Life in Afghanistan and an unplanned flight to freedom - Part 3

Struggles

June 21, 1979 is the day that I name the start of struggle for our family. We got a phone call that day and the only thing that I remember is a loud scream of my mother and nothing else. My father got wounded on the battlefield. For one month, we did not know anything about it. After one month when the injury got worse, then the health department of Kandahar, where he had taken a job in the military, decided to send him to the capital city, to get better treatment. The injury was in his left leg. My father was hospitalized for one and a half years and I was not able to see him. After that long time, they dismissed him and he was in bed for one more year at home. My poor mother went to work every day, she did all the cleaning, and she took care of my father and us…with all the economical problems we had at that time, she proved her braveness and saved our family. I am proud of her and I will be forever.

The war got to its worst point. Prices went so high, schools were closed, and people started fleeing from one city to another and most of them started going to the neighboring countries such as Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan. Some days because of bombing or gunfire all the offices, shops and every thing got closed. One day, my dad came in and said make ourselves ready because we had to go to our home land place.The government announced that there would b a big war coming up and whoever wanted to move from the capital city should do it in two days.

We went to the bus stop and took the bus to our homeland place. On our way, we could hear the sound of the gunfire and the rockets. Half way to our city, it got worse and we saw the gun shots with our eyes. Everyone in the bus was scared; the driver turned the bus around to return to Kabul. We saw a large number of soldiers coming towards us. One of the soldiers got into the bus and said, “you neither can go ahead nor can back. Whoever wants to go ahead, should start walking , and whoever wants to be safe should stay in the bus and the driver will stop the bus in a safe place.” Everyone stayed in the bus and the driver drove the bus to the yard of a school away from the highway. The night we stayed with all the lights and the noises of gunfire is something that I will never forget in my life.

Daylight was taking over the night’s darkness and the noise of gunfire was getting farther and farther away. Some of the men got out to check what was going on. When after 30 minutes, they all came back, everyone was waiting to hear something but they even did not say a word, and they didn’t not respond to anyone’s questions. My father was one of them and he looked so upset and I knew that he did want to talk about it. He said something to my mom that I could not hear and then he took our bag and held my little sister, and started getting off the bus. Finally when we got to the highway…the highway scene shocked me. I found myself in a street covered by body parts, blood streams and dead bodies. Smoke, fire, blood and chemical weapons smell made it hard to breath: it was really hard to find your way out. The street was surrounded by cultivated lands, which were still on fire and the black smoke produced by it made the area darker. We had no choice but to pass this road. The scene was so horrible that my mind stopped; I was not able to think of anything. When we got home, my brother and I were very sick. But, since war was still going on, we were not able to get any kind of treatment. How could I forget that scene? All the people who were lying dead on that street had families, children, relatives and friends waiting for them. Maybe one of them was the only breadwinner for his family; maybe one of them has just got married or just got a baby or…what would happen to all these families? Who was responsible for all the destruction?

I thanked God that we got home safe and sound and I thought that would be it and at least for a few days we would not have any gunfire or any problems. Everyone was so happy to see us alive, Grandma made us a special meal, gave us some medicine and let us sleep. I could not believe that after such a horrible night, I was sleeping in a nice soft bed. Around two o’clock I heard a terrible voice which woke me up and I suddenly stood in my bed saying, “ What happened Dad, whaaaa?” I saw four men with covered faces and guns in their hands, I was frozen in my place and did not even have the mind to think. One of the men came towards me, beat me with his gun , and ordered me to go back to my bed. For a while, I thought I was still asleep and dreaming what was going on, but unfortunately it was real and an unlivable truth. One of the men stepped ahead and started calling my dad by his name, “..we know you have gun with you and you have come here to fight with us. Now tell us where you have hidden the gun.” My dad told the guy that he was mistaken because we did not have any gun in our house. They ordered us not to move, and started hitting and beating my dad. I was afraid and started crying, especially when I heard that they would kill my dad if we didn’t hand them the gun they thought we had. Finally, they ordered us to stand up in our beds and as soon as we stood up, the one who seemed to be the boss ordered the other one to handcuff us and take us to the other room.

That night they took everything we had; they started at 2:00 and they were taking our stuff out until 5:00 in the morning. This night was the longest night of my life; we had the two worst nights of our lives one after another. When they left for another half an hour we could not move. My dad was in bad shape, he was bleeding in two places. Around seven in the morning I tried to stand up and go ask for help. I was so dizzy that I did not know where I was going and what I wanted to say. On my way to our neighbors’ house, I fell down three or four times and finally I got to their house. They helped us clean up the mess and took my dad to the doctor. War was still on, but the doctor treated my dad in his house.

For the next day we had nothing, no money, no carpets, and no dishes to eat on or cook in: they took everything we had. Living in this place was hard for us, every night went by with the fear of another attack so my Dad decided to borrow some money from his friends and leave the valley. It was early morning of the third day that we got out and started going toward the northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif. Since war was still on there was no bus to take us so we started walking through the snowy mountains of the Saalang highway. The weather was horribly cold. When we got up to the highest parts of the mountains I felt like I would fall off. My father told us not to look down, but it was not possible. After three days of walking, we got to the city. It was winter, 1997. I don’t know why, but from the time I got into the city, I felt happy. Something inside me was telling me that it would be the end of my struggles.

[Continue to Part 4 - Unbelievable Outcomes]