Thank You, 2017!
This year was exceptionally good to me, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the blessings, relations — old and new, travel and the opportunity to be part of some amazing stories this year.
I started freelancing in late 2015 but I didn’t do it full-time until late 2016 largely because of not being able to afford life in a place like Kabul. The early days of full time reporting, i.e.late 2016 and early 2017, was tough. I barely had enough to pay my bills and rent. I had to borrow money from my parents on more than one occasion to travel, just because I needed to. But then slowly and steadily, I started to figure out how this done.
I found publications who trusted me and who I could trust. But most importantly, I found editors who were just as excited about the stories that excited me, who felt just as strongly about the causes I wanted to talk about and who were sensitive in their approach.
Here I want to share with you some of my favourite stories that I had the privilege to narrate. The stories I picked are here because they inspired me, spoke to me, moved me, or were very very difficult to tell, and as a result helped me grow.
In chronological order:
