Marin middle schoolers fear for Afghan friends
It was an unlikely relationship that blossomed during the pandemic: A group of Afghan girls in Kabul would cram into an office late at night to share their lives with classes of middle school students in Mill Valley, halfway around the world.
The girls, in their teens and early 20s, told stories about what life was like in a country with a history of brutality to women and what it meant for one of them — who was illiterate and married off at age 14 — to become the first female Afghan to scale the country’s tallest peak.
They had learned to climb through the U.S. organization Ascend: Leadership Through Athletics, which also teaches personal skills and provides
resources to help the girls recover from traumatic experiences, including beatings or other abuse from family members.
The Marin County kids asked a lot of questions about Afghanistan after an assigned reading of “The Breadwinner,” a book about a girl living under the former Taliban rule. They described their lives, too, their favorite foods, what subjects they liked in school.
For the students at Mill Valley Middle School, the friendships helped them understand what it was like in the war-torn country, which has been inextricably linked to the United States since its invasion and occupation after Sept. 11, 2001.
Now, those young women are running for their lives, knowing the Taliban, which took control of the country a week ago, could come after them for defying gender norms and for associating with Americans who taught them to climb mountains. And their Bay Area friends are hoping all the girls and their families make it to safety.
Mill Valley Middle School teacher librarian Jonna Palmer initiated the conversations with the girls about two years ago after learning about them through a friend. Now, she is giving students frequent updates on the girls, some of whom escaped to Abu Dhabi with U.S. help Sunday, after several attempts to get to the Kabul airport in recent days amid gunfire and Taliban beatings of some in the large crowd.
Palmer said the events unfolding in Afghanistan are “very personal” for students who feel connected to their Afghan friends.
Palmer wired $500 to the girls to help — money she received as Marin County teacher of the year last year. She tried to send more, but by the time she hit send on the transfer earlier this week, Kabul had fallen. It was too late.
“I hope all of them get out,” she said.
The rapid rise of the Taliban comes amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending a 20-year American and NATO presence in the country. With little resistance, Taliban forces quickly took over the country on Aug. 15, sparking chaos in the days that followed as tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans attempted to flee the country and seek asylum wherever they could.
The takeover has been closely watched in California, which has one of the largest Afghan populations in the country.
Palmer has been in touch with the girls in recent days through texts and spoken frequently on the phone with one of them, Mariam Muhammadi, who sought asylum in Germany in 2019. Muhammadi was also among the young women to chat with the students, albeit from a refugee center, and later a more permanent home.
“They are wonderful, strong, brave girls and they’re on the run, fearing they would be targeted for who they are and what they have done,” Palmer said. “To see them panicked, when they’ve scaled mountains. They’ve overcome so much in their culture and their families — they deserve so much better.”
In Germany, Muhammadi has been anxiously awaiting word on her friends and family. She sought asylum during a Model United Nations event, to avoid an arranged marriage and the restrictions on women in her country.
With the Taliban takeover, life would be exponentially worse, and the threat of death is real, she told The Chronicle by phone.
Back in Mill Valley, teachers, students and families fear for the girls, the chaos and violence in Afghanistan feeling very close to home.
For Anouk Shillum, 14, getting to know the girls was one of the best parts of seventh grade. She was among the students who spent time weekly with Muhammadi, learning her language, Dari, and getting to know more about Afghanistan in 2019, the first year of contact with the girls.
“I remember most that I really got to connect with these people who lived on the other side of the world,” she said, adding that she now is “terrified” for any who remain behind under Taliban rule.
“They’re just going to get their entire lives boxed up again, and I don’t want that to happen.”
Teacher Danielle Dabbah said, “Part of the reason we had our students meet the girls, work with the girls, is to show them ... that they’re kids, just the same as they’re kids here in Mill Valley.” She said students learned “how difficult life can be in Afghanistan and how dangerous life can be. Our students were hoping it had gotten better over the years.”
At least one of the girls remains in Kabul, now unable to get to the airport since the Taliban blocked access Tuesday, according to Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, a former NPR journalist who has been reporting on the mountaineering girls and writing a book about them and the program, Ascend, that taught them climbing and leadership skills.
“Their lives would be in danger,” Nelson said by phone from Germany, referring to what living under Taliban rule would be like. “They wouldn’t be able to work, go to school. They would be forced to live in a compound, wear a burqa.”
Nelson has been working the phones and sources to try to help the girls, knowing what escape would mean. Ascend is collecting donations for an emergency evacuation fund.
“They have to choose between their country and their future,” she said. “They have to leave everything behind. Families are being split up. They have to make choices I can’t conceive of.”
Muhammadi made that choice two years ago, relying on the same strength that allowed her to defy the odds and expectations and climb mountains. She now teaches kids how to
scramble up walls at a rockclimbing gym in Germany.
Women climbing mountains in Afghanistan had been impossible, but they made it possible, she said. The mountains had always been associated with the Taliban and considered a dark, dangerous place.
“We tried to break this thought,” she said. “We brought hope from our mountain.”
They fought stereotypes, social pressure and extended family to bring that hope to girls of their generation, she added.
They trained — unable to do even one sit-up at the start, but later finding the strength and courage to climb 24,580 feet into the sky.
As Kabul fell, they saw all their dreams of having a say in their own destiny — in their own country — vanish in less than a day.
“Now it has become again impossible for us,” Muhammadi said. “For all Afghanistan.”