Living Life as a TCK

Growing up as a third culture kid has its own advantages and disadvantages.  The advantages are, you can speak more than one language. You will learn more about other people’s traditions and different cultures, races and religions. The disadvantages are you don’t know about your own home town culture, ethnicity, and race, even though your parents are alwayes trying to teach you about their own culture, however kids like to do what they see, or feel around them. This was my experience growing up as a TCK.

My father was in the military when the Taliban came to Afghanistan, so he couldn’t work anymore. The Taliban didn’t allow them to do their duty. After some days, he said we can’t live in this country anymore, and we have to go on a journey to our neighbor country Iran. We went there illegally. Although on this journey,  we suffered from hunger and we faced many difficulties. We spent almost 29 days and 28 nights to reach Iran.

As a kid, I couldn’t explain my feelings. If you’re hungry you don’t have anything to eat? When you’re thirsty, you don’t even have a sip of water to drink, Because you can’t find water in a dry desert and mountains. You have to survive with whatever you have. We just ate a biscuit for the whole day at that time. I remember once, we were on the way and suddenly, I smelled something. Consequently, I smelled a delicious food scent, and I said to my father, “Look around there must be a restaurant, I smell the meatball scent.” Then he got out of the car and looked around. He saw a small restaurant in a corner of a mountain. I can’t say how happy I was. After many days of being hungry, we ate some delicious food. In short, we finally arrived in Iran.

As people say, “Everything you want doesn’t always happen in real life.” When we arrived in Iran, we thought our problems would be solved, but it was only the beginning. Living in Iran has its challenges because the government of Iran didn’t allow Afghan people to attend schools, university, or work in a government department, agencies and anywhere else. They had to work only on construction sites and farms. I spent a part of my childhood in Iran, but inside of my heart, I felt very sad when I saw other girls going to school and I couldn’t go. I felt I did not belong here. Even though my parents had to work on farms in hot weather, it hurt me more. After four years, unfortunately my father had an accident, and from that day on, my father wasn’t able to work again.  We decided to go back to our country again. When we arrived in Afghanistan, the government of Afghanistan still was in the hands of the Taliban. Because of my fathers condition and economic issues, we couldn’t live in peace. Then we went to Pakistan.

In Pakistan, we had to weave rugs, and just in Iran we couldn’t attend schools because of my fathers situation. We had to make money and pay our house rent, and buy groceries. Pakistani people always humiliated Afghans. They always said, “Go back to your country, it’s not your country, you guys are like a piece of shit.” Because of this terrible situation, the Taliban government fell, so we went back to Afghanistan. At that time, we weren’t at school yet. One day, we went to our uncle’s house and we were about to eat lunch. He said, “Please go to your home, my daughters have to do their homeworks.” So, his words hurt me. I decided to go to school and try my best. I went to the same class with my cousin and studied hard, and became top of the class. When my dream of going to school became true. Now I’m living in the U.S.A and I am learning English, so I can speak 5 languages because of my journey to different countries.

In conclusion, living life as TCKs have advantages and disadvantages. Advantages are you can see different people from different nationalities. You can speak many languages. Disadvantages are, you don’t know about your own country’s traditions, races. You face many difficulties. It hurts you sometimes, or maybe it makes you happy sometimes, but you can improve yourself day by day. It makes you stronger. Life teaches you everyday.