Note: to mark the one year anniversary of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the stories of eight Afghan women produced in different countries, will be published in Farsi and English by Rukhshana Media. These stories were first published by the Time Magazine in collaboration with Rukhshana Media and Pulitzer Center.
Najiba Ebrahimi
São Paulo, Brazil
By :Jill Langlois
Najiba Ebrahimi lives in Freedom. It’s the São Paulo neighborhood where the 33-year-old has settled and what she feels she’s finally attained after escaping the Taliban. A champion for the rights of Hazara women and girls, Ebrahimi taught biology at a girls’ school in Afghanistan’s southeastern Ghazni province and shared her love of sports with her students. That turned her into a target when the extremist group made its return.
At the end of August, she began receiving threatening phone calls from various men from different phone numbers.“They said ‘you shouldn’t be alive… ‘if you stay here, you’ll die,’” Ebrahimi says. “I knew I had to go.”
So she fled. Her parents had already left Afghanistan several years earlier because of ethnic persecution, and she planned to join them in Brazil. While she, her teenage daughter, brotherand cousin crossed the mountains of Pakistan, the women under the cover of burkas, her parents got to work on getting them visas.
Now, Ebrahimi works in São Paulo with her family at their Afghan restaurant, Koh-I-Baba, named for the mountains of her ethnic Hazara homeland. It’s a new start and a return to what she loves most: life with her family and the freedom to be herself.
What do you miss most about Afghanistan?
My students. The school where I taught had students from six to 18 years old, but I taught the first two years of what would be like high school. I was the first teacher to get them involved in sports. I bought the school’s first volleyball and we set up tournaments. I even helped some of the girls who wanted to go to the Olympics train.
What has surprised you about your new home?
Women here have freedom. They can wear what they want, do what they want. They don’t have to be afraid.
What do you do to relax?
I like to walk. Here I can walk down the street, around my neighborhood, and it’s safe.
When you think of Afghanistan’s future, what comes to mind?
Afghanistan doesn’t have a future anymore.
What new foods do you eat now?
Food here has a lot of pork and cheese, so it’s hard to find new things I like. But I do like fries.
Describe your favorite possession that you have with you. Why is it so special to you?
I wasn’t able to bring much with me when I left. All I brought were my clothes and a tapestry I embroidered. The tapestry is two meters long. It took me a year to finish it. My mother taught me how to embroider. It’s something that’s passed down through all the women in our [Hazara] families.
Choose one word to describe yourself.
Free. That’s how I am here. I can’t go back to Afghanistan. There’s no life there for women.
What word comes to mind when you think about the Taliban?
Fascism. They’re miserable people.
Where do you see yourself one year from now?
Here, speaking Portuguese fluently.
