Escape From Afghanistan

BEFORE YOU READ
Escape from Afghanistan
MEET FARAH AHMEDI
Ahmedi entered high school at the age of fourteen.

ne day when Farah Ahmedi was in sec ond grade and walking to school in her
home city of Kabul, Afghanistan, she stepped on a landmine. At first, her parents thought
she would die. Luckily, however, a humanitarian organization flew her to Germany for
medical care. She spent two years there, all the time believing she would never walk
again or see her family again. Ahmedi did lose one leg, and the other remained
permanently rigid. Nevertheless, she was able to walk because of a prosthesis, or
artificial replacement device.
Not long after Ahmedi returned to Afghanistan, she was out with her mother when a rocket
hit her home in Kabul. Her father and two sisters were killed in the explosion. Her
brothers left the country in order to avoid the Taliban, a militant Islamic group. Ahmedi
never heard from them again. She and her mother were left full of grief and alone.
When asked about her young life in A fghanistan, Ahmedi said she just wanted to get
away.
A Contest Changes Her Life Only a couple years after Ahmedi's arrival, Good Morning
nd the publisher Simon & Schuster offered a writing contest. It invited viewers to
America a
write their life stories. Ahmedi submitted an essay and was selected as one of three
finalists. Then the publisher assigned a professional writer, Tamim Ansary, to write
Ahmedi's story. Comfortable with Ansary, who was also from Afghanistan and spoke her
native language of Farsi, Ahmedi spent five days recounting her story to him. The
result was a full-length book. When viewers chose her book as the best, it was
published as The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky.
Ahmedi was also awarded a $10,000 prize and a ten-city b ook tour.
"I was s o scared. A lot of times I wonder why I didn't die.
Those were hard times.”
-Farah Ahmedi
A Bright Future Ahmedi has visited the White House and met with First Lady Laura
Bush. She has also been named a youth ambassador for the Adopt-a-Minefield Program.
That organization works to clear landmines and help landmine sur vivors in the six most
heavily mined countries in the world, one of which is Afghanistan. She is proud and happy
to live in America, where she knows she has excellent opportunities for inde pendence
and education. Farah Ahmedi was born in 19 88
.

Arrival in America During the time Ahmedi and her mother lived alone in Afghanistan,
the Taliban gained control of the country. The Taliban government persecuted
Ahmedi's ethnic group, the Hazara. Because Ahmedi's mother had a cousin in
Pakistan who was willing to help them, they decided to flee their country. Ahmedi was only
ten years old. After spending several years i n a refugee camp in Pakistan, they were
finally allowed to come to America in 2002, where
Author Search For more about Farah Ahmedi, go to www.glencoe.com.
FARAH AHMEDI 351

David Bartolomi Photography
LITERATURE PREVIEW
READING PREVIEW
Reading Strategy Analyzing Cultural

Context
Connecting to the Autobiography "Escape from Afghanistan"
u insight into what it is like to escape one's own country in a time of
will give yo
war. Before you read the story, think about the following questions:
• How would you feel if you had to move to a new

country with only a small bundle of belongings?
• How would you have dealt with the challenges that
Ahmedi and her mother faced?
Analyzing cultural context is thinking about the time and place of a work, as well as the
values of the peo ple in that time and place, and determining how those factors
affect the work. Understanding the cultural con text will help you understand
Ahmedi's story. ....................................................................... Reading Tip: Taking Notes As you read,
make a list of details that show the time, place, values, or atti tudes. Record
conclusions you draw, inferences you make, or questions you ask based on
those details.
Interactive Graphic Organizer
Building Background Throughout its history, Afghanistan has suffered

waves of political change. Landlocked and vulnerable to inva sion, Afghanistan
also lacks unity because of its mix of religions and cultures. About 85% of Afghans
are Sunni Muslims. Shi'ite Muslims make up most of the remaining 15%. Afghans are also
divided by language and ethnicity. The major ethnic group is the Pashtun, Sunnis who
live mainly in the central and southern part of the country. When the Taliban took
over in the 1990s, conflict between the Pashtun and other ethnic groups intensified and
eventually led to the massacres of Shi'ite Muslims and other people. Until the end of the
Taliban regime in 2001, thousands of Afghans left the country each year, most
bound for Iran or Pakistan.
Inferences/Conclusions! D etail
Que stions p. 354
Is this a place with no "a letter is hand-mail delivery? Is the carried by
some author 's mail censored?
travelers
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Vocabulary
Setting Purposes for Reading

Big Idea Looking Into Lives As you read, think about how Ahmedi's life has
been a tale of survival against all odds.
.................................iiiiittt
Literary Element Tone Tone is an author's attitude toward his or her subject
matter. Tone is conveyed through elements such as word choice, punctuation,
sentence structure, and figures of speech. As you read, think about how word
choice reveals the author's feelings and attitudes.
| quandary (kwon' drē) n. state of indecision or doubt; p. 353 Lisa was in a
quandary over which c lass to take . surge (surj) v. to move suddenly in a wave; p.
355 The fans surge forward when the r ock star come . pervade (pər vād') v.
s on stage
to go through or fill every part of; p. 355 After each win, joy pervades the locker
room. s toke (stok) v. to stir up; to cause to increase; p. 356 Robert's part in the
sch ool prank stoked bad f eelings in m any of the faculty members. chide
(chid) v. to express disapproval; p. 359 My parents chide me for putting off my
homework until the last minute.
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• See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R1

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Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, go to
www.glencoe.com.
OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following:
• interpreting tone
• analyzing cultural context
• writing a response
352 UNIT 2 NONFICTION
fghanistan
from A
Farah Ahmedi
with Tamim Ansary
7 ne day we got a letter, hand-carried to us by some traveler. Alas, it was not
from my brothers. It came from my mother's
cousin in Quetta, a city on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border. We had lost
track of her and did not even know she was there, but somehow, six months after my
father's death, she had heard about the event and about our quandary.
Come to Quetta, she wrote. Get across the border
somehow, and then come dir ectly to
t tarry' in Peshawar. That is a Taliban strong hold, a Pashtu
Quetta. Do no n city. You

won't be welcom
e th
ere. In
fact, you will be in dan
g
er , for the Taliban come from that region, and the y are
prejudiced against Hazaras. P eshawar is a dangerous place for two Hazara
women on their own. Do not e ven go into the city
, if you can avoid it. Just come
Quetta. And she gave directions for finding her house once we got to her city.
to
This cousin of my mother's had moved to Quetta some time ago. She had a
settled life there. She had lost h she had a brother and two sons living in
Turkmenistan. Those men had gotten out of Afghanistan during the Communist
era.4 They had gone to Turkmenistan to study, and then, because the
country had dissolved
1. Here, to tarr y means "to delay" or "to stay longer than the
minimum necessary." 2. Peshawar is the first major city in Pakistan below the Khyber
Pass from Afghanistan.
Tone W hat tone or attitude do you hear

Literary Element in this sentence?
urkmenistan b
3. T orders Afghanistan on the north. 4. The Communist era began in 1979 when the
Soviets took
control of Afghanistan. That occupation began the Afghanistan War, which lasted until
1989, devastating the country.
Vocabulary quandary (kwon' drē) n. state of indecision or doubt
Reading Strategy Analyzing Cultural Context What appears to be part of the culture of Peshawar,
kistan?
Pa
........................
...
FARAH AHMEDI 353

Shepard Sherbel/CORBIS
into civil war, they had simply stayed. They tightened up her air
passages. We had no now worked in that former Soviet republic medicine for
her condition. When it got bad, and sent bits of money from time to time; all she
could do was rest, so the last thing that's what my mother's cousin lived on. we
needed was extra baggage.
Well, we talked it over with our neigh
We made it to Jalalabad by bus. We could bors and decided that we had to do it.
We not have gotten there any other way. The made inquiries and learned that we
could stretch of road between Kabul and Jalalabad pay a man to serve as our
escort on the bus goes over some of the country's steepest to Jalalabad.5 That
would get us out of mountains, cutting through two rugged Taliban-dominated Kabul.
From Jalalabad gorges. The Kabul River pours through those to the border, we
would be on our own. As gorges in a series of thundering cataracts, for getting across
the border, no one knew and the highway has been cut into nearly what that
entailed.
solid rock, folding And as for making
back and forth, UZBEKISTAN
TAJIKISTAN the journey from
TURKMENISTAN
back and forth like the border to
a ribbon along the Quetta, that was
riverbank. like asking how to
Once the road get from one part
descended out of of the moon to
those gorges, the
Kabul Jalalabad another part. No
w Peshawar
weather changed. one could give us
AFGHANISTAN
Islamabad The temperature any advice on that
rose. Now we were subject. We would
in the Jalalabad val just have to figure
ley, which was dot things out when
PAKISTAN
ted with groves of we got there.
• Quetta
orange trees and By the time we
lemon trees. The left Afghanistan,
bus let us off in a the warm days had
crowded bazaar. We come. We wrapped
This map shows the location of the cities and countries
were frightened to the few possessions mentioned in the selection.
be there alone and we would take
frightened to have along in little cloth
to ask for advice bundles. We could not take much, for we and directions, but we
addressed our ques would have to carry whatever we took, and tions to women
as much as possible or to while I could not handle much of a load, family groups
ay we found
that included women. In this my poor mother was in even worse shape. w
out how to get to the "other"
The day my father died, her asthma took a bus station. turn for the worse. Now she
was rasping This other bus station wasn't really a sta with every breath, and
exertion of any kind tion. There was no building, no ticket booth,
and no station agent-nothing like that. The
5. J
alalabad is the last major city in Afghanistan before the
Khyber Pass. It is southeast of Kabul. 6. Kab
ul is the capital city of Afghanistan, located in the
eastern part of the country.
orges
7. G are canyons or narrow passages through the land;
cataracts are steep rapids.
Reading Strategy Analyzing Cultural Context What d oes this tell you about the culture of
Afgh
anistan?
Big Idea Looking Into Lives T he author and her mother f ace incredible challenges. What does
their willingness to forge ahead tell you about their situation?

A passenger bus plies the rough road between Jalalabad and Kabul.
so-called bus station looked like any other part of the bazaar: It was just a road
lined on both sides with merchants' stalls. Along this strip of bazaar, however,
men cruised back and forth in vans they owned, looking for people who wanted
to go to the border. If you just stood at the curb, they pulled over and offered
you a ride.
Before we got on, though, other people waiting there for rides advised us to
e didn't know why, but we figured we had better do
get some plastic bags. W
whatever other travelers were doing. They no doubt knew more than we did.
Curiously enough, some of the stalls in that vicinity sold plastic bags as if this were a
normal travel need.
Shortly after we took up our post by the side of the road, a v an pulled over.
Instantly, a crowd surged toward its door. People fought and threw elbows
to get to the front so they could board. That's how it was at the " bus station." Only
the most aggressive tray elers got rides. Each van could carry ten or twelve
people, if they squeezed; and they always squeezed. The drivers wanted to
make as much money as they could. We
were unable to get onto the first van. We could not get on t he next one, either.
By the third one, how
ever, I saw what we needed to do, and taking my mother by the arm, I shoved and
pushed with the others until we made it to the door of the van.
It wasn't all that far from Jalalabad to the border, but we were traveling in the heat
ar and got in through the
of mid-afternoon. Dust boiled up around the c
windows. My mother began to wheeze and gasp. I worried that she might
stop breathing right then and there, so I tried to shield her with my
body, tried to keep the other passengers from pressing in on her so that she
would have her own space to breathe out of. Meanwhile,
the dust mingled with the sweat running down my face, turning to mud by the
time it reached my chin.
At that moment I discovered what the plastic bags were for: One of the men in
the backseat vomited loudly, barely getting his awful stew into his bag.
The nasty odor immediately pervaded the entire van. My nostrils puckered, and I felt
my own vomit rising. I grabbed for my bag. Within min utes, all of us passengers were
filling up our plastic bags. No, it wasn't far from Jalalabad to the border, just a couple of
hours, but that ride felt like it would never end.
About half a mile from the border the van pulled over to the side of the road. “This
is as far as we go, " the driver said. “That's the
hat does t he d
Big Idea Looking Into Lives W escription of t
h
is bus station tell y ou about
other are takin g?
the trip Ahmedi and her m
Vocabulary
.............UUUUUIIEIII...
Vocabulary pervade (pər vād”) v. to go through or fill every part of

surge (surj) v. to move suddenly in a wave
FARAH AHMEDI 355

ORBIS
Teru Kuwayama/C
border up ahead. You see those two build

ings and the gate between them? That's
it. If you can get through that gate,
you're in Pakistan. About half a mile up the
road on the other side, if you can get to the
other side, you'll find other cars like this one
offering rides to Peshawar."
Well, we got out and started trudging
toward the border station. We were not
alone. The whole stretch of road was filled
with people hoping to get across the
border that day hundreds of families. I don't
know how many. I wasn't counting. I
didn't count. I was distracted by the scene
I saw up ahead.
The gate to Pakistan was closed,
and I could see that the Pakistani border
guards were letting no one through.
People were pushing and shoving and
jostling up against that gate, and the
guards were driving them back. As
we got closer, the crowd thickened, and
I could hear the roar and clamor at the
gate. The Afghans were yelling
something, and the Pakistanis were yelling
back. My mother was clutching her
side and gasping for breath, trying
to keep up. I felt desperate t o get
through, because the sun was setting, and
if we got stuck here, what were we going to
do? Where would we stay? There was
nothing here, no town, no hotel, no
buildings, just the desert.
Yet we had no real chance of
getting through. Big strong men were
running up to the gate in vain. The
guards had clubs, and they had carbines,
too, which they turned around and used as
weapons. Again and again, the crowd
surged toward the gate and the guards
drove them back with their sticks and
clubs, swinging and beating until the
crowd receded. And after that, for the next
few minutes, on our side of the border,
people
milled about and muttered and stoked
their o
wn impatience and worked up
their rage, until gradually the crowd
gathered strength and surged against
that gate again, only to be swept back.
never even got close to the front. We got caught up in the thinning rear end of
We
the crowd, and even so, we were part of
each w ave, pulled forward, driven back.
It was hard for me to keep my footing, and
my mother was clutching my arm now, just
hanging on, just trying to stay close to
me, because the worst thing would
have been if we had gotten separated.
Finally, I saw that it was no use. We were
only risking injury. We drifted back, out of
the crowd. In the thickening dusk we could
hear the dull roar of people still trying to
get past the border guards, but we
receded into the desert, farther and
farther back from the border gate.
Night was falling, and we were stranded out there in the open.
But at least it wasn't cold; that was a bless ing. And at least we were not alone. For
that, t oo, I felt grateful. Hundreds of us
were hun kering out there on the desert
floor, in the shadows of the high hills that
marked the border. We were clotted into
family groups. Some groups managed to
get fires going, which added a feeling of
cheer. They chatted quietly around their
fires, and we could hear their voices.
There was something compan ionable
about it, really. We were all just ordi
nary folks caught in a bad situation,
sharing the same fate. No one there
meant anybody
Had I been alone, I would have felt fright ened, but with that sea of families
surrounding me, I felt safe, even if
they were strangers. My mother and I
had our little cloth bundles, in
which we were each carrying some
extra clothes, and we had our head
scarves. We put
ines a
8. Carb re a type
of firearm.
hat emotions do you

Tone W
hear in the
Literary
Element
author's
voice?
Literary Element Tone What is the
author's attitude toward her situat
ion?
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Reading Strategy Analyzing Cultural Context

Does this des cription d
iffer from what you
would expect if you crossed an international
border? Explain.
Vocabulary stoke (stok) v. to stir up;
to cause to increase
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Mountains near Badakhshan,
Afghanistan.
those under our heads as pillows and
slept under the stars. It wasn't bad. We
did manage to catch some sleep.
Then dawn came, and we again
had to make our way to the road and try to
get across that border. What else could we
do? We could not go back, nor could we
stay in that waste land indefinitely. We
had t o get through. But once again, the
guards were keeping the gate closed,
beating and hitting anyone who got
close enough each time the crowd
rushed.
On that second day, however, I
learned that it was all a question of
money. Someone told me about this, and
then I watched closely and saw that it was
true. Throughout the day, while some of the
guards confronted the crowds, a few
others lounged over to the side. People
approached them quietly. Money
changed hands, and the guards then let
those people quietly through a small door to
the side. Hundreds could have flowed
through the main gate had it been
opened, but only one
or two could get through the side door at a
time. The fact that the guards were
taking bribes did us no good whatsoever.
We did not have the money to pay them.
What little we had we would need to get
from Peshawar to Quetta. And so the
second day passed.
e struck
At the end of that day we found ourselves camping near a friendly family. W
up a conversation with them. The woman
told us that her husband, Ghulam Ali,
had gone to look for another way across
the border. He was checking out a goat
path that supposedly went over the
mountains several miles northeast of
the border station. If one could get to
Pakistan safely by that route, he would
come back for his family. "You can go
with us," the woman said.
Later that night her husband showed up. “It works," he said. "Smugglers use
that path, and they bribe the guards to
leave it unguarded. Of course, we don't
want to run into any s mugglers, either, but if
we go late at night, we should be fine."
Reading Strategy Analyzing Cultural Context
What do these details tell you about the
guards at this border station?
FARAH AHMEDI
357
Michael S.
Yamashita/CORBIS
Pakistani border security guards stand in front of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to stop
Afghan refugees, Wednesday, November 15, 2000 at Torkham border post, 5 5 kilometers (34
miles) northwest of Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan. Viewing the Photograph: Based on Ahmedi's
description, how well does this photo capture the scene at the border?
His wife then told him our story, and Ghulam Ali took pity on us. "Yes, of course you
can come with us," he said. "But you have had two hard days. You will need some
rest before you attempt this mountain crossing. Spend tonight here and
sleep well, knowing that you will have nothing to do tomorrow except
lounge around, rest, and catch your breath. Tomorrow, do not throw
yourself against those border guards again. Let your only work be the
gathering of your strength. Then tomorrow night we will all go over the
mountain together, with God's grace. I will
show you the way. If God wills it, we will fol low that smugglers' path to safety. You
and your mother are in my care now."
So we spent the whole next day there. It was terribly warm and we had no water,
but we walked a little way and found a mosque that refugees like us had built
over the years, so
et across the border would have a place to s
that people waiting to g ay their
prayers. We got some water to
drink at the mosque, and we said namazlo there too. Somehow we obtained a
bit of bread as well. I can't remem ber how that turned up, but there it was, and
we ate it. We sustained our strength. After sun set we lay down just as if we were
going to spend another night. In fact, I did fall asleep for a while. Long after dark—or
early the next morning, to be exact, before the sun came u p—that man shook us
awake. "It's time," he said.
We got up and performed our ablutions quickly in the darkness, with just sand
because that's allowed when you have no access to water. We said our prayers.
Then Ghulam Ali began to march into the darkness with his
family, and we trudged along silently behind them. After several miles the
path began to climb, and my mother began to wheeze. Her asthma was pretty bad at
this point, poor
amaz is prayer. 11. Abluti ons r efers to ritual washing before prayer.
10. N
9. Throughout the Muslim world, expressions that show an
awareness of God are common. Here, typical phrases are used to show that people's fortunes are
dependent on God's will or grace.
Reading Strategy Analyzing Cultural Context What does this tell you about the author's culture?

AP/Wide World
thing. No doubt, her anxiety made it worse, but in such circumstances how
could she rid herself of anxiety? It was no use knowing
that her difficulty was rooted in anxiety, just as it was no use knowing that we could
have moved more quickly if we had possessed
wings. Life is what it is. The path over that mountain was not actually very
ave gotten over in
long, only a couple of miles. Steep as it was, we could h
little more than an hour if not for my mother. Because of her, we had to pause
every few minutes, so our journey took many hours.
I myself hardly felt the exertion. I was walking quite well that day, quite athleti
cally. I had that good prosthetic leg from Germany. The foot was a little
worn by then, but not enough to slow me down. Thinking back, I'm puzzled,
actually. How did I scale that mountain so easily? How did I climb down the other
side? These days I find it hard to clamber up two or three flights of stairs, even. I
don't know what made me so supple12 and strong that day, but I felt no
hardship, no anxiety or fear, just concentra tion and intensity. Perhaps my
mother's problems distracted me from my own. That might account for it.
Perhaps desperation gave me energy and made me forget the rigor of the climb.
Well, whatever the reason, I scrambled up like a goat. The family we were
following had a girl only a bit younger thanme, and she was moving slowly.
Her family used my example to chide her. They kept saying, “Look at that girl.
She's miss
ing a leg, and yet she's going faster than you. Why can't you keep up? Hurry
now!"
That Ghulam Ali was certainly a good man, so patient with us and so compas
sionate. He had never seen us before, and yet when he met us, he said, “I will help
you." That's the thing about life. You never know when and where you will
encounter a spot of human decency. I have felt alone in this world at times; I have
known long periods of being no one. But then, without warning, a person like
Ghulam Ali just turns up and says, “I see you. I am on your side.” Strangers
have been kind to me when it mattered most. That sustains a person's hope
and faith.
Anyway, climbing up that mountain on the Afghanistan side took some effort, but
after we topped the crest, even my mother found the going down part fairly
easy. We hardly stopped at all on the downward side. Going up took hours;
coming down took minutes, or so it seemed.
As soon as we reached the bottom of the slope, Ghulam Ali told us we were now
officially in Pakistan. We peered around. The landscape looked just the same here
as it did back where we came from. And yet we were in Pakistan. We had escaped
from Afghanistan. We started laughing. We couldn't stop. We tried to stop
our mouths with our palms, and we could not do it. The laughter just insisted on
burst ing forth from us. Happiness filled our hearts. My mother's asthma
disappeared without a trace for one whole hour. Yes, for one whole hour
there, my mother could breathe. You might as well say we had been in prison for
thirty years and had suddenly been released—that was the kind of joy we
felt.
ans "able to adapt or respond to a new
12. Here, supple me
situation."
Tone What tone or attitude do you hear

Literary Element in this statement?
ow do the author's word choices a

Literary Element Tone H ge?
ffect her tone in this passa
++....................IIIIII
Vocabulary chide (chīd) v. to express disapproval

ow does the author draw t he reader into the giddy happ
Big Idea Looking Into Lives H iness she

felt on the other side of the mountain?
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FARAH AHMEDI 359

AFTER YOU READ
RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond

Analyze and Evaluate 1. What part of this autobiography do you think you 5. How does
the author make it clear that she and
will remember longest? Why?
her mother faced problems in both Afghanistan
and Pakistan? Recall and Interpret
6. How would you describe the style of the writing in 2. (a)Where do the author and her
mother start out,
this memoir? Explain. and where are they going? (b)What can you infer about why they are
going?
ow well does the author give you a "you-are
7. H
there" sense of the journey? Cite evidence from 3. (a) How do the author and her
mother reach the
the text about what you can hear, see, smell, or border? (b)What details of the
journey hint at
otherwise experience through your senses. danger? 4 . (a) How do the author and
her mother cross the
Connect border? (b)Why could they be considered lucky to
8. Big Idea Looking Into Lives How are the chal h ave gotten across the border?
lenges that the author faces similar to or different from your own?
LITERARY ANALYSIS
Literary Element Tone A writer's tone can convey a variety of attitudes, such as
sympathy, objectivity, or humor. The specific tone is often related both to the type of
writing and its pur- pose. Often, first-person narratives, including autobiog raphies, are
far more subjective and emotional than other types of nonfiction written in the
third-person. An autobiographer can write for many purposes, including to inform, to
reflect, to persuade, and to entertain. 1. Explain whether the tone of "Escape from
Afghanistan" is serious or casual. Provide examples
to support your opinion. 2. Name one other word that describes the author's
tone. Give an example from the text to support your word choice.
Review: Historical Narrative As you learned on page 328, a historical narrative is
a work of nonfiction that tells the story of important historical events or developments.
Partner Activity Work with a classmate to record information you learn in this
autobiography about A fghanistan during the Taliban regime. Use a cluster chart like
this one.
Life for Women

Afghanistan During the
Taliban Regime
Life for Hazara

Life for People
Trying to Escape

Escape From Afghanistan - Complete

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Escape From Afghanistan - Complete

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B​EFORE YOU READ

E​s​cape f​r​om ​A​fgha​n​ista​n

MEET FARAH AHMEDI

Ahmedi entered high school at the age of ​fourteen​.

FARAH AHMEDI ​35​1

Reading Strat​egy Analyzing Cultural

• How would you feel if you had to move to a new

Building Background ​Throughout its history, Afghanistan has suffered

Setting Purposes for Reading

• ​See Literary Terms Handbook​, ​p​. ​R1

3​5​2 ​U​NIT 2 NONFICTION

Ton​e W​ hat tone or attitude do you hear

FARAH AHMED​I ​353

354 ​UNIT 2 NONFICTION

Vocabulary ​pervade (pər vād”) v. to go through or fill ​every ​part of

FARAH AHMED​I ​35​5

border up ahead. You see those two build

​ hat emotions do you

Reading Strategy ​A​n​alyzing Cultural Context

35​6 UN​IT 2 NONFICTION

358 ​UNIT 2 NONFICTION

Tone ​What tone or attitude do you hear

​ ow do the author's word choices a

Vocabulary ​chide (chīd) v. to express disapproval

FARAH AHMED​I ​359

RE​SPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY ​Respond

Life for Women

Life for Hazara

360 UNIT ​2 NONFICTION

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BEFORE YOU READ

Ahmedi entered high school at the age of fourteen.

FARAH AHMEDI 351

Reading Strategy Analyzing Cultural

Building Background Throughout its history, Afghanistan has suffered

• See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R1

352 UNIT 2 NONFICTION

Tone W hat tone or attitude do you hear

FARAH AHMEDI 353

354 UNIT 2 NONFICTION

Vocabulary pervade (pər vād”) v. to go through or fill every part of

FARAH AHMEDI 355

hat emotions do you

Reading Strategy Analyzing Cultural Context

356 UNIT 2 NONFICTION

358 UNIT 2 NONFICTION

Tone What tone or attitude do you hear

ow do the author's word choices a

Vocabulary chide (chīd) v. to express disapproval

FARAH AHMEDI 359

RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond

360 UNIT 2 NONFICTION