What is life like for Afghan refugees?
Many teenagers in Afghanistan have become refugees. Whether running from the Taliban or U.S. bombing raids, thousands have traveled across mountains and minefields to refugee camps in Pakistan. There, families share a single room with a dank concrete floor. They sleep in thin bed sheets. The camp is dotted with white canvas tents and there is poverty everywhere. Naked children wallow in mud, chickens forage in garbage heaps and the air has a bad smell. Farishta, 14, and her family fled Kabul during the second week of October. Bombs had flattened houses near her own and terrified her, she said. Now in Pakistan, she has been placed in a classroom with students who are much younger than she is. That’s because five years ago, when the Taliban captured Kabul, she was in the fifth grade. The Taliban’s strict rules forbade girls to attend school. And so Farishta is in the fifth grade still. Some classes meet outdoors, with canvas as a roof and the grass for chairs. Students squeeze together o
