For the longest time, I associated December 2022 with the memory of laughter.

It’s a memory from back in the warm months of 2016, our first year as a boarding school: spring was becoming summer in Kabul, and I was in my office at SOLA’s campus. My office was in a corner of our building, and we had windows set into each wall: one window looked out toward our front gate, and one looked out over our interior courtyard.

Down in that courtyard, girls were laughing. The courtyard was small – we didn’t have a lot of room behind our walls – but these girls were making the most of what we had. Some of them were learning to ride bicycles and some were playing an improvised game of dodgeball, and up in my office I remember writing messages to supporters. I wrote about how I was envisioning the next several years so clearly, how I was hearing the sounds of our future down there in the courtyard, and how despite everything that was happening in Afghanistan out beyond our front gate, I knew it was possible to create a safe place in the midst of turmoil and strife if a person focused on it and believed in it.

I imagine that some of you reading these words will remember receiving one of those messages back in 2016.

Those laughing girls in the courtyard were our first group of 6th graders, and they were going to be the first group of girls to graduate 12th grade at SOLA.

Graduation was going to be in Kabul, at our campus, in December 2022.

I’ve written this before, I’ve said this before, and I’ll put it down again because it matters: I’m the product of the bravery of Afghan women. I am honored to be one of the many women today carrying the fire that earlier generations tended across decades.

One of many. Please remember that. These are the dark days. But the fires are not extinguished.

I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished at SOLA this year. I’m proud of our girls in Rwanda, pre-6th graders up through 10th grade, and of our new cohort of international teachers who’ve come to join us and who quite simply astound me with their skill and their energy. I’m proud of the relationships we’re building inside Rwanda, and of the engagement we’ve had with communities near and far. Whether in Kigali or on field trips to places like Nyungwe National Park and the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture, we’re strengthening our bonds with the people of Rwanda who have been so generous and so giving.

I’m proud of this year’s successful admissions season, the first one we’ve ever held outside of Afghanistan and the first one we’ve ever conducted entirely virtually. We received 180 applications from girls in 10 countries, our 3rd-highest application yield in our history. I’m proud of the groundwork we’re laying for our 2023 admissions season – we’re working on it even as you read this, and we’ll be making a full announcement about the new season early next year.

I’m proud of those laughing girls who filled our courtyard back in 2016 – girls who were supposed to graduate at our campus in Kabul this month, girls who were supposed to be part of a ceremony I’d played out in my head so many times over the years. None of these girls are with us in Rwanda anymore. They’ve transitioned into SOLA's scholars abroad program and are now studying overseas at some of the world’s top boarding schools, and while I’m not going to say more for security and privacy reasons, I’m eternally grateful for our global network of supporters who’ve helped make this possible.

The pride I feel mingles with a sadness I can’t find words for. Those laughing girls won’t graduate from SOLA, but they will graduate from wonderful schools. That’s not possible for girls in Afghanistan any longer. There is no opportunity for high school, or university. There is little opportunity for anything at all.

The memory of 2016 won’t ever leave me. The memory I’ll have of 2022 won’t either. It’ll be the gratitude of continuity and the intensity of loss. It’ll be the knowledge of how different everything could have been.

Let’s end where we began. Let’s end with the voices of Afghan girls. Let’s end with the fire in the darkness.

I recently heard from one of those girls from the courtyard, one of those girls who would have graduated 12th grade at SOLA this month. For privacy, I’ll call her K. K wanted to know about our upcoming admissions season, and she talked specifically about a girl in Afghanistan who’s finishing 5th grade, a girl from K’s community back home who wants to apply to SOLA.

“I’ve been mentoring her for years,” K said. “She’s ready. She knows it’ll be nearly impossible to get out of Afghanistan and come to Rwanda, but she and I are both wondering if there’s some chance, even a tiny one, that she might be admitted to SOLA.”

I can’t predict the future, I said. But “impossible” is a word I don’t often use in relation to anything. If she’s a good student, I’d like to hear from her.

“She is,” K said. “She’s a smart girl. She stands up for herself. I’ve taught her that. And I want to be sure she has the opportunity to keep learning.”

K was a 6th grade girl laughing in our courtyard in 2016. In 2022, she’s a boarding school student who wants to help bring another Afghan girl into 6th grade, to help her find her own safe space amid the turmoil.

This is what fire looks like. This is how hope illuminates everything.

I mourn the loss of what I’d imagined December 2022 would be. At the same time, I find myself thankful for everything our students have and everything SOLA can offer the girls of Afghanistan.

The fire I’ve inherited is the fire I pass on. This is how it is for all of us. We are Afghan women. And we will never stop fighting.