Life under the Taleban
Before escaping to New Zealand, AMINA LAFARAIE, and her family were forced to hide from the Taleban in the city of Kabul in Afghanistan. This is her story of her experience.
I was thirteen when we had to leave our home and hide. My heart was pounding heavily. My mother was pale and shaking, my sisters and brother crying. My father sat quietly in a corner.
“What if they come again?” Mum asked weeping.
Just a few minutes ago we could have lost my father. They would have taken him away and we would not, ever, see him again.
The soldiers were at the neighbour’s house. They were searching all homes. They wanted cars, men to send to battlefields and money.
This time, by some miracle and Almighty God’s protection, they missed this house. But the door might be knocked or broken anytime.
We had to escape.
In hiding…
I was sick but could not go to the hospital. Fortunately my aunt’s husband was a doctor. He came to check me three times a day.
It was 5:00 pm. I had a high fever and felt my entire body burning. I lay down in the old room.
Outside, it was grey and raining. As if the sky knew my situation and was shedding tears for me. Inside, three buckets were placed under the ceiling cracks from which water was seeping. The paint of the faded green walls had pealed off.
I looked at my father’s troubled face. He was forty-seven, but seemed years older. He was sitting beside me reading a book.
Tears glistened in Mum’s tired brown eyes as she placed ice towels on my forehead, hands and feet. I thought back to the day we had to come here.
City of the Dead People
The next day we woke up early. It was September 27, 1996 – three days after my thirteenth birthday.
We were listening to the radio. It did not start with the usual national anthem. We all knew what had happened.
Our beautiful city was now in the hands of strangers. They made it a prison for us.
Every woman was forced to wear the Burqa – covering herself from head to toe. No education or job for females. No music, television or any sort of entertainment for old or young.
After a few months the Kabul City became known as the City of the Dead People.
Hidden from the world
My parents, two sisters, brother and I had to live in this one room. During the war the windows had broken. Only thin plastic shielded us from the cold winter wind.
All day long we sat in this small room studying, reading storybooks, playing with each other, only occasionally glancing out the window. We could not even go out to the yard – the neighbours may see us and inform the Taliban.
It was even worse when a guest visited our relative. We had to sit in one spot for hours without moving around the room or talking. Only a curtain separated the living room from the room we used.
We did not like this place. We wanted to go home. We wanted our normal lives back. We had committed no crime. Why were we being tortured?
We planned to go back home, but then another tragedy happened.
The Taliban had gone to our house asking for my father. My uncle did not tell them of our whereabouts.
He was arrested. They imprisoned him in another city, hundreds of miles away from home, where we had no relatives or friends to visit him.
After this incident we had no choice. We had to stay hidden from the whole world. We could not let them know where we were. They would come and take my father away from us, forever.
The doorknob turned. My aunt’s husband was there for my check-up. He greeted me with a gentle smile, but the trouble and pain in his eyes and tightened face told us all he was worried.
I was lying in my deathbed. I was expected to close my eyes any minute and never have them open again.
“Will I ever enjoy the pleasure of freedom?” was a question recorded in my mind and played repeatedly…
Freedom
I feel warm tears running down my cheek. My heart is aching as I am remembering that horrible time in my life.
The feeling is still strong. It was the most difficult time in my life. It is hard to forget – it is part of me and my identity. It makes me appreciate much more the new life in New Zealand I have begun.
My family and I are free and happy now. We have a future to look forward to. I leave the porch and enter the house. I will call my friend and have a long nice chat.
Check out her interview with Paul Zoubkov on Amina’s life in New Zealand, memories of Kabul and the recent war in Afghanistan.
This article was written as part of Global Focus a collaborative project of Tearaway Magazine and the Global Education Centre. It was first published in Tearaway magazine and is reprinted here with their permission
