Her Story

I met her on the plane as I was returning home to Kabul from a working weekend in Dubai. When we saw each other we both smiled politely and were immediately comfortable and on friendly terms. As I squeezed into the seat beside her and diligently put on my seatbelt, I greeted her with 'Asalaam Alaikum' and asked her how she was doing in Farsi. She responded in Farsi and continued with a few quiet questions that I could not understand. I had to humbly let her know that a simple greeting is pretty much all I know in her language. I didn’t expect it, but she was fluent in English, the result of having lived in California for the past 21 years.

We spoke for most of the 2 hour flight and I learned that her name is Hakeema and she was returning home to Kabul for one month to see her ill mother and younger sister. This will be the first time in 21 years that she will see her country or her mother. Her father passed away five years ago. She is a registered nurse in the USA, educated at Kabul University when the country was still liberal and women were able to go to school, become doctors, judges and hold public office. Ironically enough, when the USA was debating if black people were human enough to vote, Afghans were electing female leaders. Tight clothes and short skirts were common and Kabul was truly an international city. People flocked here from all over the world as they retraced the old silk routes of civilizations past.

Hakeema has 5 sisters and one brother all of whom are living in various parts of the world. Her father insisted that they all become educated and now most of them are doctors or nurses. The children fled when the Russians invaded and have stayed out ever since. Keeping in touch with friends and family that remained behind was impossible for much of that time since phones did not really exist here until recently. She was full of stories from when she was a young girl running in the hills of Kabul, enjoying the company of her siblings and parents and friends.

I could hear the tension in her voice. The excitement of coming back home after such a long time and after her country had been through so much was bubbling up through her nervous jokes and dramatic expressions. As happy as she was, she was also quite afraid of what she would find. Twenty-three years of war and suffering wreak utter havoc both physically and psychologically on the people who suffer it. One of my Afghan friends put it into perspective the other day. Born in Afghanistan but educated at UC Berkley, he has some interesting perspectives. He said he witnessed a fundamental shift in the psyche of the American population after Sept 11. Understandably, that one day dramatically affected the culture of the population on a very basic level. Fear, anger, suspicion, illogic and judgment of others took over. "Sept 11", he calmly stated, "has been happening to Afghanistan every single day for the past 23 years". Imagine the effect that had on the way these people view themselves, the world and their place within it.

This is what she was coming home to. Such a seismic shift, a complete reversal of everything she grew up in and around. Each time a change of power or circumstance presented itself, it did so through the barrel of a gun. She was coming home to a completely different and highly traumatized world.

As contagious as her anticipation and excitement were I was a bit mesmerized and found myself speaking silently as this woman experienced the upwelling of emotions and thoughts that would naturally accompany such an experience. She stared hard at me a couple of times then told me that I looked just like her son who was 13 years old and waiting for here back in the US. She adopted him from India when he was 2 months old. His mother died in childbirth and his father concluded that he was bad luck, so he was passed into the hands of the orphanage. Hakeema found him there and has been blessed ever since.

As the plane escorted her back to her youth it traced a wide circle around this incredible city, allowing a full and brilliant view of what the next month of her life would look like. Kabul from the air is like nothing you’ve ever seen. It's built on a broad plateau and is surrounded on all sides by mammoth hills that bleed into unending mountain ranges behind them. The city itself consists of a million low lying buildings and huts that shove and sprawl across the entire plain and spill up the sides of the surrounding hillsides. The mud and brick homes cluster thickly around the bottom edges of these hills then gradually spread out the further up you go. You can see patches of green as farmers re-stake their tiny claims in and around the city. But the hills themselves are brown and dusty, devoid of the grass and trees that in better times, completely engulfed the city.

She began to quietly cry. I believe it was as much out of joy as anguish at seeing the tattered remains of the city where her spirit has rested impatiently for the past two decades. I cannot imagine how it must have felt for this woman. Her edgy sense of humor and sweet demeanor weakly masked the dread at what she might be coming back to and the intense hope of what may yet be. It made my heart ache to watch as she struggled with the crash of emotions inside her.

As we made our way off the plane and onto the runway, the warmth of the Afghan sun dried her eyes. She smiled and kindly thanked me for the company and conversation.

In parting ways, there was very little I could say to her except, "Welcome Home".