Open Skies

by Niloofar Rahmani

  * * *

  Of the many stories my father told me over the years, there was one in particular that I believe had a tremendous impact on him and that served as preparation for overcoming the great hardships he would face later in life.

  For my father’s eleventh birthday, my grandfather surprised him with a cross-country trip to Mazar-e-Sharif in northwest Afghanistan, which is roughly 264 miles from Kabul. While not that far by today’s standards, it was a multiday journey in 1970s Afghanistan, on a crowded bus along dirt roads—there were no interstate highways—up perilous hills, and across vast plains. It would no doubt be an arduous trip, but also an adventure.

  When my grandfather told my father about the trip and that it would be just the two of them, my father was overjoyed. Not only would he have a special time and experience with his father—a man he loved and admired—but he would also get to see more of his beloved country. He’d heard about the provinces outside of Kabul, seen foreigners coming from as far away as Europe and America, and gazed at pictures of cities like New York and Islamabad, but he himself had never ventured beyond the city limits. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, he thought.

  When the day finally came, father and son climbed aboard a diesel-belching bus and sat crammed among roughly forty other passengers. The occupants quickly opened the windows to allow in a breeze, hoping the stifling air inside, which was filled with the smells of sweaty bodies, animals, and other unwelcome odors, would dissipate.

  My father wore his blue jeans, and my grandfather had on his white dishdasha and black turban. Between them, they carried a small bag with a change of clothes and a loaf of bread and two onions to share on the two-and-a-half-day trek. It wasn’t much, but their provisions would last if they rationed them smartly.

  When there’s only a limited amount of food, the key is never to eat your fill in one sitting, because the food will be gone and in a few hours you’ll be hungry again. It’s better to eat small amounts throughout the day, and if the trip is unexpectedly extended (perhaps because the bus breaks down), you can stretch the remaining crumbs even further.

  Their route to Mazar-e-Sharif cut across a breathtaking and unforgiving landscape. Kabul is surrounded by mountains, so they first drove the winding roads west out of the city, at times passing through groves of trees and fields, and soon thereafter jostling along rocky paths with sheer drops on one side and walls of rock on the other. As they got farther along, off in the distance they beheld the snowcapped peaks of the Hindu Kush, followed by the expansive western desert that led into Iran. The views were spectacular, my father recalled; the diversity of Afghanistan’s geography was both treacherous and magnificent, and something only nature could create.

  When my father described these things to me, he took my hand in his and told me that he’d held my grandfather’s hand the same way, sitting up against him like I was to him now. At home my father and grandfather worked tirelessly doing backbreaking work, and he wanted to savor these moments with his father’s strong arm around him. As my father held my hand, whether on this day after the playground incident or later in life walking the hills outside Kabul together, I could relate.

  When they finally reached Mazar-e-Sharif, the first place they visited was the Shrine of Hazrat Ali, more commonly known in English as the Blue Mosque. It’s a spectacular site dating back to the fifteenth century, with blue and gold tiles gracing the walls and domes both inside and out. On the vast apron surrounding the ancient structure, there are usually hundreds of white pigeons that you can feed and pet with your hands. Some people believe Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, is buried here, making it an exceptionally sacred site. As a pious Muslim, my father was awed by the beauty and grandeur of this holy place, just as millions of other visitors, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, have been.

  Later that day, my father and grandfather went to stay the night with relatives. It had been decades since my grandfather had seen these members of the extended family, and it was my father’s first introduction to them. He was nervous but also excited to meet the cousins, aunts, and uncles he’d only heard about. He also knew that the tradition of Afghan hospitality was genuine, and the arrival of guests—particularly family, even distant cousins—is an opportunity for the hosts to spare no expense to welcome people into their home, even if they have little food to share and only a floor to sleep on.

  A wave of embraces, kisses, and heartfelt tears welcomed my father and grandfather when they arrived. Everyone jostled to hug and shake hands with the visitors, all of them asking repeatedly how their journey was, for news about relatives and friends in Kabul, how things were in the capital, and more. The greetings went on and on, until finally the women beckoned everyone to come and eat. They all raised their voices in merriment and grasped each other’s arms and shoulders to walk into the next room, where a feast awaited them.

  Having eaten next to nothing over the previous two and a half days, my father wasted no time stuffing himself on a sweet and savory traditional Afghan dish of Kabuli pulao. It’s made with rice, lamb, raisins, carrots, and a host of spices, and is served on a large metal platter. Everyone crowds around to reach in with their right hand to scoop up chunks of meat and rice.

  With each mouthful, my father listened to tales going back generations. The men regaled each other with stories about the early days of Afghan independence, the years when the British and Russians were vying for dominion across the region, and how our ancestors lived during the era of the great Central Asian empires. My father knew family was important, but this night he saw how far those roots extended and how rich our family was in culture and Afghanistan’s legacy.

  The night finally came to a close when the neighbors returned to their own homes, the hosts retired to their rooms, and my father curled up on a mat in the corner of the main room and closed his eyes.

  My grandfather woke my father early the next morning, before the sun was up, and asked him if he knew why they had traveled all this way. After he wiped the sleep from his eyes, my father thought for a moment and realized he didn’t know why, nor had he thought to ask.

  My grandfather had one more surprise for his son—the experience of buzkashi.

  Buzkashi is a centuries-old sport of the Afghan people that was brought to this region by the Mongols of days past. It involves hundreds of horsemen on a massive field—whipping their horses and slamming into one another—as they do battle to carry or drag a headless animal carcass (usually a calf) to the scoring circle at one side of the field or the other.

  Many riders get thrown off their mounts, and some of the unlucky ones get trampled. It’s not uncommon for one or two men to die from their injuries. The spectators who stand too close to the field are sure to get peppered with rocks and dirt as the horses gallop past, and it’s their fault if they get in the way of a charging horse.

  It’s a rough and violent competition, but it’s an exciting staple of traditional Afghan culture, and my father loved it. He cheered and jumped with the rest of the crowd, watching Afghanistan’s hardy men clash on the field. For a few hours, my father forgot about the daily hardships that he and his family endured, and reveled in being a proud Afghan in a strong nation with a vibrant culture and promising future.

  My father didn’t want the trip to end, and as he retold this tale to me, I didn’t want the story to end either. The natural spectacles, the sights and sounds, the journey, the people, the comfort he felt with his father—all these things not only brought joy to my Baba Jan but also helped mold his view of life.

  Seeing for the first time other Afghan peoples like the Kuchi—an ethnic group that migrates seasonally across the region—my father felt so lucky to have a loving family, a place to work, a place to eat and sleep, and a place to laugh. This trip and these moments helped my father see what he wanted for himself, what sort of man he wanted to be, and what he wanted for his own family. He knew how to persevere and he knew how to survive, and he’d
seen firsthand the greatness of his homeland.

  Unfortunately, my father had no idea about the tragedy that would befall Afghanistan a few years later—no one did—but I have no doubt this experience helped prepare him to lead his future family through some of Afghanistan’s darkest days.

  For my father, all that began on December 24, 1979, when the Soviets invaded.

  2

  The Soviets

  In late December 1979, CBS News aired footage of Russian tanks, troop carriers, and formations of fighter jets and helicopter gunships streaming into Afghanistan. The images of the Russians, in brown and olive-drab uniforms topped with steel helmets or fur hats, set against the backdrop of the barren hills and snowcapped peaks, seemed to show a cold and harsh faceless horde flowing across the border. It was a lonely, barren, and merciless scene, where men, women, children, soldiers, and rebels would violently clash. Even now, as an Afghan and a survivor of the Taliban regime, remembering these pictures gives me a chill.

  This move by Moscow was supposedly in response to the growing unrest against the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a Communist regime that had come to power in a military coup the year before. According to statements by the Kremlin, Soviet troops had been deployed to Afghanistan to quell the turmoil brewing in the countryside, where rebels, warlords, and religious fanatics were opposing the Soviets’ reforms and modernizations, many of which were deemed anti-Islamic.

  Moscow called its involvement an intervention. The West put it more plainly, calling it what it was—an invasion.

  For my father, who was just fourteen at the time, the diplomatic back-and-forth between the Soviets and the West, and the countless debates occurring in national security and academic circles about how to describe what was happening to Afghanistan, meant nothing. He, along with the rest of the Afghan people, had to deal with these life-shattering changes merely to survive from one day to the next.

  Once my father felt I was mature enough to hear the truth about what he went through during those dark days, I was surprised to learn how slowly everything had happened. Within hours of the first tanks and planes crossing the border, Russian units moved quickly into the capital’s streets. But the change on the ground, from an era of prosperity to what would become a horrific spiral into bloody chaos, took time.

  When I think of the word invasion, my thoughts naturally turn to my own experiences when the United States and NATO came to Afghanistan in 2001. It was sudden and clear to all Afghans what lay ahead of us. The US-led coalition had come by force to hunt down Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and to topple the Taliban regime, and the transformation of the country from relative peace to that of violent war was practically instantaneous. The entire American war machine had mobilized—aircraft, rockets, missiles, tanks, infantry—and it hit the enemy with a shock that rattled the world. There was no question about what was happening, even if the outcome was unclear.

  In 1979, however, reactions were mixed. My father told me that on December 24 he remembered looking up to see Russian aircraft circling overhead. At first, people on the ground didn’t know whose planes they were. Afghanistan had an air force that was fully equipped and trained by the Soviets, but these jets in the sky seemed faster and the pilots more skilled. There were also Mi-24 helicopter gunships, which were new to Afghanistan, and there was gunfire. It hadn’t reached the city yet, but the rattle of heavy machine guns and the deep booms from artillery could be heard in the distance.

  I thought he would have been scared, but my father was more in awe at the strength of the great superpower, Russia. He used to lie in the backyard of his parents’ home and watch the planes screech across the sky. The power and speed of these aircraft amazed him, and he told himself that one day he would be a pilot up there, soaring above his beautiful Afghanistan. He wanted to feel it—the tonnage of a huge machine, the controls in his hands, and the sensation of flying over the highest mountains while looking down upon the earth.

  In the coming months, my father became increasingly enamored with the idea of becoming a pilot. He’d learned to fly kites from his father, and he became the best flyer in the neighborhood. Every Friday, my father and his friend Zolmai would buy a kite. They would go to the neighborhood lot with the rest of the boys and compete in the skies, making their kites dive, veer, and cut. My father imagined chasing the Russian planes with his kite, dreaming that soon it’d be him strapped into the cockpit, weaving through the clouds.

  Unfortunately, the path for my father to become a pilot was practically impossible. Afghanistan did not have any civilian flight schools, and my father didn’t have the economic means to go abroad. His only option was to try to join the Afghan Air Force to undergo training as a military pilot.

  In 1980, when he was fifteen, my father and Zolmai went to the recruiting office to apply for pilot training, but back then most things were based on personal connections. It’s much the same today. Afghanistan is a collection of tribes and familial groups, and the belief is that you can trust only your own people. Everyone else is suspect, especially in the government where power is concentrated. It all boils down to connections. My father had none, and very quickly he realized that his dream to fly would never come to fruition.

  When he told me this story I was six, old enough to see the disappointment in his face, even after the passage of nearly twenty years. I saw a man who was smart, hardworking, and willing to sacrifice anything for those around him. He’d already given so much to his family, but he realized that the one thing he wanted for himself would never happen.

  * * *

  After accepting that he’d never fly a plane, my father dove back into his studies at school. He graduated a year early and entered Kabul Polytechnic University, where he earned a degree in civil engineering.

  Given that my father started life going to bed hungry and making bricks in the dead of night to help support the family, this was a tremendous achievement. He’d risen from the role of brickmaker, one of the lowest occupations in Afghan life and now classified by many humanitarian groups as akin to modern-day slavery, and he earned a university degree.

  My grandfather attended the graduation, which was the first graduation he’d ever been to. He hadn’t finished school himself, and he’d never had a reason until then to go watch other people receive a diploma, but he wasn’t going to miss seeing his son receive his. When the ceremony was over and he found my father in the crowd, he reached forward and grasped my father’s hand with both of his. He gripped it steadily while he looked into his son’s eyes and said with a slight quiver in his voice, “You make me so proud.”

  My father said he cried and hugged his father, just like he had years ago on their trip to Mazar-e-Sharif. It was one of the proudest moments of his life.

  My grandfather was illiterate, and he’d worked tirelessly to provide for his family over the years. He’d done the best he could with what he had, and my father was a product of that effort. My father hadn’t wasted his gifts or opportunities, and he became the first in the family to receive a university education.

  When I heard this story, I was still young and felt like I had my entire life ahead of me. Although at the time the Taliban controlled Afghanistan and oppressed women as if they were animals, I told myself that I, too, would do the best with my life, just like my father had. I wanted to make him proud.

  * * *

  Youthful dreams of happiness were short lived in the early years of the Soviet-Afghan War, and in later years there were no dreams or youth at all, only tragedy. The insurgency in Afghanistan had started to simmer in 1978 under the PDPA regime and prior to the arrival of the Russian tanks. But by 1984 battle raged across the country.

  Moscow wasn’t willing to have its soldiers do all the fighting. They’d sent troops to “intervene,” not die on nameless hillsides at the hands of primitive villagers. The puppet Afghan government needed to do its share, raise an army, and send troops to the field. My father was one of the thousands of young
men conscripted and sent to the front.

  I think the method of his conscription is indicative of the hardship imposed on my country by the Russians. My father was on his way home from work when he, along with thousands of other teenage boys and young men in Kabul, was taken off the street and pressed into service. The operation was brutal, swift, and total. Kabul’s young men were rounded up and forced into trucks at gunpoint and driven away. They were all gone within hours. Many would never return, and countless others would be forever scarred both physically and psychologically.

  The families of the conscripted boys and men had no idea what had happened. Their loved ones had simply vanished; no one had been allowed to return home to tell their families of their fate. The fear felt by these mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters must have been unimaginable. A dear family member ripped from his life without warning or reason, just gone. The ache felt in so many hearts, including those of my grandparents, had to have been unbearable—a void in the soul.

  In the coming weeks, news spread about what happened. The PDPA had conscripted thousands of Afghan men and boys from around the country into the army to support the fight against the various rebel groups. I won’t analyze the geopolitical situation, except to say that Afghanistan was now split unto multiple factions and embroiled in a brutal civil war. There were multiple sides: the Soviets; the various warlords and their insurgent fighters; the mujahideen from across the border, being aided by Pakistan; and the United States, picking and choosing whom to finance and provide training and weaponry to.

  The Afghan people were being slaughtered, and the country was being torn to pieces. The Paris of Central Asia had been wiped from the face of the earth.