Afghan sisters will take lessons home

YAKIMA – One watched in horror when a bus blew up in front of her, strewing body parts all over the street.

The other looked in sorrow at ancient works of art in a museum, all in pieces, purposely destroyed.

But despite the traumas they’ve endured, both are determined to return to Afghanistan and help right its course.

Sisters Heena, 18, and Khoshboo, 19, – who asked to use their first names only because of possible danger for their family – have endured war and violence for most of their lives.

“We’ve had a very bad past,” said Khoshboo.

The young women arrived in Yakima this fall to enroll in college. They’re here under the auspices of the Yakima Valley Community College Foundation Afghan Women’s Education Fund, founded by Ken Zontek, a history instructor at the college.

This fall, they’ve been taking classes through the English as a Second Language program at Central Washington University and will enroll winter quarter at YVCC, where Heena will study business and banking and Khoshboo will focus on accounting.

When they were 13 and 14, the sisters moved into a women’s shelter in Afghanistan after returning from Pakistan, where their family had lived for seven years to flee violence in Kabul, their home.

Their mother, a nurse, and their father, who is retired, sent the girls to the shelter partly because the family of six lived in a one-room home and money was scarce. The main reason, however, was they envisioned more educational opportunities there for their daughters.

“Our family focused on our education so in the future we could help others,” explained Heena.

Motivated and hardworking, the girls were serious about their studies and strived to learn English.

“These two represent the future of their country because they have big hearts, good English skills and the character for success,” said Zontek.

They’ve also witnessed enough bombings to know that Afghanis deserve better.

“Reading books like ‘The Kite Runner’ and ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ (both novels by Afghan native Khaled Hosseini who now lives in the United States) makes me cry even if we know all about the violence,” said Heena.

They’re well aware of the danger to women in their country, recalling two young women from the shelter who decided to go out by themselves one evening and were raped and nearly killed by a gang.

Some trauma they witnessed in person. Heena saw a bus, just in front of the car in which she was riding, get bombed, killing babies, women and police. “The whole day, I was quiet and very shocked. I saw pieces of bodies blowing up in the air and clothes hanging in trees,” she said.

Khoshboo, too, was stricken when she visited a museum and viewed the destruction to irreplaceable artwork and statues.

“We have bad memories, but we try to forget what we saw in the war and fighting,” she explained. “Sometimes it comes into our minds, but then we think about the good future for Afghanistan, and we’re not sad.”

After graduating from YVCC, the sisters plan to transfer to a four-year college.

When they return to Afghanistan, they intend to help others at the shelter and work to improve women’s lives and those of the poor in the country, too.

As Zontek pointed out, “There’s a lot of responsibility on these girls’ shoulders.”

But for the sisters, returning is the only option. “Who will build Afghanistan, if we stay out of the country?” she asks. “America and other people won’t stay forever. Afghanistan needs Afghanistan people,” she said.