Prisoners of Hope

by Dayna Curry

  “Jesus, protect us,” I prayed.

  Eventually, we wended our way into the bazaar area and saw people emerging from their houses. Women stood uncovered in the doorways. Children came out to the street. Men, still holding their weapons, shouted, “The Taliban just left! We’re free! We’re free!” Drivers in cars honked their horns. We began to hear music playing. People clapped, waved, and laughed. We waved back at the women showing their faces. We acknowledged the men—something we could never do under the Taliban.

  As I walked down the road, I felt as if we were participants in a parade. The sky was perfectly blue, and a strong breeze swept through the city. I looked around with awe at the scene and wondered if I was seeing the first generation of children in a new Afghanistan to grow up free from the atrocities of war. My heart was moved. We were marching through history. Walking through Ghazni was like walking in a world turned upside down.

  Dayna: One of the men next to me gestured toward the eight of us and proclaimed to the crowd: “They were held by the Taliban! We set them free!”

  “Tabreek!” people shouted. Congratulations!

  “Congratulations to you!” we cried.

  Women smiled and greeted us from their doorways. Young teenage boys tried to practice their English. “Where are you from? What happened? We are so happy for you!” The atmosphere was light. The sense of restriction imposed by the Taliban had vanished. Fear had lessened. Though the city was still unstable, people were free—at least for a time—to rejoice and celebrate.

  I turned to Heather: “I feel like we’re in the middle of a movie.”

  “God is good,” she said.

  Yes, I thought. God was so good to let us participate in this moment. We were getting to be a part of what we longed to see—a new day for Afghanistan, a new day for the Afghan people. If we had been given our own way, we would have been released from prison much sooner, but we would have missed this incredible experience. We were living out the very thing for which we had prayed. We were in the middle of it all.

  Heather: Somewhere on the journey the professional man we were supposed to meet connected with us. His name was Qasim. He spoke some English. “Come with me. I will take you to a place where you can rest.”

  We walked for more than half an hour. We passed through the bazaar, through a nice residential area with whitewashed houses and colored gates, and, finally, into another market area of the city. All of the shops were closed. Again we were reminded that the city was still very insecure. We walked through the streets believing we would not be harmed, but we did not know this city or its people.

  Qasim led us into his office on the upper floor of a strip of shops. Within seconds the office was packed with people, mainly fighters. Teenage boys who wanted to practice their English entered. Qasim greeted his friends and, in Afghan fashion, kissed them on the cheeks. Qasim gave the man from Iran some money and dismissed him. We never learned where the Iranian went.

  The office was posh. Against the wall in one room stood a cabinet containing cups and teapots. There were several tables and a sturdy wooden desk. Pictures hung on the walls. One poster depicting war in Afghanistan looked like an ad for a Rambo movie. We sat on plush red couches. I had not seen such a fine room during my entire tenure in the country. The teenage boys plopped down right next to us, skin to skin. Their behavior startled me. Under the Taliban, such behavior would have yielded serious consequences; but, apparently, we were among free spirits in our motley crew.

  One commander proclaimed, “I love Massoud. I am with Massoud.” Others echoed his enthusiasm. Eventually, we learned that these men were not officially Northern Alliance fighters. Many loved the Northern Alliance, but they had assembled as a local force to fight the Taliban in Ghazni. We entered the city less than an hour before the local uprising commenced and at roughly the same time two hundred Al-Qaeda fighters were leaving the city, Georg later learned.

  “What about our sixteen Afghan brothers from your organization?” one man asked. The commander who loved Massoud informed us that the sixteen had been released. “The first thing the Northern Alliance did in Kabul was free all the prisoners,” the commander explained. We hoped he was right. We had prayed daily that our Afghan coworkers would be released before us.

  Our host served us a traditional meal of Kabuli palau and french fries. I could hardly eat because of the intensity of the events; adrenaline still raced through my veins. But the food tasted so good.

  Meanwhile, Georg was working with Qasim and others trying to locate a phone to contact our embassies in Islamabad. In the end, no working phone could be found. Qasim said he would take us to a comfortable house where we could wait and rest.

  Dayna: While the others were sitting in the office, some young boys led Ursula and me to a private house across the street to find a toilet. Crossing the street, I noticed two men walking by. They wore dark turbans and thick black eyeliner. I thought they were Taliban. I gasped. The street was full of people. No one seemed to think anything unusual about the two men. But their presence frightened me.

  The young boys took Ursula and me up a flight of stairs to an elevated room with a diamond-shaped hole in the floor. Clods of dirt in the corner were the only available substitute for toilet paper, but Ursula handed me some pages she had torn from an old book. In the yard we encountered some children and two Hazara women. “How are you? Are you happy?” they asked. “Oh, yes,” we replied. “We are very happy.”

  When we returned to Qasim’s office, we freshened up and got our things together. I pulled out my makeup bag, sat on the floor, and turned my back to all the men in the room. Then I set a little mirror on the red couch where I was sitting and applied face powder, eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick—the works. Ursula and Heather followed my lead. I felt much better.

  Before we left, I approached the commander and asked whether he could try to locate my missing letters. Surely, one of his men must have them. He laughed. “Oh, the papers are not important.”

  I told him the papers were important to me, and he said he would ask around and look for them. I doubted my letters would turn up, but at least I could ask.

  Qasim brought a van around to the front of the building, and we got in. There were curtains on the windows. “Close the curtains,” Qasim insisted. “We do not want anyone to see you.”

  The curtains did us no good. A mob of more than a hundred people surrounded the van as we prepared to drive away. People beat on the hood and banged at the windows. We felt like rock stars making a getaway after a concert.

  twenty

  MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP

  Heather & Dayna: Qasim drove us out of the city to a compound of houses belonging to one of his friends. Up until that afternoon, we understood, the friend had been a Talib of rank. Once the uprising started, the friend quickly decided to become an ex-Talib.

  Driving into the ex-Talib’s home compound was, by Afghan standards, like entering a palace gate. We drove through two large blue steel doors into a large courtyard, which opened onto a second, even more spacious courtyard area. Two homes abutted the first courtyard; three homes adjoined the second. The homes were two-story mud houses; white iron guardrails protected the balcony areas. Each courtyard had its own well and trees. Children, chickens, and cats roamed freely.

  Our host welcomed us into the first house in the first courtyard. Everything looked brand new—furniture, pillows, carpets. The walls were freshly painted lime green and sky blue. As soon as we set our things down in the hospitality room, a horde of Afghan men trooped in behind us. We women were exhausted and asked to be moved to the women’s quarters.

  In the women’s room we met two of the three ex-Talib’s wives. One woman held an infant. The women served us tea and sweets. A Hazara woman, a servant in the compound, joined us. The women told us that they had only just returned to the house after spending the night at a safe house in the mountains to escape heavy bombing around the city. Many of their female relatives were still hidi
ng out and planned to return that afternoon. Taliban fighters had turned against one another, the women explained, and could not hold a united front against the local uprising.

  While we rested, Georg continued to meet for hours with various Afghan men of note who came and went during the afternoon. The men turned on a radio, trying to discover whether news sources had reported our removal from Kabul. We hoped our parents knew. Georg planned to go to the ICRC office in town to communicate with the Red Cross in Pakistan early the following morning. There was talk we might get out of the country in two or three days.

  Dayna: I asked the Afghan ladies if I could take a bath. They told me to gather my things and then brought me to the mother of the ex-Talib; she oversaw the work of the household. The mother led me to a closet-size concrete room that adjoined a simple but colorful living room. She set up a pitcher and brought me a bucket of hot water from the courtyard with a cup to use for pouring water over my head. She had heated the water in a large metal canister using hot coals from the fire.

  After my bath, I asked the mother if I could borrow soap to wash some clothes. She wouldn’t think of it. “I will wash your clothes,” she insisted. “No, I will do it,” I said. “No, I will do it,” the mother pressed, and I relented. Later, I saw a young Hazara girl washing my clothes. I was brokenhearted. “Let me help you,” I offered. But she wouldn’t let me.

  Heather & Dayna: Late in the afternoon our host, the ex-Talib, moved everyone into another one of the mud houses. He ordered a room to be set up for us so that we could rest. Lace curtains draped the bay windows. The walls were painted lime green. A thick Persian rug covered the floor. In the corner of the room were toshaks, pillows, and fleece blankets stacked nearly to the ceiling. The room was set up for all of us—men and women. Though we were uneasy with the coed arrangements, we tried to take our rest.

  An Afghan man in his twenties came into the room frequently to talk with Peter. He wore a Western-style sports jacket.

  Dayna: I helped Peter with translation. The other women encouraged me not to engage the Afghan. “Do not talk to him,” they advised.

  Later the Afghan asked me for my address in America.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t give my information to men.” In the end, he turned out to be a very nice man.

  Heather & Dayna: At dinner, the ex-Talib sent Peter and Georg to eat with the men. He—the ex-Talib—and Qasim ate with us. We had never eaten a meal alone with Afghan men and felt very uncomfortable with the setup.

  “Georg, please do not leave us here,” Silke said. Georg insisted that he had to go with the men. He had to build relationships to help us get out of the country. His face looked strained.

  One of the ex-Talib’s young sons did most of the serving while we stayed at the compound. The proud father told us that his son had attended the Kabul madrassa adjoining our reform school prison.

  “My son often misbehaved and did not have enough responsibility here at home,” the ex-Talib explained. “At school he learned discipline and hard work.” His son lived at the madrassa during the time we were imprisoned in the reform school compound with Mariam and the Afghan women.

  Heather: “Were you beaten?” I asked the boy. “Yes, every day,” he said. “I am sorry you were treated badly,” I replied. It broke my heart that he had been abused.

  Heather & Dayna: At the end of the evening, we stressed to the Afghans that we did not want to sleep in the same room with Georg and Peter.

  They seemed surprised. “You do not want to sleep with the others?” they asked.

  “Oh, no,” we said strongly. “We prefer to sleep alone.” We gathered that the family was trying to let us live by what they assumed were Western standards.

  Dayna: Before bed, the six of us spent time thanking God for the amazing way he had freed us from prison. I cried over the loss of my letters and papers and other belongings. I did feel silly crying over the loss of material things when there was so much for which to be joyful. We had our lives. But I needed to express my sadness so that I could move on and rejoice over our freedom.

  Heather: God had worked an incredible miracle. I was overjoyed. Nevertheless, I did not feel totally free yet. Though I celebrated and thanked God for the marvel of our release from prison, I also knew that much needed to happen in order for us to get out of the country safely. We were out of prison, but we were still behind enemy lines. I would feel completely free when I landed on Pakistani soil.

  Heather & Dayna: We slept comfortably and deeply in luxurious bed linens, a marked contrast from our previous night in the ice-cold shipping container. A few bombs exploded in the distance, but otherwise the night at the compound was peaceful. When we awoke, Georg had already gone to the ICRC office. The ex-Talib’s son came to the door early to serve us breakfast. He and his father joined us for fried bread and black tea.

  Dayna: Georg returned briefly in the morning with a local commander and other men of rank. He asked me to put together on the spot a speech in Dari thanking the men for helping us, and expressing our deep gratitude and sincere appreciation for their support.

  Heather: For the moment, Dayna became our ambassador.

  Dayna: Later, we asked if we could borrow a radio. We wanted to continue listening for any reports about our plight. A man brought a radio to us, and when we turned it on the first thing I heard was an interview with my mother. Information had gotten out that we had been taken from Kabul

  “Are you frightened?” an interviewer asked my mom. She sounded casual. “I’m confident the Taliban will take good care of the detainees. The Taliban took good care of them before all of this.”

  I thought, Oh, Mom, you should have been worried this time! Later, I found out that she thought we were with Najib. One of Georg’s contacts, the man who risked his life translating our letters, had gotten out of the intelligence prison before we were taken from Kabul and had sent word to Islamabad of Najib’s contingency plan to take us to his village.

  Heather: We each took some alone time before our morning worship meeting. I went outside to pray and became distracted watching the women. Sitting in the yard, I was afforded a rare glimpse of daily life in an Afghan household. The women were carrying heavy loads between the courtyard and the house. Some were pumping water from the well, while others washed clothes. When else might I have an opportunity to observe Afghan women in such an intimate way?

  “Can I help?” I asked.

  “Oh, no, no,” one of the women said. They would not hear of it. We were their guests.

  I decided to write down some of my observations. I wanted to remember what I saw:

  “Walking through the awlee [courtyard] are 30 chickens (black, white, red) of various sizes and a handful of grey tabby cats.… The young children run around the awlee playing with stones, broken glass, and anything else they can find. The women run back and forth carrying water buckets, chopping wood, hitting [toshaks] w/wood [and] w/a rubber rope and pulley gathering water from the 30 foot well.”

  The mother of the ex-Talib approached me and asked me what I was writing. I explained, and she confided that she wanted to learn how to write English. I wrote out the English alphabet for her, but she was hesitant about taking the piece of paper.

  “This must be secret,” she said. She did not want the Afghan men to know. I passed it to her discreetly.

  Dayna: “What are you doing?” asked a teenage girl and two Hazara women. I was sitting on the steps listening to the CD player.

  “I am listening to music to God. It gives me peace. Would you like to listen?”

  The teenage girl listened for a while.

  I saw the women pulling buckets of water out of the well. I went to them and asked, “Can I try?” It was easy at first, but as the bucket got nearer the top, I could barely pull the rope. The women laughed at me. Then Heather joined us.

  “Ooh, she’s strong,” they said. “She can do it really well.”

  The women then asked me if our aid agency could
give them a pump for their well. They explained that drawing the water was very hard work and took a toll on their hands. I told them I would talk to our boss about it.

  Heather & Dayna: As we started our morning worship meeting, Qasim came into the house.

  “We are moving you,” he said. “Georg wants you to come to a different location. You need to leave with me.”

  We refused. Qasim did not have a note or any proof that Georg wanted us to move. Qasim was offended that we did not trust him. We were wasting time, he said. Nevertheless, we did not want to risk being separated from Georg. We continued with our meeting.

  An hour later, Georg returned and told us that, in fact, we did need to leave. He did not feel safe in the ex-Talib’s house. We learned that the family of the heavyset intelligence official lived nearby. The intelligence official had brought us to Ghazni so that he could visit his family, Georg explained; then the man planned to take us to Kandahar. While we had been sleeping the previous night, armed Afghan men stood watch in our compound, pacing the roofs and guarding against a potential raid. Georg thought we needed to move into town closer to the ICRC office.

  We packed up our things, and Qasim took all of us to the home of one of the ex-Talib’s wives. By now it was lunchtime.

  The wife’s house was a nice, modest home with carpets and toshaks and decoration on the walls. Here, too, we noticed a poster depicting the war in Afghanistan. We were taken to a cozy room, and the men stayed with us awhile. Friends of the ex-Talib came to the house and wanted to take photographs with us. Then the men went off to eat in a separate room.

  Some teenage boys served us pickled eggplant, rice, Afghan meatballs, french fries, and fruit for lunch. Then Georg came in to say goodbye and left with Qasim for the ICRC office. We stayed in our room, and some of us played cards.