My Experience from Childhood to Migrant

Some of my best experiences are surprising. Living in an insecure and war-torn country, living in a city, in an educated family, being the youngest between siblings, having great friends in childhood, school times, university times, and work area, and living in a new country all are the things that got me a lot of experience in my life. I have a lot of good and bad memories from those times that all of them made me more familiar with facts of life. Life doesn’t have just peace and comfort, but also difficulties, problems and concerns; moreover, the most important is that we can get good experiences from every moment in life.

My name is Zarmina, and I was born and grew up in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. I graduated from Zarghoona High School, and after I got my degree from Kabul university, I worked as a government employee for seven years. I got married while I was in University, and I have three children: one daughter and two sons. We used to live in a small house with my family, and we had a normal life. On the weekends, we went to some parties or our relatives house and had fun. We were happy to have a fair life, but the biggest problem in my country was the insecurity and war situation. There were bombing, explosion and suicide attacks everyday, and people who worked with foreign offices didn’t be safe. Therefore, people had to migrate to other countries.

Regardless, I have splendid memories from my childhood because I had a wonderful time with my friends as we played together. We played with our dolls, such as making clothes for them, getting their birthday parties and cooking something really. Likewise, we made a fake class that had one of us act like a teacher and the others were students, so I learned many things at that time. I liked school and my classmates, so I spent most of my time studying to learn and got high scores. Also, I had wonderful memories with my sisters and brothers. In all periods of my life, my siblings were my role models, and I learned many things from them. They always encouraged me to study and continue education to have a bright future.

My family and I moved to the United States in December 2018 when American people were getting prepared for the new year, so that was very memorable for me. When we went out at night, we saw the lights that people had prepared in front of their houses; uniquely, there were some shows on Friday and Saturday’s night at Bellevue Square before the new year. My kids were very interested in watching it, so sometimes we went there at that time. It made us happy, especially my kids because we were new here. At first, I thought that was America’s normal life, but I knew later that all the beauties were just for the new year. Anyway, I think that is the best time of year for people because they enjoy the new year’s preparations and holidays.

When we came here, we had a lot of problems in our new life because there are a lot of differences between countries from language to culture, traditions, religion, food, clothes, etc. For example, we did not know the English language, so we could not communicate. When we moved to the United States, my kids were so young, and they started learning English. It has been challenging for me and my family to communicate in English and learn a new language. Likewise, going out was another challenge for us because we didn’t have a car, and we were going by bus and by walking. At first, I didn’t know that we can use GPS for bus and train, too. On the other hand, when I came here, I was unhappy and felt lonely because that was the first time I had been away from my family. That was a big challenge of my life.

In conclusion, life is not easy, and it has pros and cons. Each of us goes through paths to achieve our dreams and goals in life. In this way we do trial and error; furthermore, we gain experiences, and sometimes we even fail, but there is nothing wrong with that because failure is part of the road to success. Using our own and others’ experiences can prevent repeating mistakes, so I learned that I should always pursue knowledge, be strong, cope with life’s problems, and find their solutions. To repeat, life has its ups and downs, and I have had successful and unsuccessful times in my life, too. The biggest and most important thing is that I never give up after failing, and I try to be stronger than ever.