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I spent August 2014 in Sharjah and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates visiting my in-laws but also getting to know the migrant women and men who live in the Gulf. As I toured malls and hotels — that’s almost all there is to do in the summer with kids when the heat outside is
I went on vacation to Europe this summer to see my relatives and came out with a story. That’s what happens when journos go on vacation. Even our families can’t rest. But the story I came across had to be written from a personal perspective because several of my younger relatives were turning to extremist
I’ve seen violent death and I was able to go on scarred but functional. But the death looming before me these days is the hardest to bear. It’s a family picture with the patriarch slowly fading. The head, the arms, the body. You try to stop the eraser with your memories but there’s no stopping
It’s safe, sunny and quiet. My girls go to a decent school. We own a home, a business and my extended family lives nearby. The largest Afghan community in the U.S. is here – Little Kabul in the San Francisco Bay Area. This multicultural, thriving hub buzzing with new technology is where I should belong.
On September 18, 2013, Dutch authorities released a death list of Afghanistan’s disappeared that threw Afghans into a frenzy. The list opened old wounds. Families held funerals and called for justice. There were nearly 5,000 of those on the list who disappeared under the communist regime from 1978-79. Brutal ruling regimes from the communists, the
Today is International Women’s Day and I dedicate today to Darya, the heroine opium bride in Opium Nation. I found Darya after nine years of searching. She was 12 when I met her. She asked me to help save her from a forced marriage to a 46-year-old drug smuggler. She’s now 21. My book needs
-Learning to speak to Italians via Google Translate. I got dozens of emails in Italian from readers who were touched by the book. In Italy, the book was published hardcover with a cover of a woman in niqab and titled The Afghan Wife. I had nothing to do with any of it except the words
From New York to Los Angeles, Seattle to Phoenix, to the nation’s capital, I stood before Americans for the last year and told the story of Afghanistan’s drug trade, the story of its women, its drug lords, its heroes and criminals. I told my own story of an exile returning to my homeland, traveling in
Obama’s foreign policy decisions do not impress me. But Obama’s foreign policy record is another blog. I didn’t vote for him because he’s bringing peace or resolution to the world. I voted for Obama because inside the US, he’s doing what must be done to heal the country. He’s trying to regulate the economy while
Afghans who read my article “How Iran controls Afghanistan” for Foxnews.com in January critiqued the piece, and the Hazaras took particular offense. I promised a response — it took awhile due to health issues I’ve been struggling with, but here it is. My article is a short opinion piece focused on how Iran influences Afghanistan
