Teaching Under Fire: Pashtana Durrani on Educating Girls in Taliban Afghanistan

Pashtana Durrani (b. 1997 near Quetta, Pakistan) is an Afghan feminist, human-rights advocate, and educator devoted to securing education for girls in Afghanistan. Born and raised in a refugee camp, she was deeply influenced by her parents—her father, a tribal leader, had opened a girls’ school in the camp, and her mother and aunt taught there—a foundation that sparked her lifelong commitment to learning.

In 2018, she founded LEARN Afghanistan, the nation’s first digital school network, which delivers educational content via tablets and an offline platform to girls and boys in underserved areas. By the Taliban’s return in 2021, LEARN operated 18 digital schools, educating over 10,000 students and training more than 80 teachers in digital literacy. It also includes programs on menstrual hygiene, reaching hundreds of girls.

After the Taliban takeover in August 2021, Durrani went into hiding and eventually fled to the United States. Undeterred, within a month, she resumed operations covertly, creating underground schools across six provinces—Kandahar, Helmand, Daikundi, Samangan, Herat, and Bamyan—educating hundreds of girls daily.

Academically, Pashtana was a visiting fellow—and later International Scholar-in-Residence—at the Wellesley Centers for Women, continuing her work on girls’ education and maternal health, while pursuing a Master’s degree at Harvard University.

Her work has earned global recognition through many accolades, including the Malala Fund Education Champion award, the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Emerging Leader Prize, recognition among the BBC 100 Women, the UN Young Activists Award, and honors from the World Economic Forum, the Muhammad Ali Center, and the International Leadership Association, among others.

Durrani is also the author of Last to Eat, Last to Learn, a memoir recounting her journey from refugee to activist and her fight for Afghan girls’ education.

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Episode Transcript

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Forward slash book hyphen Club. Now today I'm just going
to introduce my guest and kind of read a little

(01:36):
bit off the back of her book to introduce her.
Her name is Pashtana Dorani is an Afghan education advocate,
founder of the NGO Learn Malala's Fund, education Champion, a
United Nations Youth Envoy, and Amnesty International Global Youth Collective Representative.
After the fall of Kandahar and later the rest of
the country, Pashtana became a face of disappearing women's right

(01:59):
now in Afghanistan, appearing regularly in national and international press outlets.
And we are honored to have you here today. So
welcome to soft REP.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yes, Pashtana, let's start off with you are a third
generation refugee from the tribal lands of Pakistan Afghanistan border.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
And you're Afghanistan. You're Afghani.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
Yes, I'm an a. Yes, I'm an a.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
But you've never really got to live in your country.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
I have lived in my country. So here's the fun part.
So I come from May tell me, so I go
a lot into this trible thanks, so raise yourself for this.
So I'm from the Durani tribe, which is like the
largest tribe within the southern parts of Afghanistan. And what
happened was in the eighties, my grandfather was fighting the Soviets.

(02:56):
He got injured and then they moved as the first
generations and the Duranis. Within the Duranis, we had the
bad place, and my grandfather was very against the Russians
like infidels, blah blah blah. He found them, he moves
to Pakistan. And when he moved to Pakistan, by that time,
that's like the first generation. And then the second generation
is my uncles that were teenagers, they were sent off

(03:19):
to Germany and then from Germany to Canada and they
have no families and kids and everything in those countries
who became the second generations of refugees. And then I'm
the third person or a third generation who sort of
like you know, became a refugee again. But I also
was born and raised as a refugee. So there's a
lot of how do I say it, there's a lot
of the fact that we are av Ones because we

(03:42):
migrated to countries where we didn't necessarily feel that we
were part of those countries, especially in Pakistan. If you're
born as an av one, you're not considered from that land,
and they don't give you papers and stuff, so you
are an av gone refugee. It doesn't matter how long
you live there. The singers, but Iran, so the sort
of politics any one so that people don't understand. But

(04:02):
the tribal politics is the Dos and then within the
duranis about exist and within the Bout exists are the
last tribe that lives within the border line between on
the Durian line between Asman as Fan's Kambaha and then
of course per Or now practiced, and of course there's
a lot of politics and drama there too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Right, your genealogy is just going to be like, oh,
I know, I know, I'm from here.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
And I took I took a DNA test rather so
I'm waiting on my results now.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Oh so you don't even see.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
I got my DNA results and I found out like
who my dad's dad was.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
He was adopted.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
So you know what's funny is when you take these tests,
there's an email that comes to you with your results
and it says, do not open this unless you are
mentally prepared to handle the results. And if you're mental,
it's like, literally, are you mentally prepared, hit yes, and
then you hit yes, and it's like, are you really
mentally prepared? Hit yes one more time? And I was like, yeah,

(05:00):
I'm totally mentally prepared.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
I hit yes.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
It got me all my results. I'm like, okay, I'm
British and all these different things. And then I was like, wait,
my dad's dad's name, the guy he always thought might
have been his dad for un till he died, never
knew who his dad was or his mom.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
But so the DNA is I know, crazy, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
It's crazy. But here's the fun part. So I have
tried tracing my mother's leamage because she's a cocker By
tribe and Cockers are sort of nomads and they move
along the Duran dine but also moved into India a lot.
But my father's tribe they don't move, they're not movers.
They stick in that place and up until my dad,

(05:38):
both his mom and dad are both from the same tribes.
It's funny for me is I'm like, oh, I'm one
hundred percent sure from my dad's side it's all the
same thing. But from my mom's side, it's a lot
of like you know, mixing and there's like a lot
of turns and stuff. But I was like, I mean,
I'm very mentally ready for that.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Now you're about to find out that, you know, I
found out that I'm sub Saharan African one point three
percent sub Saharani.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
So cool, that is so cool.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
That is so crazy, right, and like point nine percent Sardinian.
And I'm like, I'm like, well, if Sardinian counts, then
sub Saharan African counts. Point nine percent counts that one
point three totally.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
You know, my friend and my friend she has I
think percent Chinese in her and then she has I
think some I think Iraqi in her and she's from Afghanistan,
from the north in Afghanistan. And I was like, oh
my god, all of this counts. This counts.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yes, that counts. You know.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
My best friend got his DNA done and he's Chinese
descent from Taiwan, but his heritage is Mongolian. Yeah, yep,
you know what I mean, because that whole yes, and
we're just like He's like, yeah, but we all come
from the same mother ship. And I'm like, but I'm
the only one that sub Saharan African between the two
of us.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
He doesn't have any I do. I'm like, maybe I'm
from the mothership where you from.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
Maybe you never know you.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Are no right And living as a young lady, as
a girl in Afghanistan is a really tough situation and
it hurts my heart and it hurts my soul to
see because I'm the father of two beautiful young girls
who I want to see other women be powerful so
that they can see that as a as a ladder

(07:15):
to get to you know, so whether it's a female
president or female CEO or female author like yourself, I love.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Them to know that that exists for them, right.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
And what you're doing right now is exactly like kind
of like Malala does. And just like you just are
putting it out there. You're just like, hey, this is me.
Your book is last to eat, last to learn. Let's
really be clear about that. In Afghanistan culture, the boys
are revered as like, oh, these guys are going to
become probably like the cons or the tribal elders of

(07:46):
the land. These guys need to be raised in fighting
spirit and given whatever they can. And then the girl
is just like helping to do such things without them
eating or getting the education. And then when education is
let's go into that. You know, that's that's true.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
Hand.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
So I have to make sure that I say this
correctly because I'm going to get so much here from
people and they're like, oh dah bah bah. So the
concept is the less to eat, less to learn. When
I was talking to my co author, the concept came
from the fact that it's not necessarily that avhons don't
love their daughters. There's a new research that was done.
It was like the first daughter effect, and it's just

(08:25):
I'm seeing it to you right now, is the minute
you have a first bone that is a daughter, you
will be more inclined towards a more feminist society, a
more just society, a more gender equal society. You will
want more opportunities for women because your first bone is
a girl. So you want that, you know, you want
that legacy to live, you want that legacy to have
access to opportunity. And the thing was for Alphan fathers.

(08:48):
My father I was born in his own twisted where
he's like, oh, she's going to be my son. He
was like, it's going to be my son, and I
was like okay, But in his own way, he the
reason he said, she's going to be my son is
because he wanted a just, fair world for world for
his daughter, because he was raised by a mother who

(09:08):
separated from his father because he got married the second
time and his mother was like, you know what, but bye,
and she she took all her children and like, you know,
literally took care of and put them through school and
all of that. And then the same goes for his
sister where she was married off as a young woman
and she was domestically abused. And then he when he
became a tribal chief, he got hurt the divorce, which

(09:30):
was unheard of. You know, it was such a table
thing by the time I was born. He didn't want
me to go to that cycle for me to realize
my power. He's like, no, you're gonna do what you want.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
And I think and he did. And in your book
you talk about him.

Speaker 5 (09:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
Yeah. So but here's the thing like that is without
one father's majority of them are like that. They love
their daughters, they want to prioritize their daughters and everything.
But I do think that we cannot hide away from
the fact that our society in many ways as patriarchal
and misogynist and what happens with that is the boys
prioritized because he's going to be become like, you know,

(10:07):
the person who earns the money, who's going to stay
in that place. And I'm not going to give anybody
else's example because I don't consider myself to be the
representative of our fund women. I'm going to give example
of my own family. My father puts so much money
into my education. The reason I'm speaking this language right
now is because he invested so much money into this.
Whereas my uncle, by the way, ended up in Canada

(10:29):
and Germany. They told my father, why are you wasting
so much money on a girl? You should you should
marry her off. She's sixteen, she should be married off.
So you have to understand that these two mentalities can
exist within the same brothers, you know, within the same family.
And the reason we picked up that this name was
it's not necessarily that the girl is starving and it's like,

(10:51):
you know, a conflict zone and she's not getting anything.
But the priority is given to the son first, and
then after that one else and then the daughter because
the daughter is the one who has to take care
of her younger siblings. She has to take care of
the house. She has to take care of everyone, she
has to put everyone to school. And if here's a
funny thing that nobody talks about. Most of the time

(11:11):
when you go to family meetings and stuff, it's always
the first daughter who doesn't go to school, and that's
always the other kids who go to school. I have
a cousin. He didn't go to school. She was homeschool
and all her siblings went to school. And the reason
is because she helped her mother with home chores and stuff.
And I'm bringing this conversation now, is your last tick
to eat? Because she was helping her mother feed the

(11:32):
kids first or her family first, and then she eats
their lass. And the thing was for her learning. She
gets to go to school when everybody gets to go
to school, when everybody's already there, and she's the last
priority because she has to take care of everyone. So
in a way, it was I think dedication to the
oldest daughters who sacrifice themselves for the bigger picture. But

(11:55):
also at the same time, I also really don't want
to deny the fact that upones love their daughters. Up
ones want to prioritize their daughters. And I even now
like we have seven hundred girls straying up to our schools.
Seven hundred fathers are making that happen for them, seven
hundred brothers are making that happen for them. So, yes,
there's a lot of misogyny in patriarchy, but also in

(12:17):
many ways, a lot of girls have to sacrifice a
lot of things for them to just be there, you know, yeah, yeah,
I just wanted to make sure we know, no.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
I love yeah, And as a male patriarchy guy, the
head of the household, I know who runs my household. Yes, right,
I love my wife very much and my daughters kind
of you know, I'm just I just I just want
to blend in and have them love me and just
being a part of the family and you know, not
have any I might say, hey, I'm your dad.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yeah, you know, go to your room.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
Yeah you know. But twenty two you get to be
part of the cool club because they get to make
that cool club, you know, they get to organize it,
they get to work on it, they get to make
sure that there's two of organizations and there's harmony, there's peace,
there's love between this and over the course of the
past few years, I have realized that women make that

(13:08):
happen because men were like, we don't want to talk
about that. That's too much for us. We don't want
to feel that. But then it's always women. It's daughters
who are like, no, that we need to talk about that.
I mean, I remember talking to my dad and we
were talking about like child marriages and stuff, and I
was like, that's child metag and my dad was like,
I know, that's why we've got you educated in nurses,
so that you know.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Because he knew like that was not what he wanted
for his daughter. He's like, even if you are sixteen
and you want to go out and try to spread
your wings, it's like, ah, maybe when you're nine, eighteen,
nineteen twenty, go to school.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Didn't you want to go to? Was it? Oxford? Is
that the school?

Speaker 4 (13:39):
So I was accepted into a CREP school and at
Oxford it's like a one year program and then you
get transition into Oxford, and I was super excited and everything,
and then I was like I don't want to go
because I really like my work in Afghanistan and I'm
doing this internship and I'm working with Gordana. And my
mother hated it. He hated everything about it. It's just like,
this doesn't have happened. This is not how you do it.

(14:01):
Do you know how many people? Do you know how
many nights I have sacrifice for you so you could
study and I could sit behind you and you know,
help you. And I was like, yeah, but then my
dad is like, we'll let her do her thing. And
I swear to God if my kid comes to me
and telling me this right now, weren't allowed. So I
don't know he was able for his own goodness.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Your dad was probably just like you know, freedom of choice.
Oh yeah, he had already learned it, you know. And
you know your dad was probably in positions that will
never know about because in your book you talk about
how dad was home and then dad was gone to
go battle.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah. Yeah, Dad was just a warrior.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
And let me let me ask you about your dad
because he's still with us or did he pass He passed?

Speaker 4 (14:44):
He passed in twenty twenty because of cold.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah yah, that's right. Yeah, Okay, I'm sorry about that.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
My condolences to him, but he lives through you think
you okay, that warrior, that kindness.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
I could see it already.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
I already get the vibes and he though, had to
take care of of his family and you and his
wife and you know, your little brother or brothers that
showed up and maybe got spoiled sometimes by going to war.
He had to go and fight against the Russians, right.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
So my grandfather felt against the Russians. My father, my
father and my two uncles fought against the Taliban with.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
The message exactly.

Speaker 4 (15:19):
So yeah, So the sad thing is, uh, it was
after two thousand and one and he fought against the Taliban.
And then I was going through the documents recently and
how he became the foreign a first director for the
Southwest Division, you know, and how he was helping this

(15:40):
and I was going through all his documents and it
was in a weird way, you knew all about his
life and in a weird way, You're like, oh my god,
he was a revolutionary man. You know, he lived his
own life and he and my mom makes fun of me.
He's like you and your dad a problem child. I
have accepted it now. She's like, he went to war,

(16:02):
you're going to work. He made enemies with a whole
like you know, a whole regimes and like group, and
you're doing the same thing. I have given up on this.
I have accepted my fate and it's like, okay, so, yeah,
my dad was My dad had his moment. My dad
made his choices, but he wanted to be on the
right side of the history. He believed in a better Afghanistan.
He believed in Afghanistan where women could go to work,

(16:25):
girls could go to school. He believed that upon women
were entitled to the ownership of Afghanistan as much as
one men. And he believed in it and he felt
for it. And I'm so grateful that he did that
because I get to be that child or that person
who is proud of the fact that that's my legacy,
that's my father's legacy, that's my grandparent's legacy, you know.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
And so in your book you talk about yeah, no,
I do know, and I love that. But I just
want to say in your book you talk about how
your father is the tribal leader. Right, so you kind
of grew up in a little bit of a I
have access to some things that others don't have, and
like school. Okay, so your goal was to go to
school and then to come back to your village and

(17:09):
your your area relived, right and reteach what you had
just learned.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Now you are now the teacher.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
How old were you when that was going on, Like,
oh god.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
Oh no, I was so young. I was like six
and seven. And my dad. Here's the thing. When you
live in community, and when your dad is basically someone
who thinks that you have to live for your community.
He was very adler, you know, the psychologist addler. He
was be meant like that. He's like, oh, no, we
live for the common good. There's no individual us, it's
us as a community. And because a lot of girls

(17:43):
cannot afford to go to a coed or a more
established private school, We're going to open a space here.
You're going to go study there. You're going to come
back and teach them with your with your aunt and
your mom. And I hated it. I hated the fact
that he made me do that. And every time I
hated it, every time that would happen to me, he

(18:04):
would be like, you don't know how privileged you are.
You don't know how much this is going to make
a difference when you grow up when you know that.
And I think for the most part, maybe I didn't
even do a good job of teaching them a for
apple or D for dog or something like that. I
think it was the fact that he wanted to integrate
this value that it's not an individualistic tribal society. It's

(18:28):
a communal tribal family, and we live for each other.
We dedicate our If we have privilege, we share it.
So I think that was a good good example, and
I think give you a good example of this is
growing up, we had someone whose name was a name.
He worked with us and we played with him basically right,

(18:52):
and he used to help around like moudolon and everything
in our house, and then we used to play with him.
He grew up, he enlisted in the army in Afghanissan.
He got like he was working on a mind that
was planted by the Taliban. He was working on it.
He blew up in his face. He lost his eyesight.
And this is a kid I grew up with, right,

(19:14):
And this kid listens to radios or TV sometimes and
he hears my voice. And I grew up with him,
and he used to text my dad, Oh, I heard
PERSONA say this. I heard PERSONA say that you should
be so proud and stuff like that. And now that
I's all about are in power. He is he cannot
do a lot. So his brother and me we were
chatting the other day and we're trying to get him

(19:35):
a sort of like you know, this transportation cart that
could help their family, like you know, earn so many
but and I was just talking to him and the
last message he sent me is like, you like, you
don't owe us anything. You don't necessarily have to do this.
It's not necessarily something you need to do. But the
fact that you're doing this, the fact that you're reaching,

(19:57):
you're responding to my call, and you're the fact that
he or working like sort of responding to what my
ask is shows that you were raised by your father.
And in a way I took it. In a way,
I took a step back and I was like, that's true.
I don't have to do this, like I'm not responsible
for this. But in another way, my father was like
internalized father and me is like, no, you do. You

(20:19):
have resources and you need to do it right, so
you know it's part of it. You can't run from it.
When I'm in the US, I look at people there
were their driving cars or their I'm like, ah, like
life must be so easy for them or so happy
for them like I need them. Sometimes I'm like, like,
it must be nice. But then in other ways when
I talk to them, they have their own problems. But
then I'm like, how do I make them understand that

(20:41):
I have to be responsible for someone who have played
with when I was a kid because he's now blind
and he cannot take care of his family, you know.
But I'm grateful that those values were integrated into me.
I'm grateful that even if I was a bad teacher
as a kid, I was still forced to teach every
day one hour to do with girls, and I was

(21:01):
meant to believe that as a woman, as a young woman,
I have a right to my community to make that
change happen. So I'm grateful for all of those.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, i mean, look at the seeds that you planted in,
all of those that you educated. Yeah, okay, because when
you were six, that was probably like sixteen years ago.
I'm not sure your aged today, you know, twenty six,
that's like twenty two maybe, Okay, So you know, I

(21:31):
was gonna throw that dart, okay, But at the end
of the day, those people are holding onto something that
you taught them.

Speaker 4 (21:36):
Oh yeah, I met someone three years ago who was like, oh, yeah,
I went to your aunt's school and she was teaching
in spinball back after that, and I was like fascinating,
Like I didn't even recognize her, you know, for a minute,
and then she came and she talked to me, and
I was like, oh my god, oh my god, you're
the kid that I bullied, you know, but thank god
you're here.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
But yeah, yes, yes, she's like a's for apple, yeah,
like a DS for dog. I mean, just the little
things that matter, right, And so I try to learn
Spanish or other languages.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
It's just not easy.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
So here you are as a six seven year old
trying to teach English to people because your father knew, like, hey,
we need to have this because we got to talk
back and forth.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
Yeah, yeah, definitely percent yes.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
Yeah, very very very cool, very cool.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Right, A lot of special Forces, So my father was
a Green Beret Special Forces in the army, also spoke
other languages, you know, and always like encouraged me to
learn other things. And so what did I do is
now my daughter is fluid in Mandarin. Oh cool, and
so is my sixteen year old son. They're both fluid.
My son has a hard time like writing it, but

(22:43):
he can converse like, no problem. And what I told
him is, I said, son, like a lot of people
even in China can't read and write their own language,
let alone you who can just have a whole conversation.
So we went out to his birthday to a Cantonese
restaurant and as soon as I said Seshie to the

(23:04):
servers that he's like, oh, you learn Chinese, and my
son just start talking to him, and then he's like, oh,
you know Chinese, and then my daughter starts talking across
the table, and the waiter was just like, okay, wait,
what is this universe?

Speaker 4 (23:16):
Are these are these have Chinese people? What is happening here? No?

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Right, not on my DNA an African maybe San African.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Bro, You're so cool. You already know that about me.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
That's that's the funniest thing. I mean, who came to
you to say write this book?

Speaker 4 (23:37):
Funny story? Through twenty twenty, a lot of a lot
of is happening. My father has passed away, and I'm
dealing with a lot of tribal drama, and there's so
much happening. I'm between Cobble and Kandahar all the time.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
And you're a woman in the situation.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
Oh my god. And I'm like a young woman, by
the way, yes, with a mind, with a mind. But
here's the funny thing. I was. I was way way
early on. I was introduced to my community, the men
in my community and the boys in my communities. I
think for them, it was pretty like whatever, it's personal,
it's acceptable.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
She can do whatever she wants, you know, yeah, whatever.

Speaker 4 (24:16):
You know, like, she can, yeah, she can do whatever
she wants. Like I had a three pass so I
sort of knew that I could do that. But in
other ways, my uncles were not so comfortable with that.
They were like, I remember my uncle on the thirty
of my father's passing over. He's like, we when like you,
when you're done with your school in a year, you
should get married and settle down and don't worry about things,
the tribal affairs. You are going to take care of it.

(24:38):
And I was like, looking at him, I was like okay.
And then I let him and I led him and
I was like okay, sure, and I give him a chance.
And then I was like he didn't do a good job.
And I was like, dude, nah, I cannot let you
do this on my father's legacy. He didn't sacrifice this
much for you to walk all over this like that.
So I had to, like, you know, level against him.

(24:59):
But yeah, I think going back and forth between Koble
and I was like, this is not how we do
things here.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
No.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
No, I mean, yeah, you're free mind, you're you're a
modern woman.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Hello, Like this works modern.

Speaker 4 (25:17):
But also like, you know, in many ways, I think
I'm very traditional slash marn I would say, because I
believe in my tribal roots. I believe in the way
we were raised was in many ways very sure tribal,
but also in many ways very communal, something that worked
for my people, and I believe that I should be
bringing on that tradition. And I think for them, they

(25:39):
were like, oh, we need the name, but we're not
going to do the work. And I was like, that's
not how it's done, dude, Like you do the hard work,
because that's how you get the name. And it said
like last year I was back home and my brother
was I had the tribal elder who was my uncle
from another tribe. He came in and they so he
wakes up early in the morning at five and my

(26:01):
brother wouldn't wake up. And I went to his room
and I was like, you want to be the next
con in this family. You really want to be the
next person who's going to carry on the name, and
you can only wake up at five am. I don't
think this is going to happen for you, So don't
even wake up. And I shut the door and I
stand the door and I go downstairs, and in ten
minutes like grubbing his eyes, and he comes down. He's like,
I'm so sorry. I was later. So it's like, you.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Have to have those standards.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
You have to have those standards, and I don't think
the men hadn't.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
But you're like, you think you want to be conn
you think you can get hanged. You can't get up
at five am. Bro, I'm going downstairs, go to bed.
Don't even get out of bed. I thought it was
more like you're like, hello, you want to be coming out.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
It's like brothers, sisters doors.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
I was like mad, assuming my faces, and my mom
she makes why am I up?

Speaker 3 (26:44):
No?

Speaker 4 (26:45):
But have you seen the Dora cartoon. It's like Dora
the Explorer. Yes, of course, So my mom makes fun
of me. She's like your Dora the Explorer with your
up one traditional dress. You are like, you know, and
she's like, you go into all these and you expect
people to do the things on the right time, and
then they don't do it and you're all feman and mad.
And my mom's like, Dora, calm down, Dora, calm down.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
But the animals, mom, the animals, you know, I know,
and the trees and the cliffs. Hello, mom my, map,
let me call it the map. Hello? Map?

Speaker 4 (27:18):
Can you see the map? Please tell me we're the map.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
So I actually like that movie. I'm not gonna lie
the I don't know if you saw or not, but
I like it.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
I grew up watching her, so my mom, my, mom
and sister called me doughter. But during twenty twenty, I
am going between Cobble and Kandahar and negotiating this mo
OU with and the government to work with these schools.
I am negotiating these terms with one of these tribal
chief from Done and Cobble because he cannot come to

(27:46):
Conda Heart because of security. And then the midst of
all of that, somebody reaches out to me and he's like, oh,
remember we talked a year ago. I did my PhD
thesis and you were part of that pieces and my
son saw that. And she wants to talk to women
and up on the summer young women or doing something,
and I recommended you. Would you be interested in talking

(28:07):
to her? And she's doing this book on different women
that to ural a world. So she's doing it with
Kurdish women fighters like yeah, oh my god, so badass.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
So I mean so badass. Yeah you're badass.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
They're badass, but they are like badass badass, you know, like.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Badass, Yes, snipers, I get it.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Well, you're putting your veil on every five seconds, so
I'm just saying, okay, badass.

Speaker 4 (28:32):
I'm very nimated. So this happens all the time. So
but with with the Kurlish Pashners, I'm like a fangirl.
I fend alone them so much. Oh yeah, So she
reaches out to me. She's like, oh yeah, I'm going
to make you part of this chapter, like you know,
for this book and I'm writing this and I'm like okay.
So she does the interview, she goes away. I don't

(28:52):
hear back from her, and I'm like, in the middle
of like all these crisis the countries like in Flames,
we are under siege, and so much is happening. And
then after six months, in the end of twenty twenty,
she reaches out. She's like, listen, I thought about this.
I think your story is way too big to be
taught or read in a chapter. We need to write
a book. And then that's where in the stuff it

(29:17):
was not just about me. It was about the women,
the tribal women, and how amazing they are and how
fascinating they are. But by the end of it, I
was the connecting dot between all these women that were connecting,
so it sort of become about me. But yeah, that
was the sort of thing that became the book. And
then throughout the twenty twenties ended twenty twenty one. Start

(29:38):
we just talked. We did a lot of research, We
did a lot of talking, interviews, questions, writing, so that
became the books identity or like you know, the book
becoming a thing. And then it was done. And then
I forgot about the book because we were under siege
for three months in Kandahar, so I had to deal
with a lot of other stuff. But yeah, that's how

(29:59):
the book came to be. Basically, a very different nuanced
way on how people see albums, especially albums from rural
primary regions of Afghanistan, And for me, it's very important
that we're seeing in a very different light than that
way will portrayed in the past two decades or even
in general. You know.

Speaker 5 (30:17):
Yeah, And when you say the siege of Candahar, is
that when we're talking about like kind of how afghan
the fall of you know, the pull out and everything,
is that what you're referencing.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
And you were in candahart during that time, right, and
and a lot of the news media just gripped right onto,
you know, like the airplane taken off and like the
the gates being rushed by people trying to get out
because whatever reasons that they got to get out.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
You know, that kind of a thing. Don't leave us behind,
you know?

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Is that the same sense that you were getting from
the neighborhood versus what we were seeing on TV was
it as drastic and dire And I know it's gone
that way, right, like the talibanner like more women can
go to school.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Here's the thing with Kobble, of course, everybody is in
chaos and I'm hearing all these reports and everything is happening.
But with Kandahar, we were taken by the Thuliban two
days before Cobble. And what happened with us is everything
just went silent. Everything just dropped. It was in drop
silence in the streets. Nobody was out, nobody was going out.

(31:24):
And I remember the first thing that they did was
they went to a bank, to the Avonspan International Bank.
They talked to the accountants, who were women by the way.
They told them that they should go home and send
their brothers to do their jobs. And I was like,
oh my god, oh my god. And I was like fuming,
and I'm tweeting about it and I'm like, how dare
you stupid people? Blah blah blah. And that's what they did.

(31:46):
And that was the first time in Kannahar women were
stripped off of their working rights and it just went
onto our role. So people didn't even open public schools,
you know. After that, private schools were scared. Women wouldn't
show up to offices. So a lot of people got
scared all of a sudden because there was like house
roots that were happening. People like the disarmament the project

(32:09):
was happening, when the polybon were taking people's arms around
away and the assault trifles and everything and that sort
of comeback was very different from what happened in Cobble
and Cobble people. Yes, they were running towards the airport.
They were like sort of like, you know, leaving everything behind.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Kind of mass hysteria.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
C yes, and in come her. It just went to
a place where it w was like this is it.
There's nothing we can do about it.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
What's going to happen next? Like it's the next step,
Like what are they going to do?

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Roll down the We're just going to keep out of
their way because you are like, oh, definitely kind to
keep out of your Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
It's like dude underground, Yeah yeah, It's like that's it.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
It's like, Okay, we're going to teach you today at home,
and you know your sisters and brothers are going to
learn today because we're not going to send you to school.
Because no one wants to get any of the girls
hurt or killed, I.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Think, or married off to somebody that they don't want
to be married off to.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
So I think when they came in into come to Her,
there sort of projection is we won't hurt anyone. We's
general amnesty for everyone who worked and sort of like
they wanted to uphold that image of them, like when
they were whitewashed by all these Western journalists, like, oh,
these are normal people, they're not bad people. They didn't

(33:28):
blow up people for the past two decades except them.
And then they came in. And then within the first week,
I remember watching this video where the Collied fighters trying
to take a car out of a cultural room and
this guy who is so bad ass he talks to
the commander and who's like, no, you cannot do this.
You cannot take away the car that I've paid heavy

(33:50):
money for. You cannot just take it out away, and
he holds him by the hand and was thinking to myself,
I was like, it takes God to call out someone
like that, you know. So yeah, and then people started
opening up and trying to like do opposition but in
a very different way. But also at the same time,
a lot of people were like pretty scared. They didn't
want to go out, they didn't want to send their

(34:11):
door kids out, they didn't want to send their daughters out.
And rightfully so, because three years later today you look
into Akhanistan, sexual abuse for women, is there not that
it was not there in the past. Red it was there,
but now it's something that is integrated. Kids are getting kidnapped.
I have a very close friend. Her cousin was kidnapped
and beheaded by the way and assaulted. Yes. So, and

(34:36):
when you when you talk about all of these things,
here's the thing. When you talk about all of these things,
when you write about these things, there's a certain group
who is very educated who's gone back to off Hunderstan,
that is the diaspora, their sort of lob being full
of Taliban, and they're like, oh, this is lies. We
don't believe this. Yes, because you are the most privileged
people in this country. You carry a US or a

(34:57):
UK passport, you get to leave the country where them
that you want. You are not necessarily a full time
out on pep yourself out of that citizenship from the
other country. And then I'll see how it happens when
you have to send your daughter to school, when you
have to send your son outside, you know, then we'll see,
then we'll talk. So it's like the fact when even

(35:19):
when you're trying to see the reality, they're active, educated
people who are loving otherwise, you know, so it's very
hard to even you know, bring this to light anymore.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
We kind of have that going on here in the
US right now, right now, educated people I know who
are sitting here saying, don't worry about it, do what
we say, do what we say, everything will be okay.
And I'm like, wait, we're also educated people, and we
don't want to do what you say, and we don't
want you to be there, and I don't want you
to be the leader, and this, that and the other thing.
It's like, you know, it does take a lot of
guts to stand up to that, because it's easy to

(35:53):
conform and just go along and shuffle along and just
do what you're told, do what you're told, and then
go home and do what you're told.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
But now it takes somebody to have to you know,
you have to stand up for you.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
Oh, I think I think you have to have a spine.
And most importantly, I don't think. I don't want to
see it, but I think I have to say it.
I'm not I can never be the person who can
confirm I was never a conformist as a kid. I'm
never going to be a conformist when I'm here right now.
And I don't think the women in my family, the

(36:26):
people in my family or in the past three hundred years,
what they have done, what they have sacrificed. Would want
me to conform to the normal ways or the abusive ways,
just for the sake of some peace, you know.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Negative they did everything to get you here. Oh my god,
what you doing? Yes, they don't want you to stop.

Speaker 4 (36:45):
No. And they have scrifice so much. They have sacrificed
so much. Oh my god. I remember people telling my
father when he I was being sent to a boarding school.
They're like, oh, she's going to run away. When I
was like, okay, let her run out, Like imagine, imagine
a tribal chief had to defend that. And then and
then when I was on TVs and I was famous,

(37:06):
all of a sudden, everybody's like, yes, we believed in her,
she could do it, and no, I was like, oh
yeah yeah. I was like we knew the whole time.
And every time I would meet all these people and
then they're like, oh, we're related to you. I was like, oh,
so we're not related like three years ago, but we're
related now. Okay, okay, but like that's the thing, that's
the thing. But I think, oh my god, we have

(37:27):
sacrificed so much for us, so much to conform, for
us to accept no.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
M so yeah, yeah, yeah, seriously.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
You know, it's like, you know, my friends that deployed
to Afghanistan, you know, to try to allow voting to happen,
so that they could try to have elections to happen,
so that you know that these places are protected, you know,
And here we are over in the US, like are
you voting? I don't know if my candidate's the one

(37:58):
that I want to vote for, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
It's like, do you understand you even have a Yeah,
you're so born with it, yep.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
If you can step outside of it, you know, and
see what it's like to not have that opportunity to choose,
it's a big deal, right, you know. I saw with
the Iraqi women putting their finger and the purple I'm
not sure if that's out when Afghanistan too, you know,
and they pointed up like look and outside of that
voting pole booth was like a security detail protecting it

(38:27):
from anybody, and they lined up to say I'm voting.

Speaker 4 (38:31):
Yeah, yeah, I think you also. Like one thing I
find it very fascinating with people in the US is
like the fact that you have this discussion you know
that who I'm going to wait vote for, or you
have this political discourse where you hate on the other candidate,
but you don't go missing, you don't die all of

(38:51):
a sudden. You get to hate on them on all this,
yet you know, you still get to live your life.
You don't lose your job all of a sudden, you
don't go missing. You're not stripper off of your rights
all of a sudden. You know. That is so fascinating
to me that people in the US don't think that
that's a privilege, you know, because they're born with it.

(39:12):
And then also another thing that I find fascinating is
the fact that when I'm at Harvard and the Graduate
School of Education, and even this interview is happening here.
So every time I'm in a class and I am
taking this class called education and Uncertainties, right, and people
who have been in the US have never been out
of the US. They have this idealist view of like

(39:35):
how education should be like accessible but in a very
different way, and how everyone has the right to all
of this. And I'm like, yes, everybody wants every normal
human being who has a good heart, who want that.
But when you're in war, things are very different. So
for me, the fact that you can choose idealism, you know,
you can be an idealist, is such a big privilege

(39:57):
that people don't realize it. You know, cannot be an idealist.
I was talking to my friend last night and I
was like, why are we so cynical? Why are we
so pragmatic about things? You know? The reason is we
have so we have seen and lost so much that
for us we have to choose what we believe in,
what we stick to, and how it's going to work out.
But people who are idealists, I'm like, it must be

(40:17):
good to be God's favorite, you know, good to be
born with that passport, or good to be in that
country where you can say, oh, no, everybody should have that,
everyone should have that. Yeah, but a lot of sacrifices
go into everybody having that, you know, everybody getting that,
and you still lose it. You still lose it. My
tribe last twenty three hundred men. I'm talking to men

(40:38):
who went blind. I'm talking to people who lost their
limbs who I'm talking to women who lost their husbands.
I'm talking to kids who lost their fathers and yet
they live in a country where you can't go to school,
you can't go to work, you can't talk to other women.
Right now. I mean you saw the recent the decree
that they passed, so imagine, imagine like sacrificing so much

(41:01):
and still not getting to be that idealist. It's such
a privilege, you know.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
The video that always sticks with me is is I
saw a video a few years back where the Taliban
came in and found out that there was a teacher
teaching the young girls, and I was like, I don't
I don't even I can't even imagine, you know, And
they took the teacher in front of the children and
just put it in a right there, and I was
just like, yeah, just to show like you're not going

(41:26):
to learn, and she's gone.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
Yeah, yeah. It's like that I had. I had five
co workers arrested.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
Hurts me. Hurts me. It hurts me.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
I'm going to cry, and it's it's so sad. Five
coworkers are of my nan arrestage. Two of them are released,
three are still in custody. And the funny thing is
that you know that even in Hillman. Hillman, a southern
province that was known in the past two in the past,
it's known to be like, oh, this strong hold of
Tolobon and it's like became this demon exist. And I say,

(41:57):
even in that province, people would be so against you
if you say that, Oh, they were teaching, and that's
why we arrested them. So do you know what they
came up with? They're becoming so innovative. They're like, oh,
these people are preaching Christianity. And I was like, who
in their right mind would be preaching Christianity in a
Taliban controlled country? Like how stupid are you? How stupid

(42:17):
are you? Know?

Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yes? Right?

Speaker 4 (42:19):
But that they're becoming so innovative in their claims because
they know that even in people in the rural regions,
people who have never been to school, would not even
oppose education, groose education. So now they're like preaching Christianity
and like, nobody stupid, nobody is stupid to do that.
So how do you find that?

Speaker 2 (42:37):
You know, how how do you justify you know, they're
teaching as for apple, d is for dude.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yes, exactly, you know, and I don't know. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
That's all I got, you know on that aspect is
as someone here who lives in Utah of the US.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
I'm sorry, me too, me too.

Speaker 4 (43:04):
Yeah, It's it's a weird time.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Because we women are the most powerful people in the world.
Why are we not acknowledging that. You know, there's nowhere
in me that I could pull another human out of.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yes I can't.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
Yes, you can't.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
That's the most powerful thing in the like to create.
I mean, I'm just saying, and the ability or the
option to maybe be able to do that, that's not me.
I'm not even needed. Yes, there's just one part of
me that's only needed for that. There was.

Speaker 4 (43:34):
I was doing research on this, and you know, the
main I think X Y chromosomes like men will go
extinct in the next four thousand years. I was doing
study on it, but women will get to live, you know.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
And I was like, m interesting, interesting seeing four years.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
Yeah yeah, I was like, oh, maybe my descentants have
to live that long to get to live in a Honistan,
you know, right.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Oh right, Like you know, do I just have to
keep the fight, you're now, they're gonna be like my
ancestor from four thousand years ago didn't give up, So
I can't give up.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
Because here's the thing. So Princess Roshana. He was the
wife of Alexander the Great, and she was an Aphon.
She was the princess of Bactria. And do you know
here's the funny thing. She was three thousand years ago.
So Alexander comes in all macho, like, oh I the God,
I'm son of for God, blah blah blah, and then
she looks at it and she's like, no, you're not.

(44:29):
And he's like, how dare you say that? And she's like,
I can prove it, and he's like, prove it, okay,
and she bites them. And this is Alexander in a constans.
So he has been throughout the world. He has conquered
all the world. He has been around the world. And
she begged them and he starts bleading and she's like, God,
doesn't reed sit down, You're not God, yea, and he

(44:51):
would like shock and he's like, oh my god, this
is the first smartnest woman that I have met who's
so smart, who just like be mystified everything about me
like my mother taught me. And he marries her each
she gives him a son. And this is three thousand
years ago. So every time somebody's like, oh no, I've
one woman this send that I'm like, Roshana, Princess Roshana,
you know. And she her name is like, you know,

(45:12):
implicis it's Roxanne, but she's Roshana. And she did that
three thousand years ago. She did mystified someone who was
claiming to be God's son, who was the Greek you know,
the powerful.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
So powerful silk road. Yeah, okay, He's like, bring me
a silk bandage for my bike, mark, where's that at?

Speaker 3 (45:32):
And I'm marrying her?

Speaker 4 (45:33):
Yeah, And he married her because he knew she was
so smart. He knew that she was the one who
could he could like, you know, because when soon became
his last stop, you know, so he's like, you know,
she could be someone, she could be the one.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
And I was like, yes, yes, love at first bike.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
I know, I know, I know, I know.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
I named my son Alexander. By the way, my wife
and I we named him Alexander. In Alexander, my uncle.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Named no of course, and my uncle named his son Seconda,
which is our origin of Alexander. So yeah, yeah, Cuba.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Secanda, Yeah, I'm gonna remember that. I'll call my son Secanda.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Look at me, like what I call him?

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Al Ali Alejandro, which is the Spanish Alexander.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
Oh it is I didn't know Alejandro. Was that Okay?

Speaker 2 (46:24):
I'm pretty sure, yeah, Alejandro. Yeah is how they do Alexander, Alejandro.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Comment down below. If I
said that wrong, let me know in the comments. Whoever
is out there, comment down below.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
Go ahead, I.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Dare you and click the subscription button too while you're
at it.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
But you know, uh, you're too cool.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Right, You're just like you're still studying, You're you're you're
super cool, You're very you're very poised. You come across
with grace and empathy for your for your cause, and
you know you have someone who helped write.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
This with you, Tomorrow, Bralo. Let's give that a shot
out right there.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
And so what did tomorrow bring into the book with you?

Speaker 4 (47:05):
I think Tomorrow brought in a lot of patients, a
lot of her candles because for you, for.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
You to deal with you.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Yeah, here's the funny thing, Like I'm a candle maker.
She was.

Speaker 4 (47:18):
So I was arrested in a neighboring country and they
arrested me by their intelligence services and they were like,
oh no, you talk a lot. You are a national
interest person for us, because you're going to create problems.
And when they arrested me camera, she just called me.
And after that, I was like, you know, the State
Department was trying to get me out and then my

(47:40):
friends got me out. He takes me. She's like, at
some point, you're going to pay for so many candles
because I have been burning candles left and right for you.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
And I was like, because it's so funny. Because he
went through hell, I went to want to stand back.
I was in. I was like, all under house arrest,
That's what I was going to say. There's so much
that happened that we have written not written in the
book because it was security issues. I was arrested intelligent

(48:12):
by the intelligence services in neighboring countries. I was almost
handed over to the calaban and all of that is happening.
And she because in her head, she was like, this
kid is going to stay and she is going to
kill herself. And but when I came out and I
and I was talking to her, and one day I
told her, I was like, oh, I for a minute,
I thought I'm going to stay. I won't leave, you know,
She's like, I knew that. I knew that you're going

(48:34):
to do that, and so throughout that few months she
burns so many candles and she's like, well, you owe
me for that, and like I do. I do. So
that's Termera's candle budget that we should be talking about inechnology.
But apart from that, I think I owe it to
her and I think I have so much respect for
her because I would going through so much pain, something

(48:57):
very painful. Here's the thing you have to understand. I
I fell in love with Avganistan because of my father.
I loved my father so much that for him, the
country was so important that it became part of me
and my identity. And I always used to say that
my father was my first love because I look after
him so much. And then I worshiped Afghanistan because of him,

(49:19):
you know. And I didn't see it as just a country.
I didn't see it as just part of my identity.
I saw it as my identity. I saw it as like,
you know, the mother of everything that I belonged to.
So for me, I lose my father, I'm losing a
lot of grip with my tribe, i lose my country.

(49:39):
And this is all in the span of like you know,
a year and a half this is happening from me
twenty twenty to next August twenty twenty one, and I
lose everything in the process. And one thing Camera taught
me through writing this with her and telling her all
of this, that I healed it. You know, I healed
the loss of my father where I talked about him,

(49:59):
I sort of he became immortalized in this book. And
even though he's no more, people are going to read
about him. People are going to know there was another
man out there who believed in girl's education, and there
were a lot of other men who believed like him,
and it's going to show a very different picture of Avonman.
So it healed me. The fact that I had the

(50:20):
loss of Afghanistan. It healed me too.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
You a podcast with rad.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
So I think for me that that that whole process,
the fact that I confided in someone who didn't know
a lot about me, and she wrote about it so beautifully.
She dedicated her time, her energy, and she did it justice.
She presented not only my roots, but my identity, my
country in a very different light. She showed that Avan's

(50:55):
take initiatives, we believe in our country, we love our country.
It healed me. So I think it's she just didn't
try to brook. He almost healed the loss in me.
That was so hard. That is so hard, you know.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
So yeah, I feel like I'm talking to your dad
a little bit.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
I have internalized him, So is that right?

Speaker 3 (51:17):
I have not met him, but I feel like I'm
eating him. Okay.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
So I'm very honored that I get to talk through
you and hear some of his knowledge or anything that
he instilled in you.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
You know, I'm a big daddy's boy too, So it's like,
you know, I'm sorry about it.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
Yeah, me too, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
Yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah, it's you know, girls have power and uh like
the powerpuff Girls. Come on, you know what they were
called before? They were called the kick Ass Girls. No ya,
So they changed the name to powerpuff Girls so it'd
be more cartoon okay for the Yeah, but it was

(51:59):
called the kick Ass Oh.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
I love that. I love that.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Right.

Speaker 4 (52:02):
So I'm Buttercup. I'm Buttercup. My sister is Bubbles, and
my brother is Blossom. We call him Blossom.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
That's so funny. That's so funny. We all love the
power Pup Girls.

Speaker 4 (52:14):
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for listening to me
and interviewing me and calling me in on this. I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Thank you Dad, well, thanks for having thanks for reaching
out to be on the show.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
And you're and Anne is wonderful. Let's give her a
shout out.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
And anytime you want to have Pashtana on the show,
please you're honestly, you're welcome on the show anytime if
you have something some updates, or you want to talk
about education in Afghanistan for women that are going to change,
or any if you want to help make change, and
I can help be any type of a conduit.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
For you through the con that is your father.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Okay, now you thank you, and I know that I've
had you for about an hour. We keep talking about
You're awesome and I hope you enjoy the rest of
your day today. And before we let you go, I
just want to say my life in Afghanistan fighting to
educate women, it's it's already out. You can go buy
this book right now and it's Last to Eat, Last

(53:10):
to Learn with Pashtana Dorani and tomorrow Bralo and a
shout out to your homie who you played with that
lost his vision from playing, from doing what he was
trying to do the right thing to defuse a landmine
from someone else. And and I want to give him
a shout out so if he ever hears this, he
knows that he's loved and he's revered, and he's your homie,
he's your friend. And that's why you do the things

(53:32):
you do for friends. You don't have to see them
every single day to still be best friends. And the
reason why you want to get him a car or
help him out is because your friends. Yes, and that's it.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Yes, that's it. That's all.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Yes, he hears this, he'll be like, all right, fine, fine,
I'll give in. We're friends.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. You're welcome.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
And to my listener, go check out Last to Eat,
Last to Learn, and it's everywhere that books are sold.
And make sure you leave a comment where you buy
it so that it helps bring it up into the
searches and we can get this just put out there everywhere.
So thank you so much for being on softwap dot com.
I want to thank my managing my manager, Brandon Webb,

(54:16):
who owns the whole thing for putting me in this position.
I want to thank Callum, my producer who helps put
this all together. And I want to thank you my viewer,
my listener and Pashtana. You know you're just awesome. And
keep doing what you're doing. Just keep doing what you're doing.
I'm going to tell you that, keep doing what you're doing.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
Thank you, take.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
Care, yes, and on behalf of both of us, I
say peace.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
You've been listening to self rep Radia