Kids of Kabul

by Deborah Ellis

  I don’t know what I want for the future. That’s a long way off! I guess I want good security and a nice life and a good education. But right now, I just want to swing with my friend.

  Parwais, 17

  Because of its location, Afghanistan has been at the crossroads for many armies and civilizations. Coins have been found there from ancient Greece and Persia, artifacts from Mongolia and statues from ancient Buddhist societies.

  The National Museum of Afghanistan used to hold the most complete record of Central Asian history anywhere in the world, dating all the way back to prehistoric times. But it, too, fell victim to the war.

  When the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, Kabul was relatively safe from bombing. A lot of Soviets were stationed there, and they protected the city to protect themselves. When the Soviets left, civil war broke out as the different groups that had been fighting the Soviets turned their guns on each other — each wanted to be the boss of Afghanistan. Bombs started falling on the capital city.

  The museum was bombed in 1993, destroying the top floor and leaving it open to looters, who sold the treasures to private collectors all around the world. Although attempts were made to secure the rest of the collection by bolting the doors and bricking up the windows, the looting continued. Most of the collection disappeared.

  Then, in March 2001, the Taliban decided to destroy many statues and art objects, including the few that had managed to survive in the museum.

  Since the fall of the Taliban, a lot of effort has gone into rebuilding the museum and bringing back as much of the collection as possible. A country’s history — and the things that tell of its history — reminds its people that their present is built on something, and that they are building toward the future.

  Parwais is originally from Bagram, north of Kabul. He now works at the National Museum as a cleaner.

  We left Bagram during the Taliban. They were very hard to the people there, very bad. So much war, guns, shooting, killing. They killed my father. They burned so many houses and shops. I don’t know why they did these things. Just because they could. No one could stop them.

  My older brother took charge of the family after my father was killed. He asked around about where it might be safer and decided to bring us all to Kabul so that we might have some kind of life.

  I have never attended school. No one in my family has. It’s just not something we have had the chance to do. I don’t know if I would want to go or not. I don’t know what it means to go.

  Even though I never went to school, I am still able to have a good job. I work at the Kabul museum. It is my job to clean the floors and the staircases and anything else that has to be cleaned. It is a very good job because it is inside, so even if the weather is bad, I am warm and dry. The work is not hard and the museum is quiet. Some people spend all their time lifting heavy things or carrying things through traffic, and their back hurts and they get dirty and there is always noise. So this is a very good job.

  My cousin had this job before me. When he left it for another job, he suggested that I take over from him. The museum bosses said yes, and now I work hard so they will keep me on.

  The best thing about this job is that I get to look at all the exhibits. We have a lot of very old objects here in this museum. Most got broken or even destroyed in the war. Some things were stolen. Some of the things that were lost were found again but they were broken, and if you look at them closely you can see where they were put back together.

  The displays have cards next to them that explain what they are. I can’t read the cards — that’s one thing I would like to go to school to learn — but the people who work here explain things to me and I hear them talking to each other. I learn from listening, and it is very interesting.

  I didn’t know Afghanistan was so old. I guess I never thought about it until I started working here. Who can spend time thinking about things like that on a regular day? There is too much work to do. But here, I get to think about it all the time. So many people lived here before I did, and their lives were a little bit like mine and they were also different.

  I have two favorite things in this museum. One is a statue of a bird that has an oil burner inside. I like to look at it and think about who made it. Why did he think to do such a thing? What made him think it was a good idea? Did the maker use it himself or did he give it to someone else to use?

  My most favorite thing is a large bowl made out of clay. It is very old and the colors on it are not fancy but I think they are beautiful. When I look at it I imagine it full of food, and a family is sitting around it having a meal together. Maybe the family that used it hundreds of years ago was not very different from my family.

  These are the kinds of things I like to think about when I am doing my cleaning.

  The future of Afghanistan? I hope everyone gets a chance to study. Some of us, like me, did not get that chance, but I think it would be better if everyone went to school. There is a lot I don’t know, and the country will be stronger if it is run and helped by people who know things.

  The future for me? Well, I just hope I can work here at the museum for a long, long time.

  Palwasha, 16

  During the reign of the Taliban, the soccer stadium was a torture chamber. Every Friday they would force spectators into the seats to watch prisoners being punished. People were beaten. They had arms cut off. Some were shot in the back of the head or had their heads cut off. Others were strung up on the gallows. Terrible things happened in that stadium.

  Today it is a place where the Afghan Women’s National Football Team has their offices. Palwasha is a member of that team. Sometimes they practice in the old soccer stadium. Today they are practicing on a field at the headquarters of NATO in Kabul.

  I love football. I play on the national women’s football team and I am also trained as a referee. I play defense. I love to run.

  When I’m not playing football, I’m attending computer science classes at the university.

  I went to Pakistan during the Taliban time. My uncle took me. We were there for many years. I was able to go to school and to play football, so when I came back to Afghanistan I had not lost too much time. My parents stayed back in Afghanistan, so I didn’t see them for years. I missed them terribly, and they missed me. But they wanted me to keep up with my studies, and they knew I loved to play sports. That’s why they sent me away to another country for so long.

  The Taliban were against all things for women and girls. No school, no sports, no music, no jobs. Nothing, like we were not even human. Some of that feeling is still around in Afghanistan. Some people think that girls should not play sports, although the boys I know do not think that. If they did, I don’t think they would dare say so to me!

  It is still hard to be a girl in Afghanistan. The laws are really good, but not everyone pays attention to the law. As girls we cannot just go out for a walk on our own. We cannot do what we want to do the way girls in other countries can. It is not safe. So girls are not free. Some of the girls who play on the team have to argue with their families to let them play — not because their families don’t think girls should play, but they are worried about their safety.

  Practice day for the Afghan Women’s National Football Team.

  Some Afghan people have closed minds. They think women should only do certain jobs, that women should not run around because it is immodest. These are all old ideas. I think they will disappear one day, but it will take some time.

  We are not paid to be on the team, and many of the girls have families with very little money. It is hard for them to afford the transportation to come to practice, especially since a lot of them live far away, across the city.

  We have no regular, safe place to practice. Today we are playing on a field at ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) headquarters. The area is surrounded by tanks and soldiers from Amer
ica and other places. The field isn’t a real football field. It’s rough and hard to run on, and at least once every time we practice, a military helicopter lands on the field.

  Sometimes we have to practice on the men’s basketball court. The men have a regular field to practice on. We would like to have a safe place, too.

  Sometimes we play on the big field at the stadium, the same stadium the Taliban used for all the terrible things they did — the shootings, cutting off people’s hands, the executions and torture. When we play there, when we run fast and play hard and when people — women and men — cheer us on, it is like we are getting some justice for all those women who were hurt. We play for them as much as ourselves.

  We are a very good team and we have been invited to play against other teams in other countries. I have played in Germany, both in Berlin and in Frankfurt. I’ve played in Jordan, in Pakistan and in Bangladesh.

  But there are powerful groups in Afghanistan who are always looking for things to use against us. They are part of the old way of thinking I was telling you about. That thinking will end, but it is still around. So I don’t know if we will make it to Canada or not.

  My hope for Afghanistan is that all girls will be able to play football, basketball, volleyball, track, or whatever other sport they enjoy. We are free when we are playing sports, and girls need to be free.

  My hope for myself is to become the best referee in Afghanistan.

  We have to be brave and strong and stand up for our rights, and not let anyone take us down.

  Noorahu, 16

  Afghanistan is one of the most heavily land-mined countries on Earth. A land mine is a cheap weapon. It can be easily put in the ground, and whoever walks on it will lose a limb or their eyes or their life. Many of the armies that have trampled on Afghanistan since the 1970s have put down land mines. But they didn’t pick them up again. The mines stayed in the ground and kept on killing long after the war was declared over and the armies went home.

  The Afghan Landmine Survivors’ Organization (ALSO) supports victims of land mines through education, rehabilitation and job training. An important aspect of their work is struggling against the stigma faced by people with disabilities. Parents, not knowing what to do, will sometimes neglect their disabled children, and the city is not accessible, so disabled people have a hard time getting around.

  One of the ways ALSO fights against the stigma is to run a community center in a very poor neighborhood that holds classes and brings together students of all ages, with and without disabilities.

  The center is in a small rundown building a short way down an alley off a busy street. It is one room with torn plaster walls, divided up into classrooms by boards and sheets of plastic. The classrooms are crowded with kids sitting on the floor and looking up at chalkboards.

  Noorahu is a student at this center. His legs were damaged by a land mine.

  Some of the children at this center are like me. They have bad legs or no legs or a hand missing or something wrong like that. Other students have everything they are supposed to have. We are all treated the same. When a teacher is talking you can’t tell if they are talking to a disabled kid or a regular kid. So no one feels different.

  This is the first time I’ve gone to classes. It has been too hard to go to school before this. Before this community center opened up, the nearest school was very far away.

  It is hard for me to walk with my legs damaged. I have crutches to help me, but it is still hard and it hurts. There is no money in my family for me to take taxis to school, so I haven’t been able to go to a regular school.

  My father doesn’t work every day. He is a cook, and he helps prepare meals for wedding parties. When there is no wedding, he does not work, so there is very little money in our house. Sometimes when he cooks for a wedding, there is food left over, and the family who has hired him lets him take some food home to us. We eat very well on those nights because my father is a very good cook.

  Outside of this center, people say negative things to me because of my disability. They call me names. They say things that make me feel not good about myself. When there are a lot of younger boys and they make fun of me, it is very hard for me to get away from them. They can run and jump around me and try to knock me down, and when I fall, they just laugh. I can’t get away from them when they come at me because my legs are damaged. My legs won’t move fast.

  It’s not just small children who act bad this way. Sometimes grown men say bad things to me, like I am bad luck and I am moving too slow. Not all adults are like this. Many are kind and they help me up if I fall. But some are not nice.

  In this place, everyone is nice to me. Even kids who are not disabled. They treat me like I am normal.

  Our teacher was hurt by a land mine when she was a child. She was thirteen when it happened. Her family had just finished a meal, and she had to do the dishes. She walked to the back of the house where the dishwashing area was and she stepped on a land mine. Some army had put land mines in her house. She stepped on a land mine, and the next thing she knew she was waking up in the hospital and her leg was gone.

  She is a good teacher. When she teaches us we don’t see that she has a leg missing. If she can become a teacher with no leg, maybe I can do something important, too.

  Here I have friends, and I never had friends before. My good friend is Mosan. His father was killed by the Taliban. His mother makes carpets at home, and he thought his whole life would be making carpets, too. Then he started lessons here, and now he has bigger dreams.

  We both want to be artists, which we can do whether we have legs or not. This center is big on art. Many kids like to draw, and the teachers put our best work up on the walls to encourage us.

  I like to draw nature. Mostly what I have seen in my life has not been pretty. We live in a very poor area of Kabul. It is not beautiful. But I have seen photos at this center of beautiful natural places in the world. And even in the ugly parts of Kabul, flowers bloom. You just have to take the time to look for them.

  Angela, 17

  One of the ways people from different nations get beyond thinking of other nationalities in stereotypes is by meeting each other and getting to know each other as individuals.

  The Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES) was set up in 2004 by the US State Department to give Afghan kids the chance for a first-class education and to get to know Americans as ordinary people, beyond the soldiers they see in Afghanistan.

  Angela spent a year in the United States going to high school as part of the YES program. She is now such an accomplished English speaker that she has been hired several times to do short-term translation jobs for foreigners, including myself!

  Meanwhile, the YES program was suspended in 2011 after many of the students fled the United States to become refugees in Canada rather than return to Afghanistan

  I am originally from a village in Bamiyan. My parents are still there.

  I was very young when the Taliban were in power. The war in Bamiyan was really bad. The Taliban were fighting an army called Hezbe-Watan, an army of Hazara people. The Taliban hated Hazara people. They killed so many people in Bamiyan. If they saw men or boys on the street, they would just shoot them dead, right in the street.

  My family was in danger like everybody else in the country. The men, especially, were in danger. We all went up into the mountains with my uncle and his family. First we tried hiding the men in a basement room, but we were afraid that the Taliban would not believe us if they came and we told them the men were all dead. Plus, women alone could not go out of their homes and we were running out of food. So that could not last. So we went up into the mountains.

  Remember, I was very young. I was not too bothered by the trip to the mountains because my mother was with me and I knew she would take care of me. I knew that the journey was hard. We left in a hurry, when the Taliban were
patrolling another neighborhood, so there was no time to pack what we needed. And we didn’t have much anyway. No water, almost no food. It was very cold and uncomfortable. We had no house in the mountains, no tent. We just slept on the rocks and tried to stay out of the wind. I was young, so they protected me as much as they could, but I knew that we were in a bad condition.

  I don’t know how long we stayed in the mountains. Weeks, I think. We ran out of food very early. I remember being cold and hungry and bored and scared. My brother and uncle tried to return to the village to get us food and blankets, but the Taliban were all over the place. There was a lot of killing going on. So they returned to the mountains with empty hands.

  We were all so cold and so hungry that it was decided that the women and children would return home and the men and teenaged boys would stay in the mountains. The women would try to get food to the men. I remember the journey back down the mountains. It was not good.

  We were home for three days. It was bad.

  My brother loved books. He was a good student and had a lot of books. The Taliban were against books and they would arrest people who had them. So the first thing my mother did when we got back home was she burned all my brother’s books and then she threw the ashes away far from our house. We had a cassette player, too, and some music cassettes. We buried these in the yard because they were also against the law.

  My father was worried about us and came down the mountain to check on us. The Taliban arrested him.

  The Taliban really hated the Hazaras, but they also didn’t like Tajiks. My mother is Tajik but she looks Pashtun, the tribe of the Taliban, and she speaks their language. So she did a very brave thing.