On the first day, I didn’t sit in the classroom; instead I did the paperwork.

On the second day, I woke up before everyone else, and once again my grandmother walked an hour with me to the school. It was almost 7 a.m. when we arrived at the front door and the watchman opened it. My grandmother took me to the school office; from there, the head teacher showed me to my classroom.

There were 70 students in a narrow room. It was shocking. Some students were 15, or even older. I seemed to be the youngest one there.

At first everyone thought I was slow, because I was so shy that I wasn’t taking part in the class activities. But I was actually ahead of others my age: I started in second grade, not first, because I could already read the alphabet.

When the Taliban were in power, girls were not allowed to go to school. I was lucky enough to study at home with my mother. Though she hadn’t been to a proper school, she could read and write. I remember when I was very young she used to read Hafiz poems every night by lantern light. I memorized a lot of poetry before I could read.

Even though I had joined my class in the middle of the year, I got the third highest score on the final exam. Nobody could believe it, going from a village to third among 70 students.

The time flew by as I learned new things and got used to the crowded city of Kabul. In the blink of an eye, primary school was over.

When I started middle school, we didn’t have a classroom. We had to study in a tent, as did many of the students at the Rustam School, which now has nearly 500 students. On hot days in the summer I couldn’t focus. Sometimes it was so hot I stayed home.