1.    Theme

    To me, the theme in Under the Persimmon Tree was change. Najmah and Nurat’s lives both changed dramatically during this period of time. When Baba-jan and Nur are taken by the Taliban to fight in the war, Najmah has to mature and take on a whole new venue of responsibilities. Most importantly, she has to make sure the family’s sheep are taken care of. She also has to comfort her mada-jan who is grieving over the loss of her husband and son.

          A short while after Najmah’s mother gives birth to her baby brother, who she calls Habib, she went up on the mountain Koh-i-Dil to let the sheep graze. Later that day, while she was still on the mountain, American fighter planes dropped bombs onto her village, killing both her mada-jan and Habib. This, I believe, is the most significant change that happens to Najmah in the book. She has lost her family.

          Najmah’s personality also changes. When she is with Akhtar and Khalida, she puts aside her fears and hitches a ride on a pear truck going to Peshawar, where she believed her brother and father would be. She was once afraid of an imaginary leopard that her brother would tease her about, but now she faced getting caught by the truck driver and she still chose to board the truck.
          Nusrat changes when she converts from Christianity to Islam. They are not only different beliefs, but two different lifestyles. Moving from America to Pakistan is also a substantial change for Nusrat. She also has to be stronger, even after the alleged death of her husband Fiaz, to help Najmah find her family.

    The plot of Under the Persimmon Tree is the 9/11 attacks. They are the reason we declared war on Afghanistan, and decided to bomb it.  If they hadn’t happened, Nusrat would not have had her Persimmon Tree school, and she would have lived a normal life with her husband. Najmah wouldn’t have lost her family, her land, her animals, or her home. She would be living her simple, happy life in Kunduz with her entire family, including Habib.

          I think that while we were here in America, grieving over our own losses, we were so caught up in the moment that we didn’t stop to think about the people in the Middle East. We didn’t realize that none of the civilians there were bad people, it was only a group a religious zealots.

4.    Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis

Chapter 1: (Najmah)

          In chapter one of Under the Persimmon Tree, Najmah tells us, the readers, about her life in Kunduz Hills of Northern Afghanistan. She tells us about the food she eats, the chores she does, and about her family. She describes the river she gets water from, the Baba Darya. She also mentions how much her father loves the stars, and how her name means “star” and Nur’s name means “light”. Her father taught her to follow the north star, and she will never be lost.

          At the end of the chapter, the Taliban come to Najmah’s village. They usually come to take food, livestock and supplies, but they see Najmah’s father and brother. They demand the latter, but they see Nur’s aggression and decide to take him and his father away to fight in the war.

Chapter 2: (Nusrat)

          Chapter describes Nusrat’s life in Peshawar, Pakistan.  The speaker starts out by telling about when Nusrat lived in America. Her American name was Elaine, and she lived in Watertown, New York with her parents and her sister Margaret. She visits with her in-laws and talks about her husband Fiaz, who is a doctor who runs a clinic where the fighting is. When she sees her sister-in-law, Asma, she immediately thinks of her real sister, who died when she was ten.

          Chapter 3: (Najmah)

          Najmah tells us that her mother hasn’t stopped crying since the Taliban took her father and brother.  Her mother hasn’t moved from the cot, only to go to the bathroom once or twice. Najmah’s neighbor, Bibi Usmani came to their house to inform them that all the men and boys in the village were taken, and that they are all leaving in three days to go to a camp in Peshawar. Najmah told her that her mother could have her baby brother any day now, and she couldn’t leave.

          After Bibi Usmani departed, Najmah sees her corrupt uncle walking up the path. He addresses her without a greeting, and asks her where her mother is. She tells him she is ill, and he tries to enter the house. When she blocked him, he proceeded to tell her that everyone in the village is leaving, and that he will look after her father’s land. Najmah is aware of her uncle’s greed, and knows that he will only claim her father’s land for his own.

          A few days later, Bibi Usmani comes back to check on Najmah and her mother. Her family’s donkey is packed, and it is clear that they are leaving. She tries to convince Najmah to come, and she explains that she can’t because her mother might have the baby. She gives Najmah some food and milk, and says her goodbyes.

          Najmah realizes that she has to get her mother to eat, so she carries days worth of wood from the woodpile, and two ghee tins of water from the Baba Darya. She went down to the fields and picked eggplants, squash, potatoes, and an onion. She makes a meal with tea, and convinces her mother to eat. The day that the baby is due, Najmah’s mother tells her to take the sheep to graze. When she returns, her brother and mother are both fine.

Chapter 4: (Nusrat)

          Nusrat decides to stop looking for the postman and expecting him to have a letter from Fiaz. It only ends up being bills or flyers, or a letter from her mother. She thinks of her sister Margaret, and how they used to watch shooting stars together. The next day when she visits her in-laws, she announces that she will have a dinner so that they can watch the shebab (shooting stars) together. Her family stays for dinner, but decides it is too cold to watch the shooting stars. Nusrat stays outside wrapped in a quilt and watches them alone, thinking of her sister.

Chapter 5: (Najmah)

          Najmah describes her baby brother, who she calls Habib (dear friend), as a sweet baby with dark hair that stands up on end. In the morning when Najmah wakes up, she hears someone outside, and think it is the Taliban back to the animals. She grabs a knife a sneaks quietly over to the door, only to find that it is her uncle, surveying the land as if it were his.

          Later that day, Najmah was up on the mountain Koh-i-dil letting the sheep graze, and looking down at her house where habib lays in a hammock and her mother, shaking out the quilts. Suddenly, her mother looks up at the sky, and they both hear a whistling sound that gets louder and louder, and then a loud thump. Her mother grabs Habib and goes into the house, and Najmah runs down the path and hides among the boulders. After the explosions, Najmah ran down to the remains of her house, and finds her mother and Habib dead.

Chapter 6: (Nusrat)

          Nusrat sits under her persimmon tree and teaches the children from the refugee camp in Peshawar. Haroon, the Maelek from the refugee camp brings a new student for her named Amina. She has no shoes, and clothing that isn’t warm enough for the autumn air. She invites the girl and her mother, who barely speak, in for dinner.

          Later, Nusrat decides to take Amina to Dr.Naveed’s clinic because she has a bad cough from being out in the cold without proper clothing. She is accompanied by the tonga driver’s son so that she is not questioned by the Taliban. On their way through the bazaar, a bomb explodes, which isn’t unusual, but it is always dangerous when there are shots fired afterwards. The tonga driver directs Nusrat, Amina and Mansoora to the side of the cart so that it stood in between them and the gunshots. Since the commotion was headed back in the direction of Nusrat’s house, they decide to go on.

Chapter 7: (Najmah)

          Najmah is still in the remains of her house, holding the lifeless Habib in her arms, dust covering every inch of him. She then placed him in the curve of her mother’s elbow and tucked a strand of dark hair behind her mother’s ear. She sat there next to her mother and brother’s bodies, with no recollection of the time passing. Eventually Bibi Usmani’s brother and his wife and two children came by, just as she said they would.

          Khalida, Akhtar’s wife, cleaned Najmah up, cut her hair short, and dressed her as a boy. Akhatar dug a deep hole to bury her mother and brother in, and sprinkled Najmah’s hair into the hole. They continued down the path on their way to Peshawar with Najmah on a donkey with the two little boys.

Chapter 8: (Nusrat)

          Nusrat thinks about Fiaz in this chapter. She describes what he was like when they lived in New York together. After the news of the abusive Taliban in Afghanistan, Fiaz wanted to go back and help his people. This is when Nusrat converted to Muslim and moved with him to Afghanistan.  He and Nusrat met in 1999, and they married a year later.

Chapter 9: (Najmah)

          When Akhtar returned from the bazaar, he didn’t find any food, which meant the family would have to go a week walking without food.  On their way, they stop at a town and help people whose village had been bombed pull people out of the rubble and clean up.  The next morning they continue walking, and the boys cry that they are hungry.  As they walk, they hear thuds on the ground that began to get louder and louder, and then gunfire disturbed the dust on the road. Akhtar used a shawl to cover him and the boys to imitate a boulder, and Khalida and Najmah did the same. After the shooting, Akhtar finds more supplies and they continue on the path.

Chapter 10: (Nusrat)

          Nusrat thinks of how she met Fiaz while laying on a cot in her garden. She had a small apartment in New York city. While going down the stairway, she bumped into Fiaz by mistake. She recognized him as the man who had just moved in to a room on her floor. When she came home and opened her door, something hit her hard in the chest. She saw a man in a ski mask, and realized that she had been robbed. She tried to chase after him, but Fiaz stopped her. She felt faint, so he helped her to her apartment. Fiaz cleaned her up and made sure she was ok.

Chapter 11: (Najmah)

          Najmah is very weak from the lack of nutrition. Her feet are sore from walking in the rough leather sandals, but they only have a two hour walk to Torkhum. When they arrive, they are given tasteless biscuits to fill them and help them gain strength. With food in their stomachs, they sleep deeply and for a long time.

Chapter 12: (Nusrat)

          Nusrat still thinks of her husband. She rises before the sun and takes a bath. Before her students arrive, she writes a note to him telling him of all the things that have happened. She thinks of the horrible rumors she heard about bombs hitting clinics like the one he works in and everyone being killed.

When the children arrive at Nusrat’s blue gate, she invites everyone in to celebrate with welsh cakes and tea, because Kunduz was liberated, and the Taliban were gone.

Chapter 13: (Najmah)

          On their twelfth night in Torkhum, Najmah sneaks into a pear truck that came from Peshawar. She had been trying to find a way to make it there because she was determined to find her father and brother and return to her home. On the way to Peshawar, the truck was taken by bandits who, thankfully, didn’t notice that Najmah was in the back. Najmah hopes that the truck will still be going towards Peshawar and that the bandits won’t find her.

Chapter 14: (Najmah)

          The truck comes to a stop along side of a large bazaar. Lucky for Najmah, the bandits decide to go have something to eat before they begin to unload the fruit. After waiting a few minutes, Najmah climbs over the pears towards the open canvas. She takes a few pears, jumps out of the truck and hears someone yell “who’s there”. She ran and managed to escape.

Later that night, she decides to sleep in a covered cart that was left by the owner for the night. She hopes she will awaken before he returns in the morning.

Chapter 15: (Nusrat)

          Nusrat’s students start to leave due to the liberation of Kunduz. When two of the girls don’t show up for class in the morning, Nusrat dismisses her school early and goes to the refugee camp to ask Haroon where they are and if they will be coming back. For a while, Nusrat sits on a cot waiting for Haroon watching the people at the camp. She searched for Fiaz, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t be there.

          When she spoke to Haroon, she discovered that the girls’ uncle came to get them to bring them back to their home in northern Afghanistan. Nusrat left him after he promised to inform her if any of her other students were leaving.

Chapter 16: (Najmah)

          Najmah left the bazaar in the morning, and she followed some Afghan women and children around. Najmah sees a compound like the one she stayed in with Akhtar and Khalida. When she attempted to talk to the guard, she couldn’t form words because she hadn’t talked since the day her mother and brother died. Najmah decides to slip through the gate and go to the house that looked like the malek’s. He asks her questions that she is unable to answer. Finally, he asks if she can work, and she shows him the calluses on her hands. The malek decides to bring her to Nusrat.

Chapter 17: (Nusrat)

          Haroon, the malek, brings Najmah to Nusrat’s gate. Najmah is still disguised as a boy. Nusrat gives her a large plate of food and lets her eat. After the students are dismissed, Najmah has nowhere to go, so Nusrat takes her in. When Nusrat tries to talk to her, she hands her a paper that says “Shaheed” on it, which was the name Akhtar gave to her to keep her boy-disguise realistic. Nusrat notices the pattern of calluses on Najmah’s hand, and quickly finds out that she is a girl.

Chapter 18: (Nusrat/Najmah)

          Nusrat shows Najmah the bedroom she will sleep in, and then gets a bath ready for her. She gets her fresh clothing and feeds her dinner before she goes to sleep.  Nusrat talks to her at the dinner table, and tells her that if she studies in her class, then she can stay with Nusrat as long as she has to. Nusrat also gives her permission to call her by her name. Najmah decides to call her Bibi Nusrat.

Chapter 19: (Najmah/Nusrat)

          The next day, Najmah’s uncle comes to look for her with the word that her father was dead. Najmah hid in Nusrat’s house while her uncle looked around. Najmah did not want to believe anything her crooked uncle said, but it did worry her. After her uncle left, she told Nusrat of his greed and dishonesty to her family. Then she joined the other children in Nusrat’s class for a lesson.

Chapter 20: (Najmah/Nusrat)

          At night, while Nusrat is looking at the stars, she thinks of Fiaz, and suddenly she has a feeling that he will not be coming back. She stayed outside and sobbed because she felt in her heart that Fiaz was dead.  Najmah feels sure that she can trust Nusrat now because she wouldn’t let her uncle into her garden.

Chapter 21: (Nusrat/Najmah)

          Nusrat begins to teach Najmah English. She would show Najmah and object, and then write down the word for her to see. She also took Najmah to her in-laws’ house. Jamshed, Nusrat’s sister-in-law’s son, was happy to see that he had a new playmate.

          After her mother-in-law went to bed, Nusrat explains to Asma what she thinks about Fiaz, and that she thinks she should go back to America to stay with her parents for a while, since they are getting older. This upsets her sister-in-law, and they sit together in sadness while Najmah played with Jamshed.

Chapter 22: (Najmah/Nusrat)

          Haroon brings a new student to Nusrat’s class: Najmah’s brother, Nur. He brings the news of his father’s death by the Taliban, and Najmah tells him of their mother and Habib, and they both, after talking amongst themselves, decide to tell Nusrat everything about what happened to their family. Nur also brings the news that a doctor-most likely Fiaz- was killed in a bombing in Mazar-i-shariff. Nur, Najmah, and Nusrat go to Nusrat’s in-laws’ house again, and they discuss the news that Nur brought.