The Pearl that Broke Its Shell

Kabul, 2009: Growing up in a family of with five daughters and no sons, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school and then, as they grow older, can rarely leave the house. Their mother struggles to support the family as their father becomes increasingly addicted to drugs. But one day their aunt, Khala Shaima, makes a suggestion: as a bacha posh, Rahima can dress and be treated as a boy-until she is of marriageable age. She will be able to attend school. It’s an old custom but one that most of society turns a blind eye to when girls are young. And then Khala Shaima begins to tell a story that transforms Rahima’s life: the story of her great great-grandmother, Shekiba.Kabul, 1909: Shekiba, the daughter of a rural farming family, is disfigured in an accident as a child. When her parents and siblings die in a cholera epidemic, she has no one left to support her and is treated as little better than a slave in a relative’s home…until she is able to escape her life of drudgery by dressing as a man. Through a rare stroke of luck, she becomes one of the guards of the king’s harem in a lavish palace in the capital city and eventually manages to make a life for herself…one that ultimately includes a husband and children.This is the entwined stories of two Afghan women separated by a century who find freedom in the tradition of bacha posh.