Once forced to flee her country,
Zohra Safi ’09 now hopes to rebuild it.
By Sheila McGrory-Klyza
Not many dorm rooms look like Zohra Safi’s. With great care and strict attention to each painstaking detail, she has created a collage that flows from one wall to another. Arabic verses from the Koran face a large map of the United States; a photo of Safi embracing a dignified, older woman is surrounded by several quotes she’s written in large, English script. One of these, above her bed, declares, “Some people dream of success, while others wake up and work at it.” Another, from Gandhi, asserts, “We must become the change we want to see.” It’s a charge that Safi takes personally.
The first female student from Afghanistan to attend Middlebury, Safi ’09 is one of 30 Afghan women attending college in the United States through the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women. This nonprofit program was founded five years ago to provide highly motivated Afghan women with full, four-year scholarships to select American colleges.
As part of the program, the women are committed to returning to Afghanistan after completing their education, to help rebuild their country. And while most 20-year-olds don’t shoulder the burden of rebuilding a country, it doesn’t seem to faze Safi: “It is a big responsibility for any young woman, but I think that each citizen should be committed to work for the country. After all the war and destruction, this is our duty. I feel so honored whenever I think about it, and very proud. I want to learn so many things from this land and the people and take them back.”
When Safi was four, her family fled Afghanistan for Pakistan to escape the mujahideen and did not return until after the Taliban fell. “Living in exile increased my love for my land and my people. For me, my country is everything,” she says, recalling how she picked up a handful of soil when she crossed back over the border in 2003. She held the dusty earth to her nose and breathed in the scent of her homeland, grateful to be finally returning. But during the 13 years that had passed, her family’s former home and the city of Kabul had been destroyed. Still, she considers herself one of the lucky ones. “We lived in a house in Pakistan, not in one of the refugee camps,” she says, “and I went to a good school. Under the Taliban, women were denied an education and couldn’t work or be out in public unless accompanied by a man.” Her family of nine suffered its share of hardships, though. Her father, a former literature professor, was tortured while imprisoned by the mujahideen and has not been able to teach ever since.
Although Safi speaks five languages—Dari, Pashto, Urdu, English, and Arabic—she had never traveled beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan before arriving in Vermont last fall. “In the beginning, it was really hard,” she says. “I thought I would never be able to get adapted to this country. Everything was different, and I missed my family so much. I felt really alone. But then I met all these great people,” she adds, a smile spreading across her face. “All the professors and classes I have taken are so good, and everybody has been so helpful. I can only say good words about the social community here.”
One of her biggest concerns was that she wouldn’t be able to make any friends. But, she says, “now I have two best friends who are American. Even though we’re from different parts of the world, we have so many things in common, so many similarities— more than I have with a lot of my friends in Afghanistan. They’re like sisters to me.”
One thing Safi has in common with her new friends is a determination to help empower women in war-torn countries. Last year, she and four of her classmates founded Women and Global Peace, a campus organization dedicated to improving women’s lives in conflict and post-conflict zones. With support from the women’s and gender studies program (WAGS), they “adopted” a woman from Afghanistan. Each month, they send her $27, which “in Afghanistan is a lot,” Safi explains. “Even if we just send a drop of water, it will not be wasted because the country needs so much.” The group is affiliated with Women for Women International and plans to adopt at least two more women from other countries ravaged by war.
“What struck me most about Zohra when I first met her was her clarity of vision,” says Sujata Moorti, associate professor and chair of WAGS. “She hit the ground running and was ready to embark on her activism and scholarship simultaneously. Stretching beyond the comfort zone is normal for her. She has also mobilized her classmates to action, helping them come into activist consciousness.”
Last year, Safi was co-winner of the Student Feminist of the Year Award, presented by WAGS, for her work with Women and Global Peace. This honor is rarely bestowed on a first-year student. She was also one of the lead organizers of a weeklong symposium on Afghanistan.
Safi returned to Afghanistan this summer, where she helped the newly chosen female scholarship recipients prepare for a successful transition to American life. She also reconnected with family and friends, such as Fatima Gailani, a powerful and highly respected Afghan woman. She’s the woman in the photograph on Safi’s dorm room wall. She’s also the president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society and well known for her key role in helping write the country’s new constitution. “Fatima-jan is my role model,” Safi says, using the endearment jan that reflects affection and respect. “She is a great woman.”
Our conversation is interrupted by the athan, or call to prayer, singing out from Safi’s laptop. She has it programmed to play five times a day. Although she’s devout, on this particular day she’s not wearing her headscarf. “For me, it’s a choice,” she says. “I wear the chadar when I feel comfortable, but it’s my decision.” She admits that lately she has been so busy that it has been hard to find the time to pray. “But to me,” she says, “studying is a form of prayer. Reading is a form of prayer. If I get up early in the morning to study, to me this is praying.
“I’ve had this desire inside me for a long time,” she continues. “Since I was a child, I have dreamed of being a lawyer. When I was playing, I would pretend to be a lawyer or a judge.” A double major in political science and women’s and gender studies, she hopes to make her dream a reality by attending law school in the United States. After that, she wants to work for the Afghan government, advocating for human rights, especially those of women. “Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I’m so excited about going back to work for my country,” she says. “Up to 2:30 in the morning, I’m awake thinking about all the things I want to do for Afghanistan.”
Sheila McGrory-Klyza is a freelance writer in Bristol, Vermont.