In this chap­ter titled “ELEVEN,” Par­vana returns home, drenched and emo­tion­al­ly exhaust­ed, prompt­ing con­cerned ques­tions from her fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly her moth­er. After a moment of reas­sur­ance, Par­vana reveals that she spent her day dig­ging up graves. This shock­ing admis­sion leads to a pro­found dis­cus­sion about the state of their lives in Afghanistan, high­light­ing a grim real­i­ty where dig­ging up ances­tors’ bones becomes a means of sur­vival. Moth­er express­es deep sor­row over the sit­u­a­tion, while Mrs. Weera acknowl­edges the prac­ti­cal­i­ty of their actions, not­ing that bones can be repur­posed for var­i­ous uses.

Noo­ria, Par­vana’s sis­ter, sur­pris­es every­one by argu­ing for Parvana’s right to con­tin­ue this work, stat­ing that the fam­i­ly des­per­ate­ly needs income beyond what Par­vana earns from read­ing let­ters. Their moth­er ini­tial­ly resists but is even­tu­al­ly per­suad­ed by Noo­ria and Mrs. Weer­a’s rea­son­ing about the excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances they face. They reach a com­pro­mise, allow­ing Par­vana to work as long as she reports her expe­ri­ences for a mag­a­zine.

As Par­vana delves into her new ven­ture with Shauzia, they accu­mu­late enough earn­ings to pur­chase trays for sell­ing goods. They decide to sell light­weight items such as cig­a­rettes and chew­ing gum. Par­vana feels a sense of lib­er­a­tion from her pre­vi­ous grave-dig­ging work and is learn­ing to nav­i­gate the streets of Kab­ul more con­fi­dent­ly. One day, they spot a crowd head­ing to a sports sta­di­um and seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty to poten­tial­ly earn more from the atten­dees.

How­ev­er, upon their arrival, they quick­ly real­ize the atmos­phere is unsettling—no cheers, only an omi­nous silence. A group of Tal­iban sol­diers instead trans­forms the event into a grotesque dis­play of pun­ish­ment for thieves, dis­play­ing severe bru­tal­i­ty that hor­ri­fies Par­vana and Shauzia. As they wit­ness the hor­rif­ic scene of sev­ered hands, they remain hid­den among the crowd, fright­ened but sup­port­ed by kind strangers who help them escape the night­mare. The chap­ter con­cludes with Par­vana grap­pling with the harsh real­i­ties of their world, sym­bol­ized by the young Tal­ib man flaunt­ing his grue­some tro­phies to the crowd, leav­ing a haunt­ing impres­sion on their day.