“I Just Dreamed That I Will Be Like You”
Zebo and Zuhro Murodova (U.S. Embassy Dushanbe)
Teachers Zebo (top) and Zuhro Murodova interviewed each other in Tajikistan about their shared passion for education.
By Wendy Grossman
Special Correspondent
The power and personal meaning of education is evident in the smiles on Zuhro and Zebo Murodova’s faces as they speak.
Sitting in a classroom inside a secondary school in Sarband, Tajikistan, Zuhro, a mother of three and a lifelong teacher, turns to her eldest daughter, Zebo, also now a teacher, and borrows a phrase from across the decades and miles.
“Where women will be educated, their families will be flourishing,” she says, paraphrasing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 1995 speech at the fourth United Nations World Conference on Women. In that speech, the then-first lady said, “What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish,” and went on to say, “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all.”
Zebo, who teaches English at a secondary school in Sarband, nods. “It is true — if a woman is not educated, society does not succeed,” she says.
Her dreams for Zebo are simple, Zuhro says: that she is happy and able to fulfill her own dreams. “Because I put in you everything that I have dreamed,” Zuhro says.
The Murodovas, from the Khatlon region of Tajikistan, talked of their experiences as educators, their role models and their affection for each other as they sat amid the bustle of the busy school. All her life, Zuhro says, she dreamed of being able to educate her children, and she beams with pride as Zebo talks of her own passion for teaching.
“I am very thankful to you that you work for women’s education and you give me education,” Zebo says. “And now I take your profession and I like — I love teaching, the same as you.”
Her mother, Zebo says, was her first mentor and her role model, teaching her the value of helping others as well as giving her the ability to achieve her goals. “People come to you and ask, ‘Please educate my son.’ I see this, and I just dreamed that I will be like you,’’ Zebo says.
Any advice for when Zebo has her own son or daughter? “Be fair, be honest, and be hard-working,” Zuhro says, because those are the qualities that society needs and with them one can achieve anything.
Zuhro’s face brightens when Zebo asks her final question: Are you proud of me? “Of course, my dear, I am very proud of you,” Zuhro says, “because I see in you everything that I have planned.”
“The way I am now, it’s all thanks to you,” Zebo responds, “because without your blessings and without your prayers I couldn’t be such an energetic and experienced teacher the way I am now. Thank you very much.”
See videos and read more stories about mothers and daughters in the multimedia feature “Dreams for My Mother, Dreams for My Daughter.”
(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)
