Letters to My Daughters (32 page)

At work, emails started to flood in, warning international UN staff to leave Afghanistan and all local staff to stay in their main offices and not travel within the country. My boss was from another province and went to be with his family, so I was left to manage the office alone.

It was a very difficult time because we were in the midst of a large province-wide immunization campaign. We were also supposed to be distributing books for the forthcoming school year. For two months, our office managed, alone, to implement the immunization campaign for children and to keep the schools open. I was still the only Afghan female UNICEF staff member inside Afghanistan.

In America, the investigation into who carried out the attacks on September 11, 2001, quickly identified the hijackers and then traced their activities back to al-Qaeda sources. Washington demanded that the Taliban government hand over Osama bin Laden. They refused.

On October 7, 2001, less than a month after the attack on the World Trade Center, the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom. American and British warplanes and cruise missiles struck Taliban and al-Qaeda targets across Afghanistan. At the same time, Massoud's Northern Alliance soldiers began to push south towards Kabul with the aid of their newfound air superiority, but sadly without their key general.

The West was hoping for a quick, clean removal of the Taliban and the death or capture of Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.

It was a simple plan: U.S. and British air power would devastate Taliban forces, while new types of bombs would blow apart whole mountainsides to kill al-Qaeda fighters in the caves where they hid. On the ground, the Northern Alliance and other key forces, again predominantly from the north, would mop up what the bombs had missed.

Some of these men took to their task with a chilling enthusiasm. We occasionally heard news of atrocities against Taliban forces, such as prisoners being burned alive. In some of the villages that had been oppressed by the Taliban, people grew brave and began pelting them with stones and telling them to leave.

I knew that not all the Taliban had been bad. Some of the low-ranking officers were just people trying to survive. And hadn't I even been helped by some of them? For example, there was the Talib neighbour who didn't even know me but had helped me to get Hamid out of prison or the young, newly married Talib from Wardak who had been prepared to disobey his superiors in order to let Hamid stay at home. I was sad that individuals like these were getting killed, but I was thrilled the Taliban's theocratic regime was being destroyed and this dark period of Afghan history was coming to an end.

I didn't mind that the United States and a host of other foreign nations were leading the fighting. Many Afghans dislike the help of non-Muslims because they consider them infidels. But I didn't see it that way. I had never really considered the Taliban true Afghans. They were always controlled and led by other nations. I remember when I lived in Kabul seeing the entire neighbourhood of Wazir Akbar Khan taken over by the Taliban's “guests,” the Arabs, the Chechens and the Pakistanis. Hearing their accents and seeing their wives dressed in black
niqabs,
I'd had the sensation that Kabul was no longer under Afghan control but that it had become an Arab city by proxy, like Riyadh in Saudi Arabia or Doha in Qatar.

And some of the Taliban's worst atrocities had foreign connections. When the Taliban attacked the Shomali Plain, an area north of Kabul, they did so with such ferocity that the land is still known as the “burning plains.” During one battle, they killed thousands of men, then deliberately burned all the trees and crops, before bulldozing the remains into the ground. This totally annihilated the population's chances of future survival. Destroying crops and other scorched-earth tactics are things I associate more with Arab countries than with Afghanistan. And it is most definitely not something the Taliban would have been clever enough to have thought of themselves. After they had burned everything, they went from house to house forcing all the young girls and women outside. The last time people saw these women they were being herded into trucks and cars. The local suspicion was that they were taken to countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and forced to work in brothels. Some of the Arab fighters also took these women as forced wives. No one can prove these local suspicions are true, but I have seen too many things like this happen to not believe they could be true.

So when non-Afghan forces were involved in the Taliban's defeat, I was grateful for their help and just so very pleased the Taliban were no longer going to be running my beloved country. One by one, the provinces of Afghanistan fell from Taliban control. In Tora Bora, which had been believed to be bin Laden's hideout, the fighting raged for weeks. Then suddenly, it was over. The Taliban were gone.

The men who had tortured my husband and destroyed my chance for a happy marriage were losing their power, just as Hamid was losing his final battle for his health.

Being the only UN female staff member in the country made me the subject of much curiosity. Journalists constantly visited my office wanting my advice on stories they could write—something that was hard to find time for, given that I was running the office alone. We were setting up a back-to-school campaign in which thousands of boys and girls who were past school age but who had missed an education because of the war or the Taliban were invited back to finish their studies.

UNICEF, in co-operation with other organizations, provided the children with temporary school tents, stationery and books. It was exhausting but hugely rewarding to know that I was helping to ensure these young people an education.

In addition to that campaign, I had to mobilize workers for a mass polio immunization drive all over the province. The workload meant that I was out until late most evenings, and this made for problems at home. Hamid was sick and he needed me. I wanted to be with him, but I also wanted to be doing this essential work for my country. Usually, Hamid was supportive and didn't mind when I worked long hours, but by now he knew he didn't have long left and he resented the time I gave to my job over him. I was completely torn emotionally, which only added to the stress.

Some days I was literally running from one meeting to the next, with no time to eat. I was still wearing my burka, even during the meetings with foreign officials and aid workers. Then one day, the provincial governor suggested I take it off. He said it was okay. These people needed to see my face to communicate with me. After that, I stopped wearing it at work.

It was a hard time, but I learned so much, not least about my own ability to lead and to implement. As I gained the trust of both local people and my international colleagues, more trust and responsibility came my way. I knew I really had found my calling.

In the weeks and months that followed the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan was a country transformed. The air of optimism in Kabul was so potent you could almost taste it. Overnight, hundreds of refugees started returning home. Those who had fled Afghanistan at various points during the last several years—the Soviet era, the brutal, bloody civil war or the harshness of Taliban rule—felt safe enough to return. Afghan investors who had made money overseas came home and started planning new businesses, hotels, banks, even golf courses and ski resorts.

The country was still on its knees economically, of course, and most people were living in truly abject poverty. In all the major cities, basic power supplies like electricity had been destroyed and few people had access to clean water or sanitation. Many of those returning found their homes had been destroyed or taken over by other people. Unemployment was rife and food shortages massive as the country struggled to return to a semblance of normality. It was chaos, but for the first time in a long time the chaos had an air of optimism.

The UN office expanded massively. Funds were coming in thick and fast from all over the world, and the race was on to distribute them where they were needed most.

I needed to spend time with Hamid, so I took a month's leave and went to Kabul. I tried to re-enrol at Kabul University so I could continue the medical studies I had been forced to abandon when the Taliban banned women from higher education. I was told too much time had passed for me to pick up where I had left off. But in reality, I think I was denied the chance because I made the mistake of taking Shuhra with me to the interview. The admissions officer made it clear to me he did not approve of mothers going out to work. I was upset they wouldn't admit me, but I had bigger concerns. Hamid was coughing up blood almost hourly.

I took him to Pakistan again, to the same doctor who had prescribed the five-hundred-dollar-per-month medicine. The doctor gave us the devastating news that because Hamid hadn't been taking the medication continuously, his tuberculosis had become too advanced for the medication to be effective. The condition was now so serious that the doctor said he could do nothing. He advised that we try a hospital in Iran that was experimenting with a new technique. I gave Hamid the money, and he went alone while I returned to Faizabad and my job. Hamid stayed in the Iranian hospital for four months. Our contact was limited to a few phone calls, but when we spoke he sounded upbeat and said he was feeling better.

Back in Faizabad, things were changing at the government level. For women, the future was looking brighter than it had been in years. Hamid Karzai had been declared interim president until formal elections could be held. Human rights activists who had been persecuted under the Taliban were now working openly to create a better society. But of course Badakhshan was no longer the seat of government, and the central power base had moved back to Kabul. Suddenly, I felt isolated and provincial. I wanted to be part of the action. So I applied for and got a job as a UNICEF women and child protection officer based in the capital city. Fortunately, UNICEF provided a daycare, so I was able to take the girls with me.

Normally, a man would take responsibility for arranging a family move to a new city. By now Hamid had come home, but he was too sick to go outside. Somehow, I had to find the time to move to Kabul with a sick husband and two little children. One of my brother Jamalshah's two wives and her children were also going to come and live with me. I took the afternoon off work and went to the bazaar to try to arrange a truck to drive all our possessions and furniture to Kabul. The drivers looked at me strangely. “Sister, where is your husband?” they asked. “Why don't you have a man to do this for you?” I snapped at them angrily, “Brothers, do you think a woman can't do the simple task of renting a car? Why do you always think women are useless?”

Once in Kabul, we settled back in Hamid's old apartment in Makrorian. It was now 2003. My job was busy, and I thrived on it. I became the representative for gender issues in the UN staff association and was expected to travel the country overseeing gender-related projects. I recall one trip to Kandahar, a city that had been the spiritual heartland of the Taliban. When I arrived, the community leaders I was working with barely spoke to me. These were deeply conservative men who had been Taliban supporters. In a few short months, they'd gone from Taliban rule to what they now saw as the indignity of a woman turning up to tell them what to do. Gradually, I won them over and after a few days we were all co-operating as if we'd always worked together. Even today, I stay in touch with some of them, and they visit me when they come to Kabul. I truly believe that people change their opinions only from first-hand experience. Opinions on gender can and do change, even among the most conservative of men.

When Hamid came back from Iran, initially I was thrilled by how much he seemed to have improved. But within a few weeks, he was back to square one, unable to walk more than a few metres without coughing up thick globules of blood. It was heartbreaking to see. The disease is transmissible, and Hamid was terrified for our daughters; whenever he started to cough, he would put his handkerchief over his mouth and order the girls to leave the room. Our apartment was on the fifth floor, which meant that he was housebound because walking up and down the stairs was too difficult for him. We had long since ceased being able to have any physical intimacy, but he was still a good husband as far as his health allowed. The illness had not destroyed his mind, and he had great problem-solving capacities. Whenever I had a bad day at work or couldn't figure out how we were going to implement a new project, he would always be on hand with advice or a sympathetic ear. Even then he was my rock.

After a few weeks, he needed a checkup so we flew to the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, one of the region's most modern hospitals. He was too weak to walk, and I had to push him through the ward in a wheelchair. He was so thin and grey-haired by now that one of the nurses assumed he was my father. We stayed overnight in the hospital. I slept by his side just as I had done with my mother in the days before she died. The following morning, the doctor gave us the news. It was too late. His lungs were now more like leathery shoe soles than essential organs. His medicine was so strong that the side effects made his whole body sick and he felt very nauseous. He said he wanted to stop taking it.

It was summer, and the sun seemed to perk him up. Now that the medicine wasn't destroying his appetite by making him vomit, his hunger returned. He started to eat proper meals again, and the colour returned to his cheeks. I had a week's leave from UNICEF and wanted to spend every moment of it with him. It was Wednesday, and I had decided to prepare a chicken broth for him. He hadn't slept well the night before and was tired. I was trying to get him to eat the soup, but he barely had strength to lift the spoon. That evening both my sister and his sister came to visit.