Afghanistan Peace Campaign 
We used to go on outings several times a year, especially during Nawruz,[1] but that was before. In those days, women in our family would go to parks by themselves, but nowadays people are uneasy about being stopped and questioned by the Taleban. So, we stopped going. But this year, for the first time in two years, we did go on a picnic.
I’m 18 years old and I’d just finished grade 11 when the Emirate stopped girls going to high school. I used to study English at a private institute, but those courses are also no longer open to girls. Before the Emirate came to power, I was taking a public speaking course at an institute near my house, but the Emirate closed the institute down. So, I enrolled in another one, but after a few months that institute closed too.
I come from a big family – three brothers and five sisters. I live with my parents, three brothers and my younger sister in Mazar-e Sharif. My brother’s wife and my niece also live with us. When my father lost his job, he set up a food stall outside our house. My eldest brother is a motorcycle mechanic and is the only person in my family who has a job, but he doesn’t live with us.
I recently joined a carpet-weaving course, but I don’t think I’ll keep going. There are too many girls working in the same room, so it’s very stuffy. It’s hard to breathe with all the wool dust floating around in that poorly ventilated space. Plus, the heat is just overwhelming and I worry it’s not good for my health.
That’s why I was really excited about heading outdoors for an outing this year. It had been ages since my family enjoyed a picnic and I’d been craving a change of pace and some fresh air.
Longing for a day out
We’ve managed just two outings since the Taleban came to power. The last time was a picnic in Tang-e Marmul, which is a lush green valley just an hour’s drive south of Mazar-e Sharif. We went with three other families, each with at least three men. But we couldn’t walk around because there were groups of men there who were picnicking, grilling kebabs and playing cards. The armed Talebs who were patrolling the area didn’t say anything to them, even though playing cards is not allowed. We chose a place well away from them to eat our food and then quickly left the area.
All last winter, I’d been dropping hints to my father about going on a picnic for Sizda be Dar, when most families in Mazar-e Sharif go picnicking in the green areas. But we couldn’t go because it was during Ramadan and we also had family staying with us. Later, in spring, my amma (paternal aunt) announced that she and her family planned to go on a day’s outing to spend some time in nature now that everything had turned green and the weather was good. I asked my father if he’d allow us to join them. But my father didn’t think the situation was good and said he didn’t want to risk us having any trouble while we were out.
Getting permission to go on a family outing
This is how things are not just in my family but in most families. People don’t want any trouble and are reluctant to go on outings. I don’t know how other families decide to go, but in my family, it’s my father who makes the final call. He said we couldn’t go because he was busy with renovations to our house and couldn’t join us, but this was just an excuse. My father’s never been very keen on picnics. In fact, I don’t remember a single time when he joined us on one.
It took the extended family around three weeks to get everything sorted for their visit to Dasht-e Shadian in Tang-e Owlia. It’s a delightful picnic spot just an hour from Mazar-e Sharif and easily accessible with a good road. My aunt and other family members kept calling my father, hoping to change his mind, but he was firm in his decision, with an unwavering resolve.
I was very upset. I cried every time someone mentioned the outing and took to locking myself in my room. Finally, he relented and said we could go.
The morning of the outing, I woke up early to help prepare things for our day out. I offered my namaz (prayers) and took a quick nap afterwards before going to help my sister-in-law cook for the picnic. But when I got to the kitchen, she looked crestfallen. She told me my father had changed his mind and we wouldn’t be allowed to go after all.
I called my aunt, my older sister and two of my cousins to let them know that my father had decided that we couldn’t go after all. Then my aunt called my brother and asked him to intercede with my father, but my father was firm in his decision. Since my father is the elder in our family, no one can oppose his decision, but they told me they would do their best to persuade him to relent. All morning, there were phone calls to my father and hushed conversations between him and my older brother. Finally, around 11 o’ clock, my sister-in-law told me to start getting ready to leave for the picnic. He wasn’t happy about it, but my father had finally agreed to let us go.
It was too late to cook anything to take with us, so we told my aunt we’d pay for half of the food and beverages she’d bought. We also bought four big bottles of pomegranate juice and some bread.
There are many reasons why families don’t go on outings. Some, like many of our neighbours, can’t afford to. Other families, like mine, are conservative and have strict fathers. Then, there are the lucky, open-minded families who go on outings regularly. I don’t know why my father was so against letting us go this time; he’d allowed us to go with extended family in large groups before. Maybe it was because he was preoccupied with the house renovations, or concerned about the costs, or worried about potential dangers related to the Taleban.
We are going on a picnic
We went in one of the two motar-e barbari-e kalan (large lorries) that my cousin owns because our group was large and some of our relatives don’t have a car. This way we could travel together in the same vehicle and share the cost of the petrol. We laid a carpet down on the back and sat together in the open air, enjoying the fresh breeze and the luxuriantly green scenery.
Some of the relatives had gone ahead of us in another lorry and our little group – my sister-in-law and me, as well as my little brother, who’d come along in case we were asked about a mahram – joined my aunt and her three sons, their wives and children in the second lorry. My mother was in Kabul and couldn’t join us. My aunt’s son-in-law and some of his relatives also came along. Altogether, we were about 40 to 50 people.
As we expected, we passed many checkpoints. There was even one at the entrance to Dasht-e Shadian and Taleban foot patrols everywhere. But they mostly searched vehicles with lots of male passengers and weren’t very inquisitive about vehicles with many female passengers. So, they didn’t stop us or ask any questions.
When we left the city behind, we’d started clapping with excitement. It was a joyful ride. There was no music, but there was the sound of our clapping and the wind in our hair as it gently loosened our headscarves. Whenever we neared a checkpoint, our cousins would remind us to fix our hijabs and we’d stop clapping and tighten our headscarves. But we’d resume our cheerful clapping again as soon as we cleared it. Originally, we’d planned to bring something to play music on, set on a low volume, but the male family members vetoed the idea, worried about attracting the Taleban’s attention. Women like to play music, clap and enjoy themselves, but men don’t allow them to do it. So, we satisfied ourselves with clapping and lively chatter.
Making the best of a day out in nature
It was gone one o’ clock in the afternoon by the time we reached Dashte-e Shadian. The picnic area was teaming with people. There were many single men and some families as well. There were boys selling dayras (a type of tambourine). They were making a racket pounding on the dayras to attract customers, but without much luck. I only saw one boy buying a dayra. Most people looked on but didn’t buy. They were probably too afraid of getting into trouble with the Taleban because music is not allowed.
We found a quiet spot away from the bustling crowd to set up our blankets and start a fire for my sister-in-law to cook, even though it was getting late. Some of the girls who weren’t busy with preparing lunch decided to take a walk around a nearby field, where we saw kids flying kites, playing football and selling energy drinks and toys. A man was offering horses for rent and we noticed a few boys who’d fallen and were injured. There were women dressed in lovely outfits and wearing makeup. They’d briefly remove their headscarves to take a photo and then quickly put them back on. For myself, I had a shorter dress on beneath my abaya (long overcoat).
Every family brought food they’d prepared in advance for the picnic – manto (dumplings), qabuli palaw (rice with carrots and raisins), qurma (meat stew), vegetables, fruit and beverages. After we finished eating lunch, the main part of our outing started. We took pictures and went for walks in nature chaperoned by some of the men in our group.
The last time we went on an outing, we’d gone to a beautiful spot covered with vibrant red flowers. This time, we decided to visit Dasht-e-Shadian, as it’s closer to the city and has better security. But to our surprise, the ground was full of holes spaced just a few meters apart. Also, there were only a few trees and the greenery was sparse except on the top of the hill. There were gardens and houses, but they were privately owned and off-limits to visitors. Unfortunately, the area was littered with cans, tablecloths, and bottles – remnants of previous picnics where people had failed to clean up after themselves.
A disappointing outing is better than no outing
Going on the outing refreshed my mind. It was great to catch up with relatives and fascinating to people-watch and see how other people interacted with each other in public. I admired what some of the other girls were wearing and made a mental note to sew similar dresses for myself.
But I didn’t enjoy this outing as much as the ones we’d had in previous years.
In the past, my sister, who works in Kabul, would join us, along with my mother and all of my siblings. Those were truly family affairs and were always so much fun. Time used to fly by without us even realising it. This time, it was just me and three of my close family members, so the experience wasn’t as great. It was scorching hot and the picnic area wasn’t so pleasant. Some of our female relatives fell ill with heatstroke because we couldn’t wear the kind of light clothing that’s appropriate for that kind of weather. We had to wear long black abayas and our headscarves tight on our heads.
The women didn’t walk around much. If we wanted to go anywhere, we had to ask one of the men in our group to chaperone us. Some of the men wandered around and explored the hills, played football and cricket and flew kites. But they, too, felt uneasy because the morality police were walking around and surveying the crowd. We heard some gunfire – we couldn’t tell where it was coming from – but the sound scared people.
In the past, when we went on outings, all the boys and girls in the family could play football and take part in other pastimes. The girls were allowed to fly kites if they wanted to, or just sit around and talk, or take pictures or just walk around in nature. It was disheartening to watch all the boys in the family running around and having fun and not be able to join their games. I asked the girls in our group to play football with me but they refused. They said they didn’t want to risk the men in the family getting into trouble with the Taleban because of our behaviour.
In the past, women were free to go out without a mahram, but nowadays, even the city parks have rules about when and how we can visit. We can only go on specific days of the week and must be accompanied by a mahram who waits outside. We can’t visit the Roza-e Sharif (Mazar-e Sharif shrine) at all anymore. Back then, my family didn’t pay much mind to what my sisters and I wore, or if we put on makeup or if some of our hair was showing, but now they admonish us, telling us to wear our scarves neatly, avoid makeup and put on the abaya. It’s all about safeguarding our namus(dignity and honour), they say.
That day, whiling the time away with my family, I was happy to be out in nature, exploring the countryside. There is a famous hill called Tepa Allah there that I was very keen to climb. We girls didn’t eat well because we couldn’t wait to go up Tepa Allah and after lunch, four girls and four men from our family went for a look. It was difficult to climb to the top and we didn’t stay there long because there were lots of men around. The male members of our family insisted we leave since there were so few women there. It was starting to get dark, they told us, and we should head back to the city.
As we piled into the lorry to make our way back to Mazar-e Sharif, I thought about all the trouble everyone had gone through just to make this day possible. It didn’t turn out to be the great adventure I’d imagined it was going to be. Still, a disappointing outing is better than no outing at all.
Edited by Kate Clark
| ↑1 | Nawruz marks the start of the Afghan year and coincides with the vernal equinox on 21 March, the first day of spring. The holiday is celebrated for 13 days, and families traditionally go on picnics on Sizda be Dar, the 13th day of the new year, to deflect the bad omen associated with the number 13 and celebrate the arrival of spring. |
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