Raihana Ashoryan

full interview

Hello. I am Nilofar from one thousand dreams. Dear Raihana, today I want to interview you and ask you some questions. Can you introduce yourself first? Hello. I am Raihana Ashoryan from Afghanistan and I currently live in New York.

Dear Raihana, what kind of house do you live in and who are with you? I live in a rented house in New York with my parents, two brothers and a sister.

Dear Raihana, speak a little louder so that your voice can be heard clearly. Well, how do you spend most of your time? For example, what do you do when you wake up in the morning? When I wake up in the morning, I go to school at 8 o’clock. I come home at 3:05. If I have lessons to study, I study or help my mother.

Well, what makes you happy here and what do you enjoy doing? Here I go out freely with my family and it is not like Afghanistan where girls can’t go out without a scarf.  A scarf was a very heavy thing for me and I am very happy that I don’t wear it here. I like studying very much.

How has your life since you came to America and what are the differences between living in Afghanistan and America? There are many differences. School, lessons and culture are different here. The school uniform is different here and the way they teach is different, and in Afghanistan, the teachers did not pay much attention to the students.  Here… ahh… here, people behave with respect and…

Kindness? Here, people talk with kindness.

Respect? Here, people respect you whoever you are.

Well, how do you feel since you came here and when you hear the news about Afghanistan and girls not going to school there? I am very happy here. However, I am very sorry for the girls who are still there because they cannot go to school and are always at home. Some people taught at home and set up a school, but the Taliban closed them. Now, the girls can’t go anywhere and stay at home all day.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan and the Taliban announced that girls could not go to school, were you in Afghanistan at that time and you were not allowed to go to school, how did you feel about it and what did you dream about? I felt very sad because studying was something I liked a lot and I always got first position. When the Taliban came, they closed the schools and the girls could not go out freely and they said that the girls should stay at home. One thing I had heard and was very afraid was that they marry girls even at the age of 10. I was very scared and I didn’t want to get married at a young age. Fortunately, I came here, I’m happy, and I don’t want to go back. If I go even one day, I want them not to be there. When I went to school there, I used to take my scarf off when I left school, and I said before that I don’t like it. Again, one of the Taliban stopped me and said that if I stopped wearing it, they would shoot me. I was very scared and I didn’t tell my parents that they would kill me if they saw me without a scarf.  Now I am happy that I am here and the Taliban are not here.

When you went to school, did you wear a hijab or just a scarf? Did you cover your nose and mouth? When there was no Taliban, we just wore a normal scarf. However, when the Taliban came, we had to wear a burqa, only our two eyes were uncovered to see. Sometimes the weather was very hot and it was very difficult, but we had to wear hijab.

How did you feel when you endured all these things, especially when you were going to school and the Taliban stopped you, said that if you don’t wear a scarf, they will kill you, and warned you? Were you afraid? It was like a mental pressure on you, how were you able to remove those pressures and go back to your normal life? It was very scary for me because our school was near to our house and I thought the Taliban soldiers might be around here and if I went out alone he could kill me because they were strong and always had guns. I once dreamed that they came and killed me. I love my life very much, the dream I had was very scary, and I could not go out. If I went out, I would go with my brother and always wear my scarf because I was very scared. When I came here, I got busy with my lessons and forgot about them, but I still remember when he stopped me and I was shaking. 

Here, when you go to school and study with your new classmates, do you like it? Yes, they are very friendly. The first day I went to school, I could not speak English properly, but now I can. Sometimes I can’t even chat in Farsi because I learned English. I love my friends very much. They are very good people and…

Ahmm… And they always help me.

Well, are you in touch with your friends who were in Afghanistan or your schoolmates? No.

Why? Because I didn’t have a phone when I was there and when I came…we…

Move? Yes, we moved from there to another place and I could not see them again. After three months, we went to Iran and I could not see my friends and I did not have their numbers.

What is your dream now? What do you want to do here in the future? My dream is that I will be good at my studies and my parents will be happy with me and I will be able to be a good person and my parents will be proud of me. I know that many people in Afghanistan do not want to study, but my dream has always been to study and raise my voice. My dream is to write a book and I want to tell people that things happened in my life when the Taliban came and write about everything.

Well dear Raihana, Our questions are finished, and if you want to add something to your story at the end, say so. Tell whatever story you want to tell about yourself. Well, when we were coming here from there, I was very…ahh…

No problem. Say the words in English if you don’t understand them in Persian. I was so nervous and scared of what might happen to me. What if I don’t know their language and they make fun of me? That’s what I always thought. Then I thought they might be good and they are. They are really respectful and kind. On my way there, I was kinda nervous. I really was. Because I moved to Iran and then to Turkey. We were there for 9 hours and it was terrible. Because we didn’t have a place to sleep and we were at the airport, we slept on chairs for 9 hours with my two annoying brothers. It was hard and then we got some sleep on the plane. Then we moved to Mexico. We had shelter. I didn’t really like the food. Because they didn’t let us cook. They cooked whatever they wanted. It didn’t taste good at all. We moved to four countries to come here. It was hard to get here. Many people were confused about how we got here. I am proud of myself that I made it here. Now that I know English, I can do all these things. I am so proud of myself that I did all of this. I hope that my education will continue and I will be a great singer and a good writer so I could tell everyone my story. My parents don’t want me to sing, they want me to be a doctor. However, it is just that way I am, and I want to be myself. I don’t care what they think. (Laughter)

Okay, thank you for everything that you shared with us. You’re welcome. Bye.