Prisoners of Hope

by Dayna Curry

  He pushed the teapot over so I could put it between my feet. He offered me his blanket. “It’s extremely cold,” I urged. “You keep it.”

  At six o’clock the intelligence official came to the door. “We’re leaving now. We will take you to a nice room. There you can call your families and your governments.”

  nineteen

  A WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

  Dayna: I got up with Silke the next morning to find a private spot where we could relieve ourselves. We walked some yards from the shipping container, and suddenly armed men seemed to come out of nowhere. They were like cats ready to spring in the event we tried to make a break and escape.

  “Please leave us alone so we can use the bathroom,” I exclaimed. “Please!”

  The men did not back off. We had to use the bathroom right there. We covered each other with chawdurs while armed Taliban paced nearby keeping watch.

  The heavyset intelligence official and the youthful guard stood with our group near the container. These men had traveled somewhere else to sleep for the night, likely to a warm place. They herded us into a different vehicle with the same bench-style seating but no rocket launchers. The intelligence official got into the driver’s seat; a right-hand man climbed in on the passenger’s side. We left the youthful guard and the other weapon-wielding Taliban at the shipping container and headed south on the road toward Kandahar.

  We sang some songs and enjoyed the scenery along the bumpy, unpaved road. Our heads bobbed as we traveled. Open stretches of dusty terrain gave way to awesome, barren mountains. The area was much drier than Kabul’s environs. A cloud of dust hovered over the land. We saw little vegetation and few passersby.

  “Where are we going?” we asked Georg. He had been trying to get more information from the intelligence official.

  “Ghazni,” Georg answered.

  Back in July, Heather desperately had wanted to go on a trip that Peter led to Ghazni. Shelter Germany was working on a water canal project in the area. Heather did not get to go.

  “Well, Heather,” I said, “at least now you get to see Ghazni.”

  Meanwhile, we all were looking forward to washing up. We felt nasty and wiped out. All I wanted to do was brush my teeth, wash my face, and get to a nice room in the city.

  Heather: Down the road a bit, the intelligence official pulled over so a few of us could make a bathroom stop. I never dreamed the man would agree to let us out, but he obliged us and slowed down near a series of short walls. A few mud houses stood nearby. The gardens were dead from months of drought.

  Diana, Ursula, and I ventured off, jumping wall after wall in search of something high enough to protect us from view. I had not walked out in open space since before our arrest in August. I felt both exhilarated and exposed. As we approached the truck on our way back, I noticed several Taliban vehicles parked in various spots along the road. I quickened my pace.

  The day was beautiful. The sky was clear, the air refreshing. We passed through a few villages and finally reached Ghazni at close to ten o’clock. The city sprawled over the hills and rugged terrain. Many of the buildings were concrete. Traffic filled the streets. Taxis were out. Men rode bicycles and wheeled karachis. Dayna noticed that hardly any women were out walking.

  Our vehicle turned right on a narrow street and approached a large dilapidated building on the left. Shards of glass hung from its windows. The concrete façade was cracked. A rusty barbed-wire fence encompassed the walls. The compound looked like a bombed-out military installation. We wondered how many times it had been targeted over the years of war.

  I turned to Dayna: “Please, don’t let this be where they are taking us.”

  “I hope that’s not it,” she agreed.

  To our great relief, we drove past the compound.

  Farther down the road, the intelligence official pulled up to a whitewashed building with a slant roof and a green gate. The windows were broken out, but this building looked better than the one we had just passed. The official got out of the truck and tried the gate. The gate was locked.

  He got back into the van and turned the vehicle around. We must be going to get the keys, I thought hopefully. Instead we headed back in the direction of the military compound. This time we pulled over and stopped in front of the building.

  “Get out,” the intelligence official said. His tone was sharp and forceful.

  Georg got out of the vehicle first and tried to get a sense of what was happening. We heard the boom of explosions. The vehicle shook with every blast. Clouds of dust rose toward the sky. People on the street fled in every direction.

  The official looked skyward. “Oh, no,” he said. “America.”

  Dayna: As soon as we heard the bombs, the heavyset intelligence man told us to stay in the vehicle. Heather refused. She did not want to be in a vehicle while bombs dropped on the city. We all got out.

  The official pointed to the hull of a building. “We are going in there,” he said.

  We followed him to the entrance. On the ground by the door we saw a black machine gun sitting on a tripod. Nearby a young, mustachioed man bent over at what looked like a water tap and cleaned out a bowl. Unlike the Taliban, he wore no beard.

  We entered the building and took a flight of stairs to the second floor. Heather lingered behind.

  “Heather,” Peter called. “Come upstairs. You have to come upstairs.”

  “I don’t want to go upstairs during bombing,” she replied. Then she followed us.

  The stairs put us out on the second floor at the center of a corridor. The floors were cracked and covered in dust. Concrete crumbled from the walls. To the left we could see the street through busted windows that lined one side of the hallway. Opposite the windows were doors to rooms we assumed were prison cells.

  “Is this a prison?” someone asked the heavyset intelligence man.

  He nodded.

  He took us down the hall in the other direction to a set of two connecting rooms situated in the corner of the building. Red carpets covered the floors. Some toshaks lined the walls in the first room, and a metal desk stood in front of the window. In the far room were more toshaks and a desk covered with radio equipment. I put my burlap bag down in this second room and tried to adjust my spirits. The youthful guard had promised us a luxurious place. I had expected at least a private room for the women. I wasn’t sure how long we would be staying here. I did not feel good.

  Georg talked with two or three Taliban guards who were now in charge of us. The intelligence official was gone. The guards wore sober expressions. They said nothing about our being their guests. They seemed irritated.

  I asked for some water so that I could wash up. One guard reluctantly brought me a full bucket. I thanked him profusely and took the water to the bathroom. Diana went with me. Georg, who had already visited the facilities, warned us of the conditions.

  The bathroom was all the way down at the other end of the corridor. We passed the prison cell doors and the row of windows looking out onto the street. At the end of the hall were two doors. One opened into a small room that contained a shower drain. I washed up in this room. In the second room was a hole in the ground filled up with feces. The room was dark.

  Oh, Lord, I thought. I don’t want to be here.

  Our prison conditions had never been great, but at least we had been able to keep our space and ourselves clean. We had been able to maintain control of our lives in that way. Here we had no running water on our floor of the building, and we could not even take care of relieving ourselves in a sanitary way.

  When Diana and I got back to the room, more Taliban had entered and were talking to Georg. One Talib wore a huge white turban. His teeth were rotten. He squinted as if he were looking at Georg with suspicion. The conversation was held in Pashtu, but we learned later what had transpired.

  Georg explained to the man that Shelter Germany had worked in Pakistan and Afghanistan for eighteen years combined. “In your city, Ghazni, we worked on a water
project, giving the citizens the ability to have clean drinking water and water to wash dishes. Men in the villages worked on the project and earned food. We love your country. We love your people.”

  “No,” replied the squinting man. “You are very evil people.” With that, he and the other guards walked out of the room.

  I felt bad that Georg was the one having to deal with the officials and take the heat from them. He looked tired. I went into the far room, stood in a corner, and put lotion and powder on my face, trying to refresh myself.

  Heather: The explosions continued. I looked around trying to figure out where on the upper floor of this building I could go and feel safe. I wanted to get away from the windows in our rooms. Broken windows also lined the hallway. Since our rooms were located in the corner of the building, I crouched against the wall outside of our door. Even so, nearby were a desk and some cleaning implements—loose items that would go flying across the hall if a bomb were to drop in the vicinity of the building. I sat in the hallway and cried. There was nowhere to go. I just wanted to feel safe.

  The Taliban guards were going in and out of our rooms talking to Georg. One spoke to me in Pashtu and motioned for me to go inside with the others.

  “No. I am not going in the room. I’m sorry.”

  “Heather, please come in the room,” Georg pleaded. “It will be better if you come inside.”

  I did not mean to be disrespectful of my leader. I wasn’t trying to be a thorn in the Taliban’s side. I simply could not handle being in the room near the windows. I sat still and did not speak. Georg sighed.

  Some time later, a guard brought in a metal tea tray and bread. The others began to prepare for breakfast and our morning worship meeting. I scooted over to the door and participated from the hallway.

  Dayna: The guards brought in two big thermoses of tea, some bread, and some sugar. Ghazni bread was thinner than Kabul bread, and each piece was about the size of a pizza. I gave up trying to put on makeup and took out the cheese we had packed the previous evening when Najib told us we were moving to the night prison.

  We ate, drank tea, and then began our worship meeting, the first meeting we ever had together with the men. “We sure are in a safe place,” I noted sarcastically, eyeing the windows. We started to sing.

  “We should pray for Heather,” someone suggested. We prayed for her peace. Ursula felt ill, so we also prayed for her.

  Suddenly, rounds of loud shooting broke out. I moved to the window. Taliban were running from our compound toward the center of the city. Heather came into the room and stood next to me.

  Heather: “Have the Northern Alliance entered the city?” I wondered. “How did they get here from Kabul so fast?” I assumed the fleeing Taliban were moving to the front lines. I got underneath the metal desk in front of the window and prayed. A blanket draped the desk. At least it afforded some protection should glass shards start flying.

  Dayna: Georg tried to keep us focused on prayer. Minutes later the shooting stopped. Complete silence followed. We continued to pray.

  I noticed that Heather had gotten out from under the desk. She walked across the room to our bags and began to take things out of our suitcase. She was transferring papers and important items to her burlap bag. I needed to do the same. My letters and papers were in the suitcase’s side pocket. I need to get them, I kept thinking. But I did not want to interrupt the meeting. I decided to wait.

  Heather: I knew anything could happen at any minute. I secured my letters and journals in my burlap bag and got back underneath the desk. We all kept praying.

  Several minutes later, a violent banging sound reverberated in the corridor. Someone was pounding with tremendous force on the front door of the prison. Our meeting stopped. No one said a word.

  This is it, I thought. The Taliban are angry, and they are coming back to kill us. I swallowed hard, trying to gain my composure. I lay underneath the desk and prayed: “Jesus, help me to die gracefully. Help me to die honoring you. Let your name be the last word that crosses my lips.”

  Dayna: The pounding noise was overwhelming and unusual. Someone was obviously trying to get to us. We stood there in the room waiting to see what would happen next.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Seconds later, our door flung open. A scruffy, beardless man in ragtag clothing burst through the entrance. Rounds of ammunition were wrapped around his chest. In one hand he carried a rifle; in the other, what looked like a rocket launcher. His eyes were wide open; his hair was wild and coated in dust. He was panting and looked astonished to see us, a group of foreigners, there in the room at the Ghazni prison.

  “Hello,” he blurted out in English. That was the only English word he knew. Farsi came next.

  “Aaazaad! Aaazaad!” You’re free! You’re free! “Taliban raft.” The Taliban have left.

  “Rasti?” Kati and I asked. Really?

  He assured us it was true. “Raft, raft,” he said. They fled, they fled.

  Only Kati, Heather, and I knew Dari well enough to understand him. We translated for the others. “He says the Taliban have left and that we are free!”

  For a second no one moved. Then we hugged each other. Some other armed men entered the room. Georg spoke with them.

  “Come with us. Come with us quickly,” the men urged.

  Heather: “Are we really free?” I cried aloud in English. I got up and went to the wild-looking man. “Is it true? Am I going to get to see my family today?” We had been lied to for so long, I was not sure whether I could believe this man’s pronouncement. For more than a hundred days I had dreamed of hearing the words “You’re free!” It seemed too good to be true. The man looked confused. He did not understand my English.

  Unkempt men armed with rocket launchers moved in and out of our room. One man grabbed our suitcase. I thought he was trying to help me. Everyone moved out and flooded the stairwell. I picked up my burlap bag and pillow and ran. Men were coming up the stairs. No one was in charge. The whole place erupted in pandemonium.

  “Come on! Come on!” Georg shouted. “Where’s Dayna? Where’s Silke? There’s no time to mess around! We have to go!”

  Most of us ran out of the prison with a group of men. We passed the heavy weaponry sitting by the front door.

  “Come on, we are moving you somewhere!” hollered the men. “You’re free! You’re free!”

  Gunfire broke out seconds later. “Turn back! Turn back!” shouted the men at the front of the pack. We turned around and made a bee-line for the door of the prison.

  Inside, a young, blue-eyed, olive-skinned man stood shaking. He looked like a puppy that had just been beaten. His clothes were wrinkled and filthy; his eyes were alert with fear. We learned that he was the one other prisoner in the building when the men broke down the door. He came from Iran.

  Dayna: Up in the room, I couldn’t find one of my plastic sandals. Silke and an armed man were tearing up the room looking for it; the man also searched for things he could take. Georg shouted to us from the bottom of the stairwell. “Come on!”

  “We have to go,” Silke said.

  I left the room frustrated but resigned, thinking I would run for my life wearing one shoe.

  “There’s no time to mess around,” Georg yelled. “We have to go!” Silke later explained to him about the shoe.

  A crowd that had started across the prison yard turned back. “There’s still shooting in the city,” someone said.

  We were all shuffled into a room on the lower floor of the prison. Men came and went. Teenage boys and young men with pistols, automatic weapons, and rocket launchers packed the room. The men argued among themselves about what to do. Their eyes were dilated and they seemed wired. We wondered if many were high. No one was in charge.

  One young guy paced the room, flipping his long, henna-streaked hair and drawing on a cigarette. At one point, a three-foot-tall bearded midget strapped with ammunition and carrying a gun walked by.

  The Iranian prisoner sat down near u
s. He was the man I had seen at the water tap when we first arrived with the heavyset intelligence official. The Iranian was shaking now. Georg tried to calm him. One of the armed men said, “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. You’re a brother.”

  If I could just get my hands on the suitcase, I thought, I could grab my extra pair of sandals. I turned to one of the fighters. “Have you seen a suitcase?”

  The man left and came back with it. When I opened the suitcase, I saw that someone had rifled through our belongings. Our clothes were covered with dust; they had obviously been dumped out on the floor. As I searched through the contents, my heart sank. All of my papers were gone—my letters from family and friends, one of my journals, my wart picture and birthday card. Our large jar of Nestlé’s coffee also was missing. I dug around, looking for my sandals.

  Others seemed irritated that I was looking through the suitcase at such a tense moment. “Is she looking for socks?” someone muttered.

  I took out my shoes and sat quietly, grieving over my letters. At least I still had one of my journals. I kept it in my burlap bag.

  Heather: “You can leave now,” a dust-covered man announced after forty-five minutes. “It is safe to go.”

  We got up and followed the train of fighters. The Iranian came with us. He carried our suitcase. I held on to my burlap bag and pillow. I did not want to lose them.

  Several yards in front of the prison we heard more gunfire. We kept walking. The gunfire stopped. We turned onto a street, and a man with a weapon came out from behind a stone wall. To our relief, he greeted us. We waved. Someone mentioned a professional man in the city who spoke English. The men would try to take us to him.

  We traversed the streets very quickly—all of us except for Peter. In his fashion, he took his time. Vacant buildings lined the streets. No one was out. We passed a six-foot-high sandbag wall. I scanned the scene. Everyone was nervous. We were open targets. A pack of kids charged across the street as momentary gunfire broke out.