I am not an artist yet. Artists are great people aren’t they? I am only taking the first steps. I was born and raised in Iran and in the last 3 years of school I wanted to chose art as my major subject but I was told that as an Afghan I wasn’t allowed. So I studied accounting which was okay but a million miles away from painting. When my family came back to Afghanistan I tried again and passed into the Faculty of Fine Arts at Kabul University. Art is such a part of my life that I don’t know what would happen if was not able to continue. It would be like having a piece cut out of me.(Shamsia Hassani)