Waiting for Hope

Everyone writes the story of their life, so I write the story of my life! What do you think? Will the story of my life be about my whole life? I will tell you my story.

I am telling you about the beginning of the misery of an Afghan girl. Listen to me. The year was 2021, August 15^th. It was a terrible day. All the people, men, women and children were all scared, because the Taliban had reached the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul. 

On that day I was alone at home and my family was outside. When I heard that the Taliban had reached Kabul, my hands and feet began to tremble, and my mental state became very bad. I was crying while my body was trembling. 

Then my family came home early that day. My 3-year old brother was in kindergarten and one of our friends brought my brother to us. We were all scared and I kept repeating to my mother while crying, 

“Please Mother, let’s go from here, please Mom, please.”

My mother was trying to calm me down, but I kept crying and saying, “Let’s leave here, please.”

Then my mother decided that we should go to the American Embassy. 

When we arrived at the American Embassy, there were no guards at the gate. When we reached the second gate, there were two guards there and they did not allow us to enter until a woman with her little son and two American men came and helped us in. We reached the third gate with those men and women. There was also a guard there who allowed the American people to enter the American Embassy. The third gate was next to the American Embassy airport, but we were not allowed to enter.

The woman with her son and the two American men showed their passports to the guard and the guard allowed them to enter, but did not let us go with them. The guard was an Afghan man. He told us that we were not allowed to enter the embassy because you do not have a US visa or passport. 

We were waiting for those men and women in front of the third gate near the American Embassy airport. After a few minutes, they came back but without talking. They quickly went to the airport and didn’t even look at us because they couldn’t do anything for us.

After a few minutes, we left the place disappointed and went home again. That night I didn’t even take off my shoes because I wanted to leave Afghanistan. We had no idea what was going on at the Kabul Airport.

On the second day, August 16^th, my aunt called us from America and said, “You don’t know what is going on at the airport,” and she told us to go to the square and enter the square by a certain way. We moved towards the airport. When we arrived at the airport, there were many people there, more than a thousand people. The Taliban held the airport gate and did not allow anyone to enter the airport. The situation there was very scary and bad. Men, women and children wanted to get out of Afghanistan. No-one wanted to live under the shadow of a terrorist government. Everyone was scared and the Taliban asked people to return to their homes. When no-one listened to their words, the Taliban fired their weapons into the sky so that people would be scared and go to their homes. They did nothing to families but they were very cruel to unmarried boys and beat them with whips and guns. A number of single young men were beaten so hard that their arms and legs were broken or their heads were injured. And they electrified a number of men. 

We waited in front of the gate until it got dark. We were waiting for them to open the gate but unfortunately the gate was not opened and we returned home.

The next day, August 17^th, in the afternoon, we went to the back gate of the airport. There were a lot of people there, too many. We stayed there overnight, then it was morning but the guards did not allow us or anyone else to enter that morning. We left there with disappointment and came home. We all fell asleep very tired and we didn’t go to the airport any more.

That night came and we learned of a very heavy explosion in front of the back gate of the airport, the same gate where we were the night before until the morning. We found out that hundreds of people were killed and four American guards were killed. We looked at the TV and saw human bodies lying completely covered in blood near the gate on each side! I thought to myself that if we’d been there that night, we would be among the victims of the explosion, and this thought made me feel very bad. 

I was very disappointed and wondered what would happen to my future. I was very worried that the Taliban would force girls to marry like 20 years ago. My biggest fear was losing my future and it was very worrying for me.

On August 20^th, my mother met a lady on the internet, her name was Helen*. She was a kind lady. She included my mother in a group that day to help us and the name of that group was the UK Afghan Midwives Support Group. They gave us financial help and supported us.

During those days, all the people we knew had left Afghanistan, like my grandmother and grandfather, my aunts and my uncle. We were the only family that remained in Kabul in the first days. My grandmother used to call us and say that everything will be fine, there is a light behind the darkness, but I said that I have no hope in response to my grandmother. I used to say that from this day on, in my opinion, Afghanistan is a playground where any power can play with the Afghan people as much as they want. They started this game 20 years ago and people worked like game workers, and this game started again and we returned to 20 years ago. So Afghanistan is a playground and we are its workers. After hearing my words, my grandmother became silent and looked at me with surprise and said,

“You are right.”

Until the day I die Afghanistan will always be a playground in my opinion. I always said this to myself: “Whoever is wise will not destroy the future generation of Afghanistan, but they will leave Afghanistan because we will be under a Taliban government for 5 to 10 years, then the Republican government will come again, and then in 20 years the Taliban will come again”.

My mental health had completely disappeared, I had become a depressed and hopeless girl, a girl whose wings were cut off, a girl who buried her dreams, a girl whose life no longer had meaning for her. This was my biggest fear. I was a sad girl, a girl whose dreams had died, a girl with no hope for life in the future, and I was burning like a candle from the inside for my black future.

Do you think I was the only one who had this feeling? This feeling is shared by all the Afghan girls who were striving for their progress and bright future.

At first, the Taliban closed the school gates to girls and darkened the way of light for the girls. In those days my mother told me that Helen said they had made a case for us and were trying to get us resettlement in England. I found hope after hearing these words from my mother. My brothers and I were very happy and we were thinking that we will get out of Afghanistan soon. Every day we thought about having a good and happy life and a bright future in England and achieving our educational goals. We were dreaming about what we would do when we went to England.

I had a dream with myself that when I go to England, I will start my studies first and work with my family, and after 2 or 3 years I will be able to buy a car because I would really like to have my own car.

My little brother said that when we go to England, he would like to play in the park there and go to the beach and play in the water because he loves the beach and the ocean. My elder brother also wished to complete his education in England and become a good doctor in the future for the people. I also want to become a good doctor in the future so that I can help people in a good way. 

My mother was very happy when she saw me and my brothers happy. My family and I thought that maybe we would be out of Afghanistan in 6 or 9 months and, as the days passed, we waited.

Helen and the group always paid attention to us and helped us and did not let us feel bad about anything. They sent us money every month and always supported us during those days.

My mother also met Helen’s sister. She was also a very kind and heart-warming lady, her name is Sarah. She always encouraged us and loved us like her own children. She always asked us if we had enough food to eat or if we needed anything else. When we needed something, she asked Helen and the group to meet our needs. 

Again, the days and nights passed and we were waiting for the light of our life for a long time and it was getting tiring to live like a prisoner in your own country and not to be able to walk and breathe freely or to follow your own dreams.

Months passed and there was no news about our case. I was slowly, slowly losing hope. Meanwhile Helen and the group were doing their best to get us out of Afghanistan. My mother was in communication with Helen and Sarah every day.

After some time, my mother became very close with Sarah and they used to talk a lot. They talked about our problems and Sarah always gave my mother hope that we would leave Afghanistan. 

Days and nights passed and the relationship between my mother and Sarah became closer day by day. Sarah always loved us very much until one day she said,

“From this day forward you are my daughter and your children are my grandchildren. After hearing this, my mother was very happy and told us that Sarah calls us her grandchildren, and we were also very happy because we knew how kind and caring Sarah is.

After that day, she always took care of us and tried her best to make sure that we did not remain hungry and without money. And she was still trying to get us out of Afghanistan. Sarah always told us that Helen was doing her best [with the UK Home Office] so as not to lose hope.  We used to video call and chat with Sarah. 

The group advised us several times to go from Afghanistan to Iran or Pakistan and that they would send us all our travel expenses because they could help us more in one of those countries. But because of various problems we had, my mother did not want us to go to Iran or Pakistan because all the people of the world know that the countries of Iran and Pakistan oppress the people of Afghanistan.

During this time, my mother met another lady called Iona. Iona lived in England and when she met my mother and they got to know each other better, my mother told her about our problems and Iona requested to be put in touch with Sarah and Helen and she then helped them with our case.

Iona sometimes helped us financially and sent my mother a phone top-up every month. She was also very kind. Helen and the group were doing their best, Iona and Sarah were also trying. The group supported us financially for a year and, after a year, the group had to stop helping us financially and told us to continue to wait for our case to be accepted.

After a year, we still waited to see if our case was accepted or not [by the UK Home Office]. 

Sarah and Iona then started to support us until we were left without food and money. It was very difficult to get money, people couldn’t get money because the Taliban didn’t allow it. The Taliban understood that if people got money, they would leave Afghanistan. Likewise when someone sent money from abroad, no-one could easily receive the money. They could only collect the money sent with many problems. We had this problem: when they sent us money, we received it with great difficulty.

Sarah and Iona could not send us as much money as the group had but they sent as much money as they could. Some days we didn’t have food or water at home, but you know we weren’t the only ones in this situation; all the people of Afghanistan were.

Life always has its ups and downs, but in Afghanistan girls are always down. Sometimes I really hate myself because of that. Why? Why was I born a girl? Sometimes I think death must be so beautiful, to lie in the soft, brown earth with the grass waving over one’s head and listen to silence, to have no yesterday and no tomorrow, to forget time, to forget life and be at peace.

I wish I was born a boy. It is impossible that those girls who suffer like me have not once wished that they had been born a boy: life is very hard in Afghanistan for girls. Let me tell you a little about the life of Afghan girls.

Before the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, people were very enlightened and allowed their girls to go to school and university freely, work in offices and go out with their friends. 

But this was not the case in many provinces of Afghanistan. In some provinces of Afghanistan, they allowed their daughters to study, but in some provinces they did not allow their daughters to study. In some families, the girl is like a slave who is not allowed to study, is not allowed to choose what to wear, what to eat, where to go. They are not even allowed to choose their future husband. From the day she is born, her family, that is her father and brothers, decide everything until the day she marries the husband that her father and brothers have chosen for her. After marriage, her husband does not let her make decisions. He decides for her. So, in short, from the time they are born until the time they die, they have no choice.

Some families of Afghan girls are so bad that they give their daughters to a husband because of debt and demand a lot of money in return. 

But this was not the case in Kabul, there the girls were allowed to study and they were allowed to choose their future husband but, with the arrival of the Taliban, the girls who were free were imprisoned like pigeons in a cage. This is also a part of the story of Afghan girls.

Let’s come back to my own story. After a year, H. told us that our case could not be progressed whilst we were in Afghanistan and that we should again think about going to Pakistan, but my mother did not agree because the people of Pakistan did not treat Afghan people right. That’s why my mother decided to stay here and we understood that our case would not go forward, and we were upset. We had no more hope to get out of Afghanistan. I felt that everything went down.

In the previous pages, I said that I had a nervous shock the day the Taliban came and, after a few months, I felt that the nervous shock had affected me a lot. In the month of May 2022, I had a nervous attack; I could not hold my head up and I lay my head on the floor. I clenched my hands and passed out. My body became cold and my skin turned blue.

My family tried to lift me up so that I could walk and get into the car. But I didn’t have the strength to stand on my feet and I fell.

Eventually I reached the entrance to the hospital with many difficulties and my mother called the doctors and they came to the car with an ambulance stretcher and took me inside the hospital. When I reached the hospital room, the doctors gave me oxygen. Then they fixed a cannula in my hand, put a finger monitor on my finger to check my vital signs, and attached a bag of intravenous drip to my hand. 

Since then, these attacks happen two or three times a year.

After 30 minutes, I recovered and returned home. After that night, I slept the whole of the following day and didn’t get up until the evening. My family was still worried about me and decided to take me to the doctor again. The doctor checked my blood pressure and said, “Your blood pressure is too low”. They gave me some fluid intravenously again and then I returned home.

A few days later, I had yet another problem: my cheek was drooping and I wasn’t able to open my mouth, neither could I chew food easily. Sometimes when I yawned, my cheek was drooping and I couldn’t move it. My cheeks were always hurting and I couldn’t eat food properly, only food that was very soft. I don’t know exactly why this was happening; the doctors I went to said it was due to nervous shock, but I didn’t believe it and still don’t know why I had that pain and that sickness.

Over time I have got used to this severe pain but, the truth is, it is very hard. When I eat or talk, I suddenly hear a bad sound in my mouth that hurts so much that I don’t even want to open my mouth any more. 

With all these problems, I used to tell myself that I have my kind God. When you pray, God listens. When you listen, God talks. 

***A PAGE IS MISSING FROM SADAF’S MANUSCRIPT HERE***

The silence is a killer too. I myself do not know why I became like this. I know it is strange but now I don’t want to do anything. Always remember – girls don’t heal; we might look like we are all better but, if you look close, we are covered in concealer, with a fake smile, fake clothes, fake make-up and everything else.

During those days, I just slept, I didn’t talk to anyone, I didn’t eat properly. Some nights I cried, some days I painted. Day and night passed, but it was tiring and I had to endure it, and this continues until now. Sometimes my mother gets upset and angry with me because I am always in my room, and because she is worried about me, that I will get the illness of depression. But I wanted to be alone and often started crying for no reason. My eyes were full of tears. Do you cry? Crying is the only way your eyes speak when your mouth can’t explain how broken your heart is.

Little by little, I started thinking about getting a scholarship and I looked for a scholarship. There were a number of countries offering scholarships like Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Germany and so on, but it was very difficult to go. When I started looking for a good scholarship, some countries had very high expenses and, If one was successful in the exam, one would have to spend a lot. But I found some scholarships that weren’t too expensive. I was looking for a scholarship but I was not aware that the Taliban do not allow women and girls to leave Afghanistan without a mahram (“mahram” = male guardian).

After hearing this, I had a feeling, a very strange feeling, a feeling that was full of pain and sadness, an indescribable feeling. I felt like the whole world had collapsed on me, I was just breathing. I didn’t even want to breathe any more. Now I still feel like that. I wish I wasn’t born: the World is full of darkness in which I see no light, like a blind person. I feel like a corpse because I don’t have a life. My dreams, just my dreams remain.

Day by day, I go deeper into the earth, why don’t I have a way out? I’m in the depths of despair. Every night when I sleep, I wish I wouldn’t wake up in the morning again. Sometimes I cry at night. When I’m crying I get a feeling that I can’t describe, I can only say that it is very painful. Why don’t I die? I want to die to find peace. Why did God create us when all these problems that have no solution happen to us?

I want to sleep to dream. I want to dream forever. In dreams I can be a better person. I can have a better life, but this is only in dreams, so I hope I never wake up again.

I feel like I’m two people these days. One of them is trying to keep up appearances, she comes and goes, speaks, laughs, communicates with people and tries to do everything she can, even forcing herself to stand on her own feet and carry on. But that one is in another world. The world is elsewhere and she gets tired of continuous effort and likes to go to her room and close the door and not to answer anyone. I have become these two people nowadays. Inside me is a little girl who accepts everything with eyes full of hatred. Emotionally I can’t do it any more, morally I’m exhausted, spiritually I feel dead. Physically I’m smiling and on the surface everything seems fine but inside it’s different, it’s hard. Sometimes people see the smile but they don’t see the pain behind it. 

My mother says that life is too boring now and I always reply that suicide is the solution and she gets angry with me. One day she said twice that life is boring and I gave the same response. My mother asked, “Why do you want to die?” She said, “I gave birth to you. For this day that you wish to die, did I raise you for this, that you want to die?”

I said to my mother to reverse the question – is there really any value to this thing we call life? Humans are born and then they die, this is the universal law. From whence we came, we will return. Some people return with good karma, some people return with bad deeds. So when we know we are coming back here, let’s be kind to each other. We all know life is short. We don’t know if we will be alive tomorrow or not. , or even an hour from now. We don’t know what is going to happen, or whether we have a breath in our heart or not. 

We have a Dari saying: “The World was too cruel to help me, God was quieter than I expected.” If I want to talk to God about my state of mind, I will say this,

“Why don’t you separate my soul from my body? Why don’t you want me with you to be relieved from this cruel world? How long will your “servants” steal my rights? For how long will I miss being able to live according to my will?”

You know that a smile is like electricity and life is like a battery. Whenever you smile, the battery is charged and a beautiful day is activated. So keep smiling. These words are for you. Yes, for you who have read this book this far, keep smiling. If you don’t smile, life will not be better but will be meaningless and bad for you. I know that I don’t have a perfect life, but I hope that you will have a better life after reading this book. I say these words because you did not get tired of reading my book.

I feel myself changing. I don’t laugh like before, I don’t smile like before, I don’t talk like I used to, and I’m just so tired of everything. As you know! Obviously I always seem nervous because, in my life, I have been fighting a war. I’m so deeply in pain and sadness but, and here is the interesting point, I am not really angry. I’m just trying to learn to be happy. We all know life is a journey of both happiness and sadness, that not every day is happy, that not every day is sad. When it is sad, just be patient because good days are just ahead. When I am sad, only my pain is by my side, it calms me down. Sometimes, it does not matter how nice you are, how kind you are, how loving you are, it just isn’t enough for some people. Don’t blame yourself because those sorts of people never see YOU. 

During the night, some nights, I don’t see the point of carrying on with any of it. But the truth is that pain makes you stronger, fear makes you braver, and heartbreak makes you wiser. As you know, there are different types of pain. For example, when you are going through bad times and need someone to talk to but you don’t want to bother anyone, so you just sit there drowning in your thoughts, wondering when it’s all going to end. But pain isn’t something you should hide or endure alone. When you are in pain, you have to say, “I’m in pain, I’m in so much pain.” Or “My heart is suffering” or “My mind is suffering.” Like that, you need to say it, and not hold it in, which is a bad habit I myself have. When I’m in pain, I hide it. I go into a room and cry quietly and my pain stays with me. I could never go to my mother and say that I am in pain.

I am in pain from the bottom of my being. I try my best to be fine but it doesn’t seem like I’ll ever feel good again. Do you ever feel like me?

I hope that the story of my life was not boring for you. My dear who has been with me until now, I also hope that you will wait for the next volume. I hope that my story did not make you too sad or depressed. My dear reader, this is my advice to you: be crazy, be you – because life is too short to be anything but happy.