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1. Remember the young Afghan poet who lost his father, his sister, his eyes, & his 1st love to the war? There was a happy turn in his life - he got married. We went to the wedding. And we got to know the hero mother anchoring him through it all. Thread:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/world/asia/afghanistan-war-marriage-blindness.html …
2. @jimhuylebroek and I first met Zaheer Ahmad Zindani in Ghazni, who was marching 100s of miles as part of the Helmand peace march, demanding an end to the senseless bloodshed.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/world/asia/afghanistan-peace-march-.html …
3. We wrote about Mr. Zindani story -- about how an American airstrike killed his father, a Taliban roadside bomb burned his sister to death and left him blind, and about how his blindness cost him his teenage love. We wrote about his poetry.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/world/asia/afghanistan-peace-march.html …
4. We stayed in touch with Zindani. When the family of his teenage love rejected him now that he was blind, he was heartbroken. He sought solace in poetry, in activism. He was determined to find marriage -- to show blindness was not the end. (Zindani, before & after bombing)pic.twitter.com/EuuuoCNR7M
5. When Zindani called us last month to say he was getting married, @jimhuylebroek and I flew to Kandahar to be with him during the preparations.
“Make it so no matter which of the four directions I comb, it looks good,” he told the barber.pic.twitter.com/svw4XLOMzV
6. During the wedding celebrations, we got to learn more about Zindani's hero mother, Bibi Sediqa, who's been the anchor, the glue holding together the family through so much devastation, left with young children in a brutal, patriarchal world.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/world/asia/afghanistan-war-marriage-blindness.html …
7. Ms. Sediqa, Zindani's mother, was married at 14 and widowed at around 26 -- left with 5 young children. His oldest son, Zindani, was 7 - then blinded as a teenager. She cleaned homes. Then became a vaccinator by day, & at night she resumed an education disrupted in 3rd grade.
8. In the story, you will read about all the things Ms. Sediqa tried to cure her son's eyes, all the doors she knocked on to get a family to agree to marry her son. “This was my first real happiness in life,” she said about Zindani's wedding day. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/world/asia/afghanistan-war-marriage-blindness.html …pic.twitter.com/srmUWnl9FJ
9. As he picked up the bride, Zindani’s friends danced and danced — he couldn’t see, but he could hear and feel.pic.twitter.com/EpVQzDRkA2
10. One of my favorite people at the wedding, by far, was Allah Noor, the 14-year old drummer of the wedding band. As the convoy of vehicles snaked through the city to pick up the bride, he excitedly beat his drum on the back of a three-wheeler.pic.twitter.com/0XPCA0MNBn
11. “I wish I could see it,” Mr. Zindani said, as his friends and family danced and rejoiced. “But my heart is happy.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/world/asia/afghanistan-war-marriage-blindness.html …pic.twitter.com/PIE5Rr7DiQ
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