by Dayna Curry
Of more concern to me was coming up with a suitable place to meet Aly and give him the copies. I decided our gate would suffice, and when he asked me for the copies, I told Aly to come to Wazir.
Aly showed up at our gate with two strange boys. I had seen the boys at the street kids project, but I did not know them. I did not know their intentions—perhaps they spied for the Taliban. With street kids you never knew. Whatever the case, I chose not to give Aly the package in their company.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t give the package to you now.”
Aly became very upset. “Why can’t you give it to me? Why don’t you want to give it to me now? I want it now.”
“I am sorry,” I said again. “I can’t do that.”
Then Aly did something out of character. His brother was coming toward him on a bicycle, and Aly turned around and whacked his brother across the face. It was a fierce expression of anger. Heather saw it, too, and we were both amazed. All we knew of Aly was that he was a gentle boy. We had not seen this side of him.
“Come on,” Aly said, turning to his friends. “Let’s go.”
Early the next week, we invited three of the Aamir girls—Marghalai, Soofia, and another relative—into our home for tea. “Will you please come to our house now?” the girls implored. They said the new house in their compound would be ready at the end of the week and told us their family was anxious for us to come.
That same week, three people from our church in Waco—two men and a young woman—arrived in Kabul for a short visit. Some Shelter Germany staff members had guests in for the week as well. Heather had just hit the halfway point in her language training and was taking the following two weeks off. I planned to drive out of Kabul with her on Sunday, August 5, to escort all of the out-of-town guests back to Peshawar.
The woman visitor from Waco stayed the week with Heather and me in Wazir. She shadowed us throughout her visit to get a feel for how we lived, and as usual, all of our days were packed with activities. Friday, our day off, proved to be no exception—we were booked straight through to ten o’clock at night. Our guest from Waco planned to join us for all of our appointments, including our scheduled visit with the Aamir family.
On Thursday night we attended a swing dance party at one of the foreigners’ houses in town. The guys visiting from Waco were excellent dancers, and we had asked them to bring some music with them from the States. We all danced until we were covered in sweat and hardly able to stand—probably one of the better things a person could do the night before going to prison.
We got up the next morning and went to the international church service on the other side of town. On my way out, I ran into a friend, Lillian, who worked for another aid organization. She invited me to come by her house that afternoon to meet an Afghan woman whom we thought we could introduce to another Afghan who we knew was looking for a wife.
I was somewhat overwhelmed by the day’s schedule already, but Lillian stressed the meeting’s urgency, so I agreed to meet at her place in Shar-e-Nao as close to 4:30 as I could. I figured I would have to leave Heather and our Waco guest at the Aamirs’ in Sherpur at around 4:20 to get to Lillian’s on time.
Heather: I do not remember who preached at the international church on Friday, August 3. I do recall a message preached perhaps the Friday before—maybe some weeks before. The international church did not have a steady pastor. People signed up to share messages every week, and others signed up to lead music. Dayna often led songs with her guitar. Peter Bunch, our Australian coworker, presented the memorable message. He spoke about loving your enemies—those who persecute you and those who hate you.
Peter was among the six others arrested a couple of days after Dayna and I were taken.
Another of our friends preached a message that summer about following Jesus where he leads, even if the choice involves pain and suffering. Persecution and even death were concepts we frequently addressed in our community. We read in the Bible about the first followers of Jesus and the religious persecution they faced. We soberly considered that perhaps we, as followers of Jesus, would have the same kind of experiences. I do not believe anyone really expected to encounter serious persecution right away, but you never really believe it until it happens.
After service on August 3, I took our Waco guest with me to the ICRC hospital, where we spent some time with Lida. The nurses continued to urge me about finding Lida a place to live. “We cannot take care of her anymore,” they said. “She needs a place to go.”
We also visited the children’s ward, looking for the little girl with the land mine injury. She was there with her mother. I could not communicate very well with the girl—being a Kuchi, she spoke Pashtu—but I asked her in Dari if she wanted me to sing her a song. Some of the women in the room tried to translate, and the girl smiled in agreement. As I sang her the “God Made the World” song, about thirty women and children gathered around the bed, laughing as I made the hand motions. The singing brightened the atmosphere in the room; joyful singing was not everyday fare in the hospital.
Our Waco guest and I ended up staying at the hospital much later than we had planned. It was always difficult to leave the hospital once I got there; spending time with the women and children was a highlight of my week. Still, we were due at the Aamirs’ house at 2:30, and it was after two o’clock now.
As the taxi neared our house in Wazir, our guest turned to me and said she felt too tired to go with us to Sherpur. She wanted to rest before our Shelter Germany meeting at six o’clock. Typically, I would have tried to encourage her to go to Sherpur anyway—I would have said something like, “Oh, what a great experience it would be to visit an Afghan family. You really don’t want to miss it. You really should go. You will only be here a couple more days.” But for whatever reason, I did not push it. We went into the house, and I freshened up and then left for Sherpur with Dayna.
Dayna: Everything Heather and I tried to do over the next couple of hours seemed difficult. Since Heather was running late, I wondered how we would be able to show the film at all that afternoon. The film ran for roughly two hours, and we would need some time to visit with the Aamir family before our Shelter Germany meeting at six o’clock. Plus, I had to squeeze in a meeting at Lillian’s place in Shar-e-Nao.
Before we left, I discovered that we did not have a CD version of the film to take with us to the family’s house. We tried radioing a friend to see whether she had the CD but could not get through to her. Instead we ended up getting into Abdul’s taxi and going to our friend’s house, stopping on the way to pick up some candy for the Aamirs. When we arrived at our friend’s house, we found her at home and asked her if she had the CD. She did. We took it and went on our way.
When Heather and I got to the Aamirs’ compound, one of the kids came out to meet us at our taxi. “Did you bring the computer?” he asked.
“Yes,” we said.
We walked to the gate, greeted the family, and handed them the candy. The entire extended family was at home—including the men. Children were playing in the courtyard and mothers were washing clothes in big plastic tubs. We visited with them and exchanged details about our recent days’ activities.
Eventually, I went to the grandmother and gave her the two copies of my children’s storybook. I told her one copy was for Aly and one was for the man we recently had met.
“Keep these copies well-hidden,” I said. “It could be very dangerous for you.” She said yes, she would hide them very well.
The family brought us into the new room and we sat down to tea. We were greatly impressed with the construction work, which the men had completed themselves. The room was well built and clean, with several toshaks bordering the walls. The walls were painted pale pink, and the floors were covered with nice red carpets.
“Would you like to see the film?” we asked. “It’s kind of late and we may not have time to finish it. What do you think?”
They were insistent. “Yes, we want to see it. Yes,
please show the film.”
Heather and I set up my laptop, but we could not get the CD to work. I was accustomed to playing DVDs on my computer. Since the film was on a CD, we had to do a few things differently to get the movie to play. At this point, I truly did not believe we would be able to show the film that day, but Heather got the computer working properly after about fifteen minutes.
Once we had the film playing, we realized that the volume was not going to be high enough through my laptop speakers for a room of twenty people. I would have to go back to Wazir to get bigger speakers. Aly offered to ride with me in the taxi. I told him no, but he pleaded, so I brought him along.
On our way back to Sherpur, I noticed that as we passed the Taliban checkpoint, Aly sank down in his seat to avoid being seen, which I thought strange. Aly had never acted fearful of being seen with me before. The Aamir kids roamed around with Heather and me all the time. They normally chased our taxi whenever we left their house. They would grab our hands and walk down the street with us, begging to ride in our taxi.
At one point, Aly motioned to a man riding away from the Aamir compound on a bicycle. “That’s my relative,” he said. It was the man for whom I had copied my storybook. I found it odd that he had not greeted us when we first arrived. And why wasn’t he staying at the house for the film? He had expressed interest in Jesus, and he had asked for my book. Why was he was leaving the scene?
Heather: After Dayna left to go get the speakers, the family continued to watch the film in complete silence. The volume was very low, and they all seemed to be straining to hear, even the children. The atmosphere was markedly different from what it had been the last time I showed the Aamirs the film. This family certainly seems intrigued with the story of the life of Jesus, I thought.
Once Dayna returned with the speakers, it wasn’t twenty minutes before the first CD finished playing and we had to insert the second. We experienced difficulty getting the second CD to play, but after working on the machine, we were able to get the picture to the screen. Dayna left a few minutes later to meet our taxi driver, Abdul, so she could make it to Lillian’s house in Shar-e-Nao in time for her meeting.
Meanwhile, I sipped tea and sat with the Aamir family during the rest of the film. We finished just before six o’clock. I had arranged for Abdul to pick me up at 5:30 so that I could go back to the house in Wazir and pick up our Waco guest before going to the Shelter Germany meeting. I chatted with the family for a few minutes, using some vocabulary sheets I had brought in Dayna’s computer bag.
The grandmother and the men told me they were going to discuss as a family what they had seen and how they wanted to respond. I explained the risk of following Jesus: “It is dangerous for you to follow Jesus. It is dangerous for me as well, but it is more dangerous for you.”
They nodded, apparently understanding what I said.
I packed up my things, hugged and kissed the women, and stepped out into the courtyard.
part two
REFORM SCHOOL
seven
IN TALIBAN HANDS
Dayna: After the Taliban police picked me up in Sherpur, nearly two hours passed before they intercepted Heather on her way back to Wazir for the Shelter Germany meeting. I sat alone in the back seat of a Taliban sedan outside of what I presumed to be a Vice and Virtue building. An armed Talib stood beside the car. My mind raced. I imagined being interrogated and remembered the whip lying across the lap of the Talib who had gotten into the back seat of my taxi in Sherpur.
I had been whipped before. One afternoon I was walking to a meeting in Wazir with some other foreign women when a white Toyota Corolla station wagon stopped beside us. A man burst out of the vehicle and began whipping us. He cracked me on the back twice.
The children on the street yelled, “They’re foreigners! They’re foreigners!”
One of the foreign women walking with me yelled, too. “We’re foreigners!” But the men did not seem to care.
Stunned, we continued walking briskly toward our destination—another foreign friend’s house—and were met at the door by the foreign men, who had heard the commotion. They stepped outside to talk to the Taliban.
“Don’t you have whips to beat your women?” the Talib who whipped us asked, sneering. “Women are not supposed to be in the bazaar.” We had never heard of such a rule and assumed it was an excuse to attack us.
Sitting alone in the sedan now, I began to wonder whether the Taliban police might torture or beat me during interrogations. Would they ask me to renounce my faith? Would they demand I give them the names of any Afghans who had asked me about Jesus? I tried to prepare myself mentally for any physical abuse I might have to face. I did not know whether I could handle torture, but I prayed God would give me the strength and courage to bear whatever lay ahead.
As I contemplated these difficult questions, I tried to maintain my composure and act as if the arrest were just a big misunderstanding that I expected to be resolved any minute.
At one point, most of the Taliban guards milling around left the scene and headed to the mosque for evening prayer. A single armed Talib was left standing next to my vehicle. After a while I rolled down the window. “Can you take me to a rest room?” I asked.
“Why did you wait until now?” he responded nervously, noting the absence of all the other men.
“Well,” I answered, “because I need to go now.” He reluctantly walked me through the compound past all of the Taliban trucks to a rest room. The guard seemed anxious, as if he thought I might try to escape, which I did consider. But I imagined myself breaking away from the man only to be gunned down as I ran.
When Abdul, our taxi driver, showed up in front of the government building some time later with Heather and a couple of Taliban, I experienced great relief. I wished Heather could have gotten away—especially since she had the film about Jesus in my computer bag. But when I did see her, a lot of tension left my body. I felt less vulnerable with Heather there and thought it less likely the Taliban would commit rape or any other horrible act against us now that we were together.
Some men led Heather over to my vehicle and put her in the back seat with me. A Talib with a large nose got into the front seat and began rifling through Heather’s cloth backpack—they had already taken my computer bag off of her shoulder. The Talib chatted blithely with us as he proceeded to take everything out of Heather’s bag and put it aside for safekeeping. He left her with the bag itself, a pencil case, a calculator (he took the instruction manual), some money, and her office identification.
From me the man collected some computer disks containing e-mail from my family. He pulled out a photograph of me dancing at an Afghan wedding and looked at it with interest. I was a bit embarrassed, but at last he put it back in my purse. He also left my passport. This Talib turned out to be one of our interrogators.
“Will you please call our boss?” we pressed. “He lives in Wazir. He’s at a meeting there right now. Can you take us to our boss, please?” He said he would try to get permission.
Heather turned to me and said, “Well, the worst thing they can do is kill us.”
Some minutes later a station wagon pulled up. Out of the back seat several Taliban dragged a man whose hands were tied behind him.
“Isn’t that a man from the Aamir house?” I asked Heather. It was. The police had captured a sweet man who wore a prosthesis. Heather and I became very concerned. What if they took the whole family? What would happen to the Aamirs? Eventually the guards put the man into the trunk of a green sedan. We were horrified. What would become of this poor man? Our hearts broke for him.
Minutes later a driver got into our car, and we followed the green sedan to another building. We stopped. At this location the guards pulled the Aamir man out of the trunk and took him inside. We never saw him again.
Our car proceeded down the road a bit farther to what looked like a government compound. We parked and several armed men escorted Heather and me through a doorway leading
into a courtyard. We stood there a moment while the men seemed to argue about where to take us next. Then they gestured for a woman to join us.
The men led us through a gate off the courtyard where we confronted a sea of faces behind a barred window. Hundreds of people stood behind the glass. From a distance, I thought the prisoners were women and imagined the men were going to lock us into the packed room. Closer up, I saw the prisoners were boys.
Next the men led us through a curtained-off area, and we approached some stairs leading down to what appeared to be a dank, cement basement. Surely, they won’t send us down there, I thought. To my relief, we were told to walk forward.
We followed the woman who accompanied us through still another gate and entered a dirt courtyard with a tree in the center. Prayer rugs hung over the limbs of the tree, and about thirty girls and young women were chatting in small groups around the yard. All activity came to a standstill when Heather and I walked in.
It was nearly dark. “Khaarijee,” the young women whispered. More tension left my body. I was so relieved to see the women and utterly grateful to be out of the sight of all of those men.
The woman we followed into the courtyard, Mariam, was the female overseer of what we were told was an Islamic school for ladies. Later we discovered the truth: It was a prison. The women did receive Islamic instruction, but they had not ventured into this compound of their own volition. Some were assigned years-long sentences for crimes that included things like working, running away with a beloved to get married, refusing to marry a Talib, and masquerading as a man to get away from an abusive husband.
Behind the courtyard was an Islamic reform school for boys where the Taliban were training 1,500 students.
A few doorways opened onto the women’s rectangular courtyard. On one side, catty-corner to the gate we had just entered, was a small cement staircase leading to a single room. Mariam, a petite, attractive Pashtun woman in her thirties, took us inside.