Seema Rafat

In Afghanistan, when the Taliban came, it was night. I could see my neighbor’s house. The Taliban fired a rocket at my neighbor’s house. I was cooking in the kitchen and I saw it. I leaned over to grab the pot so the soup wouldn’t spill. The pot and the wall fell on me. I was under the wall. Before the Taliban came I was in the kitchen making food and rice. I was nervous. I was looking for the food and I didn’t understand my arms were burned, my leg was broken. My aunts and my cousins were there. I was in the hospital for six months.

I’ve been in Boise for 15 years. My daughter is here with me. I hope for my daughter to finish college. My husband is still in Afghanistan. And for my husband…before he was very beautiful. Right now I look for him every day. We talk every day. I look at him every day. I talk to him and see him and we FaceTime each other. We chat. I ask how he is. He is good. His mother is an old woman. She’s sick. Every day when I don’t talk to him I think, I get nervous—is Taliban sending a rocket? I wonder what’s happening. When nobody answers, I’m nervous. I call. When we don’t talk I cry. I say—please call for me. Please call for Sara.

My daughter is in college at BSU. She wants to be a pilot. As a little girl, five-years-old, my daughter said, “I’m like a pilot.” And she would pretend to fly an airplane. When she was a little girl—all the time—she dreamed of being a pilot. My wish for my daughter is to become a pilot. I used to say—maybe you become a doctor— and she said no, I don’t like doctor. I want to become a pilot. That makes me happy. Her dream makes me happy. And my husband, too. He is happy.

When someone listens to me, I feel better. When I talk, I feel better. When I hold it all in it gets bigger and bigger and like I’ll explode. Like a bomb. At home alone I think, think, think—maybe cry. But today, I’m ok.

Born in Afghanistan in 1974. Moved in 2003 to Boise from Pakistan.

SEEMA RAFAT

STORAY FAISI