sun all day all the while wondering if the Taliban has overtaken my one room where my family lives, and take them away. A girl dressed up as a boy living in Afghanistan with a father who was taken away to prison, and an endless nightmare of my life, would be horrible. It would be awful having to live through all the terrors of Afghanistan, being a little girl only wanting to be filled after a meal. Everyday, I would be risking my life, worrying that someone from the street would call out girl! and some Taliban men would march my way to beat me until death. Barely making through the days on what I make with my job. If I were Parvana, everyone would be counting on me to keep the family from starving to death. Parvana's life is really a life full of horrors.

Out on the street, she kept waiting for people to point at her and call her a fake. No one did. No one paid any attention to her at all. The more she was ignored, the more confident she felt.

Now with her face open to the sunshine, she was invisible in another way. She was just one more boy on the street. She was nothing worth paying attention to.