A Burka for Love

One day, María Galera phoned up a popular Spanish radio programme hosted by the presenter Reyes Monforte. Her voice arrived loud and clear from Afghanistan asking for help and telling her incredible story: María had met an Afghan in London and had fallen deeply in love with him. She converted to Islam and married him, following him to his home country, which was dominated by the strict Taliban regime. When war broke out, both of them were trapped in that remote country, without money or documents and in terrible conditions, which did not prevent María from having two children.

Her third pregnancy and the worry about her family’s security pushed her to seek help to leave the country; something that she achieved thanks to the help of a Majorcan businessman who had been moved by her story of suffering and desperation on the radio.

Now María is in Majorca and has given her story to Reyes Monforte, the journalist who first listened to her speak of unconditional love, passion and the fight for survival in a strange country with an unfamiliar culture.