But first there is one last farewell to be said.
The wars in Afghanistan have ravaged the roads connecting Kabul, Herat, and Kandahar.
The easiest way to Herat now is through Mashad, in Iran.
Laila and her family are there only overnight. They spend the night at a hotel, and, the next morning, they board another bus.
Mashad is a crowded, bustling city. Laila watches as parks, mosques, and chelo kebab restaurants pass by.
When the bus passes the shrine to Imam Reza, the eighth Shi'a imam, Laila cranes her neck to get a better view of its glistening tiles,
the minarets, the magnificent golden dome, all of it immaculately and lovingly preserved.
She thinks of the Buddhas in her own country. They are grains of dust now, blowing about the Bamiyan Valley in the wind.
The bus ride to the Iranian-Afghan border takes almost ten hours.
The terrain grows more desolate, more barren, as they near Afghanistan.
Shortly before they cross the border into Herat, they pass an Afghan refugee camp.
To Laila, it is a blur of yellow dust and black tents and scanty structures made of corrugated steel sheets.
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