Winter
I first met the girl I will call Zarmina in the early months of 2006, towards the end of winter in Kabul, when the snow was fading from the streets but spring was some time away. She worked as a TV producer at a local channel. I was part of a small team that had been hired to 'build the capacity' of their staff over the next few months. Within a few days, it was clear that Zarmina was one of the channel's best employees. She spoke fluent Urdu from a childhood spent in Pakistan, and would often translate for us. She had started working as an anchor before moving ahead to become a producer, picking up the necessary skills along the way. Like many of her young colleagues she was hungry to learn, eager to catch up with everything she felt she had missed during her youth, when the world had marched on oblivious to those left behind in the slipstream of war.
All through that winter we worked with the staff at this channel, which I will call NTV. We were young, callow and full of enthusiasm. A lot of new ideas were tested out on our flock of new 'students'. Fortunately, things somehow fell into place, and most of the staff embraced our unorthodox training as a welcome break from the lectures they had come to expect. Over the weeks, in between playing games, watching movies, practicing theatre exercises and telling stories, the staff produced a series of short films, remarkable for their freshness and insights. In all this, Zarmina was our go-to girl for any logistical tangle or bureaucratic hurdle. If we had a difficult idea to present to the staff, she would be our first volunteer. She prepared tirelessly for her own film production, and when it was finished, she sat in the editing room and cried. It wasn't as good as she had hoped.