Teenage girls in blue and green burqas pour into the schoolyard, where they pull off their coverings, stuff them in their book bags and head to class. It almost seems as if the acid attacks never happened.
But though classes have resumed, the students, their parents and the school's principal remain on edge two months later. The principal says better security promised by the government hasn't come. Some girls are too afraid to tell reporters their names or let their pictures be taken.
In November, three teams of men on motorbikes sprayed acid from squirt guns and water bottles onto 15 schoolgirls and teachers as they walked to the Mirwais Mena girls school in Kandahar, the southern city that is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban.
One girl's face was so badly burned that she was flown to India for treatment. Four others are still being treated at hospitals in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.
The attackers' apparently hoped to scare girls from going to school. The Taliban banned girls from attending school during its 1996-2001 rule and insurgents in the south have repeatedly attacked schools in recent years as part of the insurgency against the government.
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