On March 18, 2021, Al Akhawayn University held its second annual Afghanistan Day to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year, with its Afghan international students. Nowruz, which fell on March 20 this year, is the most important Afghan holiday, celebrating joy, togetherness, and prosperity.
In 2018, Al Akhawayn University was awarded a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of State via the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan to sponsor ten female Afghan undergraduate students from rural areas in Afghanistan. These ten students are now studying in their second year, in which time Al Akhawayn University has benefited from cultural exchange and learning about Afghan culture.
For this year’s Afghanistan Day, five different activities were organized to celebrate Nowruz. First, staff and faculty were invited to bake kolche birinjie, a butter cookie eaten on Nowruz baked with pistachios, cardamom and rosewater. For lunch, the international restaurant supplied by campus caterer Newrest designed a special Afghan Day menu with qabili palaw (the national rice pilaf of Afghanistan), kofta (meatballs), and potato-filled bolani (a stuffed, baked flat bread).
In the afternoon, Aziz Royesh, an educator and prominent advocate for equal access to education, delivered an online lecture as this year’s keynote speaker for Afghanistan Day. Later on, Afghan students invited the Al Akhawayn community to hear their stories and cultural background over cookies, tea and refreshments. Finally, the day concluded with a presentation by Dr. John Shoup and the Afghan students, titled “Discovering Nowruz, From Ancient Zoroastrianism to Present Day New Year’s.”
Emotions from Afghan students
Since Nowruz is typically a festive and jubilant celebration in Iranian and Afghan culture, many of the Afghan students feel isolated and lonely on their most important holiday of the year. Thus, although AUI’s first Afghanistan Day was organized on an ordinary day in the Fall 2019 semester, the Afghan students chose a day close to Nowruz to celebrate their culture for this second Afghanistan Day.
“Back home, there is preparation going on before Nowruz, We do cleaning, we go shopping, we buy new clothes for ourselves On the day of Nowruz, we wear our [new] clothes,” reminisced Najma Ibrahimi, an International Studies student from Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. “I’m here and I’m forgetting that something like Nowruz exists.” However, to celebrate, Najma is planning to make qabili palaw for herself.
Although Najma is proud of her culture and its history, adjustment to campus has not always been easy. She describes feeling at times alienated in a culture that she does not belong to.
“Sometimes I feel excluded here, so that’s why I don’t join clubs. I think language is a barrier for me, and there is perspective that students have about my country,” she said. “If we had more friends at AUI, we would have more audience and they would enjoy and see our culture.”
Regarding this alienation, Najma feels that other students have an internalized stereotype of Afghanistan based on media portrayal of her country. For the story-sharing segment of Afghanistan Day, Najma presented her image of Afghanistan, hoping to share another side—her side—of the stories shared about her country. With such a large size, even Najma was surprised while researching for her presentation. She had only been inside her province and in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul; even she did not know many details about circumstances in other provinces, or some of their local traditions and beautiful landscapes. The diversity of Afghanistan, she hopes, can overshadow the homogenized narrative of an Afghanistan that is broadcasted as a land of only Taliban and war.
“I wanted to share a different and beautiful image of Afghanistan.”
Najma Ibrahimi, International Studies sophomore
However, Najma explains, this is not a view that is exclusive to only Moroccans, AUI students or non-Afghans. When she first applied to study at Al Akhawayn University, even she carried stereotypes and the ignorance of naivety about her new home.
“I had a chance to go to India, but I wanted to see Africa and Morocco. I didn’t know anything about Africa,” she said.
The AUI community learns from a diversified community
For many years since its founding, the Al Akhawayn University student body was primarily comprised of Moroccan students, and a very small minority of exchange students and international students. In the last few years, new University initiatives have encouraged greater representation of diverse nationalities and backgrounds—ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, or otherwise—across the campus.
“Keeping in line with the aims of a liberal arts model and outlook, cultural diversity and inclusion is important for opening discussions and broadening world views and perspectives.”
Chloe-Kate Abel, AUI Presidential Intern
Reverend Karen Smith, the University’s beloved chaplain who also runs its Interfaith Club, described her pride in both the Afghan students’ growth and in their impact on the AUI community.
“The young women that I have seen have grown,” she remarked. “I’m really proud of them. I think the AUI campus—it’s really hard for me to judge because so much of their experience has been covered by Covid-19, and we also did this during midterms week—but there’s always joy.”
Without the help of faculty and staff, Afghanistan Day would also not have had the value it did. Faculty and staff helped bake some of Afghanistan Day’s kolche birinjie cookies, while the staff at Newrest prepared a mesmerizing meal inspired by Afghan food. “Our chef Kamal was fabulous to work with. He was so nice and accommodating,” Reverend Smith enthused.
For Chloe-Kate Abel, an AUI Presidential Intern who graduated from the University of St. Andrews in 2020 with a B.A. in Arabic and Persian Language, Literature, and Culture, her distinct academic background in both Arab and Persian culture offered an exceptional perspective while celebrating Norwuz at Al Akhawayn University to experience their intersection of both.
“Some of the Afghan students have been my closest friends during this year. They are a very open and welcoming group, always encouraging me to practice Farsi,” Chloe shared. “Keeping in line with the aims of a liberal arts model and outlook, cultural diversity and inclusion is important for opening discussions and broadening world views and perspectives. I think this is crucial since at the Afghanistan presentation, people had so many questions and limited knowledge of the place itself.”
Chloe described Norwuz as less of a religious holiday—like Ramadan or Eid al-Adha—and more as a cultural holiday with roots in Iran’s Zoroastrianism. Because of what she sees as the lack of recognition of Persian culture outside of Iran and the Iranian diaspora, she feels that Norwuz is less well-known than other cultural holidays. To encourage more students to participate in the cultural celebration in future editions of AUI’s Afghanistan Day, she hopes that next year’s Afghanistan Day does not overlap with midterms week.
Reverend Karen Smith hopes the same for future Afghanistan Days, as well as a campus free of pandemic anxieties and restrictions. “Next year,” she said, “we hope we’ll be doing it sans masks.”
