Life begins again from a red notebook, with squares, like the one that children use in their first years of school. On it, a world famous woman writes her name: slowly, with some uncertainty. Like when this whole thing started and she was just a ten-year-old girl. SHARBAT GULA, the words read on three consecutive lines, in large letters, in block letters. Next to it, words from everyday life: door, home, ball. And then the name of the woman who is helping her to mend a broken thread in her distant childhood. And looking on, her Italian teacher.
We are in a corner of the Italian province away from the chaos and noise, in the middle of two-story houses surrounded by trees and a playground: Afghanistan couldn't be further from here. Yet it is from here that the one who has been the face of that country for decades has chosen to start over.
One year ago Sharbat Gula Shinwari set foot in Italy for the first time, leaving behind a country that had recently fallen into the hands of the Taliban. Symbol, today just like 38 years ago when her image was captured in the lens of American photographer Steve McCurry, of a broken country and a people forced to flee. And it is from this quiet corner of Italy that we set out to try to tell her story. With her fame, this 47 year-old lady, forever trapped in the image of a wide eyed child, could have gone anywhere, including the United States. So why did she choose to come to Italy? Why not the US, where the National Geographic is based? To this question, Sharbat Gula prefers not to answer directly. "I had the freedom to choose - she admits - when the Taliban arrived I understood that it would be difficult for me to stay: I am too well known in Afghanistan. Several governments have offered us help: I chose Italy because I had heard so much about it, about the place but also about the people. Everyone said that you Italians are kind and welcoming. I only knew that Italy has done a lot for Afghanistan. And I decided to give it a try."
"Let's hope we haven't disappointed you too much", I whisper. The conversation takes a break and a smile appears on her face. "Not at all. We never felt unwelcome," she says, referring to her three children and the husband of her daughter who came with her from Kabul. "Everyone is nice here, but we don't talk to many people due to language barriers. Until now, almost nobody knows who I am and for me that is ok. I'll tell you something, the first time I went to the hospital, some doctors and nurses looked at me, they wanted to know if I was the little girl in the photo. In the end they decided that it wasn't me and I was happy about it. Only my Italian teacher, my doctor and a few others know my story, and that's fine with me".
It really wouldn't take much to recognize her. The look that captured the world is still there. In some moments, it shines again as it did in the photo that made Sharbat Gula famous. But it's hard to blame her for looking for privacy: in some ways the photo has overwhelmed her life. She was only ten when McCurry immortalized her in a refugee camp in Pakistan, thirteen when she married and left school. While her photo went viral around the world, contributing to the prestige of National Geographic and McCurry, she lived with her husband and children in a remote area on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Only in 2002, seventeen years after the photographer found her, she learned that her image had been reproduced all over the world. From that moment, together with some money, more and more problems came to her including the death of her husband, which left her fate in the hands of her husband's family. And, in 2016, global humiliation: Pakistan, the country where she lived, arrested her on charges of forging documents that allowed her to remain on its territory. A common practice, which Islamabad decided to stop by punishing the woman who represented Afghanistan. Sharbat Gula was paraded in front of television cameras, before being expelled to Kabul. "That photo created a lot of problems for me - she just says - I would have preferred it had never been taken. I remember that day well, that photographer who arrived at the Nasir Bagh camp school. I was a child. I didn't like photos. In afghan culture women do not appear in photos. But there wasn't much choice".
This is the reason why she doesn't like her picture to be taken. As soon as she glimpses the photographer's lens, her face freezes. It takes the return of her children to make her smile again. Her gaze lights up. Sharbat Gula's younger children enter: two kids, a girl and a boy, bent over by the weight of their school backpacks. "My daughter has not been able to study for years - she says after greeting them and making sure they remain at a safe distance from the journalist and the photographer. "When we returned to Kabul the government gave us accommodation and supported us, but my husband's family did not agree that my daughter should receive an education, even though she wanted it. I couldn't do anything to change that choice. But today I can. Here we are free, we can choose. My daughter wants to become a doctor: and I promised her that I will do everything I can to make her wish come true".
The girl smiles from afar: it's quite clear that she is very smart. At school she studies Italian, English and French: at the age of 14 she is already the official interpreter of the family. If she was in Kabul now, she could not go to school: neither to the park, nor to leave the house without being covered by the burqa - this is what the Taliban government has decided. "At her age - says Sharbat Gula - I would have liked to continue going to school, but my family said no. Therefore, I did not receive an education. When I received some money from National Geographic, I would have liked to open a hospital for women, so that no Afghan woman would have to go through what happened to me" a reference to the illness and death of a daughter, when she was only a few years old. "But I couldn't, because I could barely read and write." Looking at her daughter, "Maybe one day she will be able to do it." All the plans for the future are now open and there are few certainties: "We will not return to Kabul soon. And my daughter won't come back until she is a doctor," says Sharbat Gula.
But it's not just the little ones who are moving forward. Wednesday afternoon, at the Shinwari house, is a moment of joy. The Italian teacher arrives and Sharbat Gula sits down at the table, the little girl in the photo returns - "glasses, eye, watch", she repeats her teacher's words. The two women are friendly. They laugh, talk with gestures, write, chat as much as they can. This isn't just a language lesson, it's the rebirth of a woman who, after so many years in silence, is finding a new voice. And a new life. "I feel happy", she confirms, "since I started studying I feel like a little girl who is just starting to learn". The teacher congratulates her for her achievements and her eyes light up: for a moment all around us there is pure beauty. No filters.
During the weeks it took us to work on this story, we respected the utmost confidentiality that she asked of us: no names, no directions, no pictures of the family. If Sharbat Gula has decided to break her silence it is for two reasons: to thank those who welcomed her here and to once again to make her story a symbol - but this time, a symbol of resilience. And, unlike an earlier time in 1984, this time, it was her choice. At the door, the youngest children huddle around their mother, the eldest daughter stays one step behind, next to her husband. They are beautiful but none of them have inherited their mother's eyes. The so-called "Afghan girl" doesn't say it, but it's easy to guess that she thinks that is not a bad thing.
As published on Il Venerdì on Friday, december 30th
