HERAT — As many families across the country marked Eid al-Adha with prayer, food and reunion, some women in the western city of Herat spent the holiday on foot, searching the streets not for celebration but for work.
Anisa, 45, is one of them.
Instead of preparing festive meals or receiving guests, she spent the morning of Eid wrapped in a worn shawl, wandering the quiet alleys of Herat in search of a day’s labor — anything that might earn her enough for a few loaves of bread.
“I told my neighbor I was going to Cinema Square, hoping someone might offer me a carpet to wash or something I could do to earn money for five pieces of bread,” she said. “God is witness, last night I borrowed bread from a neighbor. We had a bit of rice — my daughters cooked it and ate.”
Anisa is the sole breadwinner for her family of five. Her husband, Abdul Rahim, 70, is ill and no longer able to work. She supports three children with a meager job at a small packaging factory on the outskirts of the city — but during holidays, even that work disappears.
Sitting in their modest mud-brick home, Abdul Rahim speaks softly. Despite the poverty, his voice carries a faint glimmer of hope. “Right now, there’s nothing,” he said. “But God is kind. It’s Eid night. Maybe the doors of mercy will open.”
Their story is far from unique. Across Herat, women like Anisa spent Eid looking for day labor — not to supplement a festive meal, but to ensure their children had something, anything, to eat.
In a holiday traditionally defined by abundance and generosity, these families say the reality is instead marked by hunger, anxiety, and shame. Without job opportunities or social support, they say, Eid brings more silence than celebration.
For women like Anisa, Eid this year passed not with sweets and tea, but with an empty kitchen and a quiet prayer that tomorrow might be different.
