The Girl Who Dreamed of Becoming a President

Everything began when I was in fourth grade and my teacher asked,
“What do you want to be in the future?”
When my turn came, I answered with innocent excitement,
“A PRESIDENT!”
The whole class burst into loud, teasing laughter. My teacher looked at me, surprised.
“A President?”
“Yes,” I repeated. “I want to be the first female president of Afghanistan.”
My classmates spread this across the school, and soon everyone was calling me President Freshta.
Some said it with pride, others with sarcasm.
But every time I heard it, I felt wings growing on my shoulders.

I wrote essays that surprised my teachers, joined every program,
and tried to be stronger, better, and more ambitious.
My teachers believed in me, my family was proud,
and my dreams were bigger than my age.

Then… the world changed. COVID arrived, schools shut down,
and I was left alone with a sky full of dreams.
I turned to books.
Jaghori Book House became my sanctuary, a quiet cabin in the middle of life’s storms.
I spent hours reading politics, history, novels, and textbooks,
preparing myself to excel on the Kankor exam.
Months passed in that library, months that shaped me.
When schools reopened, I returned more determined and more aware.
I stepped back into the world not just to dream, but to understand it.

Then came the day of the falling of Kabul.
A day I will remember until my last heartbeat,
a day when my sky was stolen and the flag of my dreams was buried.
Kabul felt like a wounded giant, bleeding hopelessness through its streets.

For me, my sisters, and my uncle’s daughters,
the frightening rumors were unbearable—rumors that unmarried girls would be taken.
We lived with a fear so sharp it cut through our sleep.
We silently agreed that if they came for us,
we would choose death with dignity over life in chains.

People who could escape fled.
People who couldn’t, lived in a cage of uncertainty.
Women disappeared from the streets.
Some protested, brave lions against a storm,
but many were arrested, tortured, or forced into hiding.

And still, I stood.

I held on to my dreams even as the world tightened its grip around my throat.
For months, I worked as a manager at the library that had raised me.
At the same time, I worked with the The-Bookies team,
collecting and donating books to children and youth.
I ran storytelling classes and taught younger kids to draw, imagine,
and create magical worlds far away from guns and fear.
Among those children, something inside me healed.
I realized that maybe I cannot conquer castles,
maybe I cannot change governments,
but I can create small moments of peace, moments that stay forever.
I learned that a peaceful Afghanistan must begin with a generation raised around books, not bullets.

During that time, I also learned English, makeup artistry, and especially painting.
We held small exhibitions that carried our emotions like hidden victories.
Even when Taliban restrictions were placed on us, we created, and created.
But the moment of leaving arrived.
Leaving my country, my mother, my students, and my half-built dreams.
Pakistan…

I didn’t know how to accept the word or how to adjust.
I didn’t know what waited for me across the border,
or whether I would ever feel safe again.
My first months in Quetta were the darkest days of my life;
depression, homesickness, and a constant feeling of being lost.
But slowly, the weight on my shoulders began to shift.
I have lived here for two years now.
I learned to breathe again.
I studied. I grew. I built new paths.
I completed courses in software engineering, graphic design, and digital skills.
I joined a library.
My friends and I created a cultural society called Najway-e Qalam,
promoting study, social growth, and community awareness.
I attended a workshop on democracy, and my questions filled the room.
People noticed.
Soon, I was invited to work with their organization on human rights, women’s rights,
children’s rights, the environment, and community development.

This is my story so far.
Not an ending, a beginning.
I am still here.
Still fighting.
Still knocking on every door to find opportunities to continue my professional education.
I have applied to hundreds of universities around the world.
Many refused me due to high tuition fees, missing international certificates, or expired deadlines.
I earned my English certificate through fear and determination,
but without access to a twelfth grade diploma, many doors stayed closed.
And through all this, I kept reading one line:
“If you haven’t cried for your dream, you haven’t worked hard enough for it.”

And I thought:
But I have cried—hundreds of times.
I cried for the girls of my country who haven’t known peace for decades.
For Afghan daughters whose youth is burning away in silence.
For children whose minds are filled with narrow words instead of open knowledge.
For refugees who worked for years only to be deported overnight.
For a world that reaches the moon while we are pushed twenty years backward.
Yes, I have cried for a thousand wounds.

Sometimes I whisper to myself:
I didn’t become president; I didn’t even get the chance to serve my country.
I didn’t take the Kankor exam; I couldn’t even finish school, though it was my right.
Still… I am here.
I write.
I create worlds where women lead and rebuild.
Sometimes I ask myself: Where can I publish these stories? Who will read them?
But I write anyway, because words are the only land no one can steal from me.
And even in my darkest moments, I never let my inner flame die.
I held on to my belief that one determined girl can still make a difference,
even when the world tries to silence her dreams.

One day, I will rebuild that dream.
One day, I will live it.