omid international

About

orn in 1966, I had a happy childhood in rural Afghanistan including in Baghlan, Paktia, Jawzjaan... and waking to my father’s melodious chants of the Quran and birds singing. My father, who was a police chief and loved Rumi poems, would teach my mother poems and my mother despite being an illiterate women, would in turn recite them to us from memory and ask us to write them before my fathered returned from duty. From an early age I was taught about the importance of values and education. Everything changed when I was 16. My father did not come home. His post was ambushed by the rebels during the soviet occupation of Afghanistan and he was killed.