KABUL, Afghanistan — When Fariba Mohebi, an 11th grader, learned in September that most Afghan girls would not join boys returning to school under Taliban rule, she shut the door and windows to her room. Then she broke down and sobbed.
From her despair, a poem emerged: “Why Was I Born a Girl?”
“I wish I was a boy because being a girl has no value,” Mohebi wrote. Afghan men “shout and scream: Why should a girl study? Why should a girl work? Why should a girl live free?”
Mohebi's poem found its way to Timothy Stiven’s Advanced Placement history class at Canyon Crest Academy, a public high school 8,000 miles away in San Diego. It was relayed via Zoom calls between Canyon Crest and Mawoud, a tutoring center that Mohebi attends in Kabul, where girls sit in class with boys and men teach girls — testing the limits of Taliban forbearance.
Periodic Zoom sessions between the Afghan and American students have opened a window to the world for girls at Mawoud, hardening their resolve to pursue their educations against daunting odds. The calls have also revealed the harsh contours of Taliban rule for the California students, opening their eyes to the repression of fellow high schoolers halfway around the world.
“If I was a 10th as courageous as these girls are, I would be a lion. They are my heroes,” Diana Reid, a Canyon Crest student, wrote after a Zoom call this month in which Afghan girls described navigating bombing threats and Taliban interference.
For the Afghans, the Zoom sessions have been a reminder that some Americans still care about Afghans five months after U.S. troops withdrew in chaos and the U.S.-backed government and military collapsed.
“We are so happy we are not alone in this world,” Najibullah Yousefi, Mawoud’s principal, told the San Diego students via Zoom.
The Zoom calls were arranged in April by Stiven and Yousefi. An early topic of discussion was Mohebi's poetry. “Why Was I Born a Girl?” prompted an in-depth education in Afghan realities for the American students.
“I can hardly imagine how difficult that must be, and the courage the girls must have to be sitting alongside male students after facing suicide bombings,” Selena Xiang, a Canyon Crest student, wrote after this month’s Zoom call. “It’s so different from my life, where education is handed to me on a silver platter.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times .