Words Nazima Khairzad As told to Kade Krichko Photos and Captions Rick Findler MY name is Nazima Khairzad. I am 19 years old, and I am a skier. I was born in Afghanistan’s Bamyan Province, a year after the fall of the Taliban. Up until a few months ago, it was the only home I ever knew. That’s when they returned. That’s when everything changed. I’VE LIVED MY WHOLE LIFE in the mountains. Bamyan Province is cold in the winter and the peaks around our vil-lages are full of snow. The wind is always blowing. Tempera-tures drop to 15 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. We keep our stoves on in our houses to stay warm. Before we moved to the city of Bamyan (within Bamyan Province), my family lived in a remote town called Kahmard. It was a restrictive place for women. We had no rights. My sister Naziri and I had to wear burqas and we weren’t allowed to study or play sports. My mother didn’t want her daughters to grow up that way. This was a new Afghanistan. She moved with us to Bamyan. Eventually, our father left his job as a police officer and followed us. Naziri is two years younger than me. We were always in-terested in sports. At first, our parents didn’t accept it, but after crying and yelling a lot they allowed us to try. Soccer, volleyball, hiking. They told us that society didn’t used to be like that, that women in sports wasn’t part of our culture. But they said now they were proud of us. We believed them. I like to live a life full of risk, adventure and challenge. It helps me relax. I saw boys skiing with Bamyan Ski Club, and I wanted to try. My sister was the only reason we were allowed to go. My family didn’t want me to ski alone, but five years ago we said we would ski together, and our parents let us. The first days on skis were tough for me. We borrowed the boys’ equipment from Bamyan Ski Club and had a few foreign coaches. We don’t have ski lifts, so we had to hike up the mountain with our skis. In Afghanistan, if you want to be a good skier, you need to be a good hiker. That first year, we hiked in our normal clothes. It was so cold. When we sat down to rest, our long dresses got heavy and wet. It was so difficult to turn around a gate. It was crazy though. Just me, Naziri, and our friends on top of a mountain. I knew I wanted to continue skiing. The next year, foreigners gave us real ski clothes. They were so much warmer. We are Muslim, so religion made it a little difficult to wear a ski cap instead of our traditional head scarves, but we knew it was not a mistake. I liked slalom and hitting jumps. It felt like I was flying. Naziri and I started racing. We competed in the Afghan Ski Challenge, our local race, starting in 2018. In 2020, I was part of an Afghan ski team that traveled to Pakistan for an inter-national competition. It was my first time out of the country, and I finished third. I was the first Afghan, man or woman, to win a medal at an international ski event. It was unbelievable. After that, everything changed, especially my mind. I always thought that life was just in Afghanistan, but this sport had given me a wider perspective. Skiing was something that could connect me to the entire world. When I came home there was a ton of media coverage about my results. Suddenly my friends and other women started to join us. Day by day, we were gaining more participants. Last year we had 49 girls. Naziri won the Afghan Ski Challenge and my father came to the race. He was so supportive. It was the first time he had seen us ski race. Now I’m in Pakistan again, but this trip is different. This time I don’t know when I’m going back home, or if I ever will return. 074 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 15, Issue 4: Page 74
