“ Twenty years back no one here could even read a letter. We are changing, but it is slow.”
— Elder Wali Mahmad
their names are still listed,” Shah said.“ I can think of 12 students like this, they quit school and never came back. But their names are still on attendance so if they could come back, they will be enrolled. Three of them quit because the family had nobody at home to help and the father was old. One girl in class seven got married. Five girls in class nine quit before the year ended to get married.”
The small number of girls in higher classes is a concern, the teachers acknowledged. Gul Bahar is one of only 12 girls in class eight. No girl has ever left this school and gone on to finish high school.
Wali Mahmad knows someone has to be first and he’ s determined it will be his daughter, Aman Begum. Already she is first in her class. She wants to be a nurse.
“ My daughter is in class nine and I am planning to send her to Bobo Tengi next year to complete high school,” he said.“ People don’ t think girls’ education means anything. But talim [ education ] is important for everyone.”
Another girl in class nine, Pari Gul, is fourth in the class.“ I want to go to class 10 and beyond so I can be a doctor. My father is the stock-keeper in the school. My mother does not want me to continue education, but my father will let me. I want to go to Sarhad. We have relatives there.”
Keeping kids in school is important for another reason, teacher Shah said.“ All the people have sat together with the elders and made decision that since the village population is declining and they don’ t want school to close, every person with children 7 or 8 years old must send them to school.”
j 12: 00 p. m. i
Students are dismissed each day at noon. Gul Bahar and the other Rurung kids head out together, but they’ re in no particular hurry.
“ When they leave from home in the morning they go faster,” her father said.“ But on the way back, she sits and plays with her brother or her friends and it always takes longer.”
Gul Bahar said“ maybe” it is because she knows chores and homework await her. But it may also be the human need to play. Life in the Wakhan is hard. Playtime is important. So they meander, laugh, share secrets, play tag, run sprints, and wave at the people working in the fields they pass.
Bad weather doesn’ t seem to make much of a difference either. One May day dawned windy and rainy. About an hour after sunrise,
Gul Bahar collects dried animal dung for fuel, one of her many daily chores.
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