On the crowded bus there was an Iraqi woman who was utterly lost; she did not know where her hotel was. With their broken Arabic, the other riders managed to figure out where she was staying and told the driver. The driver, in turn, halted the bus right in front of the Iraqi woman’s hotel— the hotel of a woman from a country Iran had fought a bloody eight-year war with.

Boundaries of Gender: I stay because, as my mother never stopped repeating, I am my own woman, but also my own man.

An untold tale from the days of the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan.