Afghan Gal is one of the Afghan Dolls Project widows. She is 41 years old and supports her 5 children, one grandchild and her sister-in-law. She lost her husband 14 years ago, and has a sadness about her.
This is her story:
When I was married, we had very calm and happy life. We lived in Chal Saton District in our own house. My husband had one taxi and he would work from
But after the coming of the Mujahideen government,
Eventually, after six months, we got his corpse from a collective grave west of
His killers first killed my husband, then they sold his taxi. We hadn’t a person at home to work for us, and my children were small babies. They wanted my milk. My concern for my children’s lives made me to do every kind of work I could.
It is my bad luck that I am illiterate, so I had to find work as a servant of rich people, but my income was too little. I had to borrow money from one of our relatives. With this money I made a one women bakery. After four years I became sick and the doctor ordered me to stop bakery, because from the wood’s smoke I got tuberculosis.
During those times, I made my oldest son go out to sell pens and notebooks in front of schools. I will never forget… one day my son came home and he was crying. He shouted, “I want to study like the other children! I stand near the schools every day, but I can’t go to school.” I told him that you don’t have a father, so you must earn money for supporting life for your younger brothers and sisters.
When we asked Afghan Gal if she is happy with the income she receives from sewing dolls, she said “why not? I am happy, and with dolls income I can pay for my children’s courses fee. Now my oldest son can go to school. I want to be making dolls in every month.”
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