Anisa M Ulrich's Page

Book Title; Lifting the Chaderi

Subtitle; My life as an Afghan Refugee Woman

Genre; Non- Fiction

How many words; about 71,400

Targeting; Adults, Women, men

Completed Book

Author; Anisa Mahmoud Ulrich

           A highly personal memoir of an Afghan Refugee woman, a new nurse midwife, who finds herself

running as a fugitive over the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan in 1980 shortly after the Soviet invasion. She leaves her family and her precious land in the hands of Communism, for fear of being tortured or even prosecution.

Anisa is one of 14 children and step children growing up in Kabul Afghanistan in the 1960s.

She battles anxiety and panic attacks due to a speech impediment. Although her mother is illiterate, she insists that Anisa completes her nursing school education, despite constant pressure from conservative family members on all girls to quit school and marry.

An opportunity to study in America before the Soviet invasion puts 20-year old Anisa at risk. Once she returns to the chaos of war in her country, she becomes more of a target of prosecution.

She had to make her journey through the Torkham pass by foot and mule in to Pakistan.

She goes through the Refugee and Asylum channels in Turkey, Italy and finally in to the US.

She marries an Afghan man also a refugee, only to find herself in an abusive relationship.

As the violence escalates, she must escape once again, this time while supporting her two small children as a nurse. Finally she her defies her family and her oppressive culture and does the unthinkable; she divorces and remarries an infidel. An American also divorced with two children.

She returns to Afghanistan 25years later, to a country ravaged by war and the Taliban.

The power, strength and courage she has found to draw on and enables her to give more to her family then she ever thought possible. She is torn between her two worlds.

Anisa is an active member of her community Chamber of Commerce. She works as a labor and delivery nurse at the community hospital in Oakland CA.

She owns her business in Massage therapy and Micro-current treatment. She is a wife and mother of four children. This is her first book, has had good reviews from friends and family.