42 pages • 1 hour read
Mud City
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Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of disordered eating, gender discrimination, graphic violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, and animal cruelty.
Chapter 1 Summary
Fourteen-year-old Shauzia lives with her dog, Jasper, in an overcrowded refugee camp for Afghans in Pakistan. In the camp’s Widows’ Compound, a semi-protected area for women and children, she tries to fend off a group of clingy orphans but relents and tells them a story about her time working as a shepherd in Afghanistan. Mrs. Weera, the compound’s leader and a former field hockey coach, arrives and ends the story. Shauzia follows her and demands to be paid for her work, but Mrs. Weera dismisses the request, mocking Shauzia’s dream of saving money to travel to France. The argument escalates until Mrs. Weera tells Shauzia to either contribute to the compound without complaint or leave. Shauzia announces she will leave the next day, and Mrs. Weera agrees, planning a farewell party for that evening.
Chapter 2 Summary
After her farewell party, Shauzia lies awake with Jasper, annoyed. During the party, Mrs. Weera announced she had arranged a job for Shauzia as a housemaid in Peshawar. Shauzia saw this not as help but as an attempt to control her, reminding her of her unhappy arrival at the compound.
