Chapter 4 recounts Ahmedi’s introduction to formal schooling. When she was six years old, she started school in Kabul. She notes the humble conditions of her school in contrast to American schools, but for Ahmedi, school was a wonderful place. For the first six years of her life, her social world consisted largely of family, but entering school opened up a new world of relationships and peer dynamics. Although school was occasionally interrupted by the war—school was canceled when it was a “bad rocket day”—Ahmedi’s memories of this time are dominated by her fondness for her teacher. Her teacher told the children stories that weaved the personal with the cultural and natural worlds.

Chapter 5 deals with the fateful day that Ahmedi stepped on the hidden landmine and suffered the injuries that would shape her life for years to come. One morning, she woke up late for school. She hurried to get dressed and gather her school things and ran out the door. She noticed that there were no other school children making their way down the road—that is how late I must be, they are all already at school, she thought. She got the idea to take a shortcut across an overgrown field.