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Mustafa Rasuli | Photography |
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| I enter Afghanistan for the first time in 23 years | 3/15/2002 | |
| I have been here for 2 days now. My flight started in Delhi. I received word at 11:35 to get to the airport immediately. I packed my bags, checked out of the hotel, got a ride to the airport, and said my goodbyes to my cousin. Before I left him, I told him, “hey, I beat you back.” He smiled and kept driving. Inside I was met by a representative of the Embassy who made sure my ticket was issued and my bags checked. I quickly rushed to the Money Exchange as I only had Rupees on me. I changed the 25000 rupees for dollars and received a horrible rate. I didn’t care though. I just wanted to get on the plane. I went through the security check and was escorted to a lounge where I sat with the 19 odd officials from the Afghan government. They were talking amongst themselves when I entered the dark room to the side of the restaurant. It was nicer than the other rooms and had couches and sofas to sit on. The décor had flowers and it looked like the VIP room of the restaurant. As I entered I saw two women and a child to my right. I walked by and at the back of the room next to the tinted one-way windows were all the men in different groups. I tried to do my best to say hello to every one of them from afar. As I walked closer to the empty seat I said hello again by putting my hands on my chest and nodding my head. This is the Afghan way of paying your respects without disturbing any conversations or making someone gets up to greet you. I sat down in between three different circles of people. In front of me was a group of about 5 people sitting in a circle. To my back were 4 people, and to my right were another 3. To my left was the window. So I turned myself a little and just looked out the window. I was finally going back to Afghanistan is all I could think of. It had been such a long journey for me. 23 years of hearing about home from relatives, from parents, from friends and I was finally going back. At first I didn’t know how to feel, I was unsure of what I would do when I got there, and how the people would react to an Afghan-American coming back to Kabul. The family did not want me to go back so they would tell me stories of how reporters were saying that there was not yet peace in Kabul, and there was still fighting. But I was being pulled. I could not let this opportunity to see the homeland pass. Who knows what would happen before I got a chance to come back. I talked to my mother every day before I left. She would tell me that she was happy I was going back to Afghanistan, but I could tell she was heartbroken. She did not want to lose me and that was understandable. She had lost so much in Afghanistan. Her father, uncles, her life were all sacrificed for Afghanistan, and it would be hard for her to lose her only son as well. So I talked with her constantly before I left. I would tell her “Mom, I’m not going to hurt anybody, I’m not going to run for political office, I’m not going for any malicious reason, I’m going to help my people, to help Afghanistan stand on it’s own feet again.” I would tell her that this is God’s world and I am his humble servant. When my time comes, nothing will stop it. For 23 years men, woman, and children have lost their lives trying to protect Afghanistan. My going back to help was nothing compared to their sacrifice. My going back was my duty as an afghan not a choice. The Ariana sign started flashing for departure, so it was time to go through the final security check and onto the plane. The Indian guard checked my passport; I smiled and thanked him, and didn’t receive any response. Then I proceeded through the metal detector and a final frisking. I could tell the guard was uneasy and didn’t mean any harm; he was only doing his job to protect the airport. So I smiled and thanked him as well. He seemed surprised that I had just thanked him for frisking me, but I think he understood. We entered the departure terminal and everybody sat down. I went to the large windows and looked at the Ariana plane in the distance. I still did not believe that this was happening. From experience I knew that nothing was ever for certain so I tried to control all my emotions. I paced and walked around the large terminal. I finally sat down and was feeling very tired. The leather chairs made me even more drowsy. I put my head back and closed my eyes. It didn’t matter though because all I could think about was what I was going to do when I landed. How would it feel, how would I react. I opened my eyes and they asked everybody to board. I waited until most everybody had gone through the doors and onto the buses before I went through. Two guards were standing watching and an Indian Airlines woman was tearing the tickets. It was at that moment, as the Indian guards were looking upon the Afghans with distrust and I’m not sure what other feeling, that I smiled and took pride in being Afghan. The afghan people had been kicked around by all of our neighbors for 23 years, and before that we were kicked around, but we had never lowered our heads, we always conquered the conquerors. I jumped on the bus and went to the back. I took out my camera as we were getting closer and took a snapshot of the Airlines. I was going to try and document as much of this trip as possible, and no better place to start then as we were getting closer to board the plane. As we pulled in front of the Airlines I took out my camera and was going to take another snapshot when the Indian guard started banging on my window. It startled me because I was looking through the lens and didn’t see him walk up outside the bus. I laughed and told him ok, I’m sorry and put the camera back in the bag. I boarded the plane and said hello to the Afghan flight attendants. He seemed surprised by my greeting, I could tell that all of a sudden he started thinking if he knew me and that’s why I had said hello, but that wasn’t the reason. I was just happy to be on Ariana Airlines and wanted to greet my fellow Afghans. After a long taxi to the right runway we finally took off. As the plane took off the ground I felt like there was no returning now. I was on my way and we could not turn back. Not that I wanted to, but whether I wanted to or not it didn’t matter at this point. I stayed fixed on my window. I was watching every little village and house as it passed. We flew over New Delhi, past New Delhi. The food came, and it was Indian food catered from a local caterer. I like Indian food but, not that much. I ate as much as I could and put the rest back into the box it came with. They served water with the food, not coke, but I understood. I kept looking around the plane and trying to notice if anybody was saying if we had entered Afghanistan yet. I wanted to see the exact moment we entered Afghanistan. I wanted to see the landscape from the very beginning. The pilot’s microphone turned on and he told us that we had just left Indian airspace and were entering Pakistan Airspace. He also said that we had 25 minutes before we entered the airspace of Afghanistan. I was excited and nervous. I didn’t know what to do when we entered. The plane was full of Afghans that had been to Afghanistan back and forth over the years. This was my first time. I sat fixated to the window. I almost wished the whole plane was made of glass so that I could see everything. I felt confined to that little piece of land I could see from my window. I would turn my head left, right and every way to see as much as I could. I kept thinking about the last 23 years and my life’s journey. Leaving Afghanistan, when I was 6 months old. The Russians invading Afghanistan. Growing up in America. Not knowing at first why the whole family always talked about Afghanistan. Going to college and working. Then finally coming back to where the long journey began. My eyes would well up with tears, but I would hold it back. Coming home. I was finally coming home. The first to come back after 23 years. The landscape was changing from lush green fields to brown sand. I wouldn’t call it mountains but the landscape looked like waves on the ocean. Wave after wave, of dust, and rock. It looked dry and desolate. I could spot villages in these desolate areas and wondered how they survived. Finally in the distant I could see white peaks. I knew we were close. Another five minutes passed and I was getting antsy. I would look around to see if anybody was getting excited and then look back at the window. I did not want to miss the moment we entered Afghanistan. I was tired of looking at Pakistan. I felt “nifrat”, which can be translated into strong dislike. I did not even like being in their airspace. The government had wronged the Afghan people in so many ways. The pilot came on the phone and announced that we had entered the airspace of Afghanistan. I stared out the window. I wanted to memorize every crevice, every mountain peak, the clouds in the sky, the rivers as they flowed down the mountain. I just continued to stare. After a couple of minutes I realized that I had better take some pictures so that I could remember this moment forever and share it with my family and friends back home. I snapped a roll of film. Every angle and peak. I would stare and then take a picture I would stare and then take a picture. I would look through my 300x lens to see the landscape better. The plane seemed to go to fast. I wanted it to slow down. Mountain peak after mountain peak I stared. I was finally back home. I was finally back in Afghanistan. My emotions were swelling. I wished my family and friends were there to share that moment with me. Coming back to Afghanistan was a dream. It was a romantic dream of going back one day and giving back to the country that nurtured my fathers and mothers. That nurtured me for 6 months and sent me away. I kept thinking of our flight from Afghanistan. I don’t remember the story myself but it has been relayed to me by dozens of people. Every time they see me they tell me a different version of the story. My mothers is my favorite. She can never tell the story without becoming utterly emotional. At moments pausing, and at moments laughing. My father was jailed after the communists took power. I was born while he was in Jail. My mother and her sisters were alone in the house during a time when it was not safe to be a woman without protection. My grandfathers and all the elders of my family were killed. They urged my family to leave Kabul, but they wouldn’t without my father. My sister was six at the time. The day my father was released they planned our escape from Afghanistan. It was not safe for us to be there any longer. At the time they were smuggling people out of Afghanistan in the backs of trucks in a small compartment they would seal off. 3 feet wide and maybe 12 feet across, with a small hole at the top of the truck for breathing air. 13 of us crammed in there to make our journey across Afghanistan into Pakistan. I was the youngest followed by my sister and uncle who were 6 and 8 years older than me. They had given us sleeping pills so that we would not wake during the ride. The little hole at the top of the truck provided fresh breathing air only when the truck was moving, but when it stopped it seemed like the air had been sucked out of the compartment. We stopped at a Russian checkpost. For some reason at that very moment I screamed. Mind you I was 6 months old. I began to cry. They say that I screamed so loud that they all thought they were dead. They were sure that my scream was heard. My mother says that at that moment she though about the thirteen other people in the car, the kids, their journey and decided that one life was not worth 12 lives. She gently covered my mouth and nose with a cloth and began to cry. She cried so softly that nobody noticed. She said goodbye to me at that moment. She felt my tiny body go limp in her arms. She says that she saw her whole life in that moment. The hardships she had seen to bear me, and how I had symbolized life in a family that had only seen harships in the past year. She cried loudly. My father says that at first when I stopped crying he didn’t notice, but was happy that I wasn’t still crying. But then he realized that I had stopped crying suddenly. The car was moving now, and everybody was relieved that they had survived. He heard my mother crying and loudly asked what she had done. “What have you done,” the compartment was pitch black so nobody could see. My uncle says that when my father asked he too realized what was happening. He turned on the flashlight and everybody froze for a moment. They saw my mother holding my limp body, my face still covered with the cloth, and tears running down her face. My uncle screamed at her, called her name, but she was in shock. He smacked her across her face hard and she came to. She started crying uncontrollably and screaming that she had killed her son. My uncle ripped me from her arms and tried to resesutate me. He pushed my chest genltly, fanned my face with his “pacol,” which is a traditional Afghan hat, and put me as close as he could to the small hole which provided fresh air. They are not sure for how long that moment lasted, seconds, minutes. When they were close to losing hope, my limp body came to life and I gasped for fresh air. The pilot came on the microphone again and said that we were 10 minutes from landing and were close to Kabul. I continued to stare through my window. The minutes and the view seemed to pass too quickly. We entered the city of Kabul, surrounded by mountains on all sides. Snow capped peaks, the city looked like an impregnable fortress from inside. It would be hard to take a city like Kabul on the ground. We came over the city of Kabul, and I continued to stare and snap photos. The landscape flew by. I stared at the building the land, the farms, the destruction. We were on our final approach. I sat back and just waited for us to land. I waited to finally, for the first time in many years be on Afghan land again. The plane touched down. I got off the plane, walked down the stairs and stood there for a moment. I looked down at the ground. I looked around as all the other Afghans were being greeted by family and friends. I looked at the landscape, the menacing snow capped mountains in the distant. The brown mountains closer. Kabul seemed like a natural fortress, formed by the mountains and valleys. I looked around for a while and then decided I better find out what to do next. I walked to the side and watched the large crowd of people. Some began to trickle to the building immediately to my left. The only building. To my distant left, beyond the security gates were the taxis waiting for passengers. I wasn’t sure what to do. I looked for a friendly face, and found one of the passengers whom I had met at the airport terminal in Delhi. I asked him what I should do next. He said don’t worry I will take you to Mustafa Hotel. I felt a bit more relaxed at this point. He walked me over to the car which was just beyond the first security post and to a Mercedes that was waiting. I said hello to the driver and I put my camera in the trunk. I told him I had another bag and he directed me towards where everybody else was walking. I walked in that direction and entered the dark building. I waited outside for a moment to see if he would follow but he didn’t. So I stood there for a moment just in case. A guard walked up and I said asalamalakum. I could tell from the look on his face, that he wasn’t sure if I was Afghan or not. I asked him in farsi how he was doing. He asked where I was from and I told him I was from America. He asked me how long I was in America and I told him 22 years. I talked with him a while longer and then asked him where I should go to get my bags. He told me to go inside and fill out the entry forms. I went into the room. The room was large and dark. A layer of dust and sand covered everything. I would imagine in a place as dusty as Afghanistan this was the best it could be. Some of the windows were broken out and there was no lighting, but they had leather chairs all along the side. There were two tables with what looked like employees stamping and filling out forms. I asked them for a blank form and filled it out with my pen. After filling out the forms and getting the stamp of approval from the Government I walked to the next room where all the bags were on carts. I picked up my bag and immediately somebody walked up to me and took my bag from me. I have never liked being served. I have always liked doing my own work, so for a moment I tried to argue, but I realized it was useless. I also knew that this was the only way for him to maybe make some money, so I agreed and let him carry my bag to security check. I walked up to the security check. My bag was placed on the table and an older gentlemen with a gray beard opened and started searching my bag. There were about 10 people to his left and right waiting to search bags as well. A younger boy, no more than 20, walked up to my left and stood there. He told the older gentlemen in farsi to ask if I had any tylonel because he had a headache. I guess he figured I was not Afghan. So I smiled turned my head and told him in farsi no I don’t have any tylonel. It seemed to have surprised everybody. So the older gentlemen asked where I was from. I told him America. He asked how long I had been away. I told him 22 years. He quicly ended the search of my bags and zipped it up. The bigger afghan with green eyes came back and put my bag on his shoulder. Now my bag was pretty heavy but it seemed like a rag doll compared to him. He was walking me over to the taxi when I told him that I had to wait for the car I had put my camera in. So he walked me over to the car. There were security posts on each side of the car, so when we walked over from this side they told me that I would have to wait here for the car. I told the baggage guy that he could leave and handed him 2 dollars as that was all I had. He looked at me with surprise and walked away. I felt like I was on mars. I didn’t know anything about the people here, or the ways. I walked back to the checkpost and waited there for the car. The guards walked up and started talking to me. They were asking the same questions as everybody else. I talked with them for a while and quenched their curiosity. The car drove up and they stopped it. I put my bags in the back of the car and shook each of the guards hands and thanked them. We waited a while longer for the other passengers and once they had all come we went on our way. Everybody started talking about family and stories I knew nothing about, so I just stared out my window. I looked at the destruction. Buildings, old tanks, trucks, everything was damaged in some way. I looked around and just stared as I did on the plane. So many taxis on the streets. People on bikes, people walking. I just kept looking. We finally got to the Hotel I said goodbye to everybody and as I got closer to the door a young man with a warm smile came and greeted me. I felt easy once again. Somebody knew me, recognized me or had been told I was coming. Again my bag was grabbed from my hands and it was taken upstairs. I followed the young man to a room where I saw my uncle whom I handn’t seem in some 15 years. I kissed his hand and payed my respects. My two second cousins came and greeted me as well. We sat in the room and talked for a while. It was nice to see faces I recognized. The hotel was bustling with people. Another tall dark man with a beard and handsome face walked in told me that I was to be taken to my other uncles home. He was waiting for me. I sat there for a while longer and went on my way. It was darker outside now, and the sky was covered with a layer of dust and pollution. It was a fog of dust. The main roads were paved but there were large potholes every once in a while that had to be dodged. The city was full of people even in the night. People coming and going. When we left the main road it got really bad. Potholes, but I’m not sure I’d call them that, more like craters, and no pavement, just dirt and rock. He had to go real slow and would go from side to side to dodge the different “craters.” We made a final right turn and about 100 feet later stopped in front of a large door. I exited the car and again my bag was taken from my hands. I have always said that Afghans could be the kindest of people, but have tendencies to be the worst of people as well. I walked into the door. The long hallway was dark and dingy. It seemed very menacing. I followed my guide and made sure to look down and carefully take every step. We entered a courtyard at the end of the hallway. About 50ft by 50ft of sand. There was no lights again so we made our way to the house which was directly in front. The two story home seemed in good shape, but nothing like what I had been used to. We entered the house and walked into another hallway. There was a door to my right and left and a stairway farther up on my left. We walked up the stairway into another hallway with three doors. He put my bag down and we took off our shoes and entered the room the right. Inside was my uncle and some family members from my mothers side. I hugged and greeted everybody. My uncle looked right at home in this setting. Akbar jon my other uncle, a large and burly man with a long beard sat me down and asked me about my journey. There were “toshaks,” small mattresses with pillows to rest on all around the room. There was no electricity that night so the room was lit with an “alakain” or lantern. More guests came and we sat and talked for a couple of hours. I was just in time for some dinner, and thank god because I was starving. Abu Bakr and Jamel two of my second cousins walked out of the room and brought bowl and pitcher. They put the bowl in front of each of us in turn and poured the water as we washed our hands. Then a “distarkhan” or table cloth was brought and spread it on the floor. They passed around “nan” large flat afghan bread and put two in front of each person. The walked back out and brought some bowls with “sherwa” it’s almost like a stew. We started breaking the bread into pieces and putting it in the “sherwa.” Then they brought out bowls with steamed potatoes and roast beef. Each setting got a plate of potatoes and beef. The man to my right and myself shared a bowl, so we put the potatoes and beef on the bowl and started eating. He from the right side of the bowl and me from the left. You take a piece of bread that hasn’t been put into the bowl yet, grab a piece of meat using the bread, a piece of potatoe and then you grab some of wet bread and stew. Anybody who has never had sherwa is really missing out. My first meal in Afghanistan. After eating the pitcher and bowl was brought again and everybody washed their hands and sat back and continued talking. Tea was brought and we all had some tea. The side of the room facing the courtyard were all windows. I sat close and just stared outside. It was completely dark outside now and I watched the stars. I had heard so much about these skies and these streets. I recalled stories I had heard of this house and of Kabul and just watched. I went outside to get a better view. I couldn’t believe how many stars were in the sky. I imagine the elevation in Afghanistan is to attribute to the sky filled with stars. It seemed like there was not a single space left for a star. I could clearly make out the only constellation I knew which was Orion. I stood outside for a while in the darkness, alone. I was back. I was in Afghanistan. I didn’t know how to feel, I wasn’t sure how to react. I wasn’t sure if this was real. I was called back and everybody was going to bed. My bed on the floor was made and I pulled the blanket over my head slept. I was home. I fell asleep thanking god for giving me this opportunity to be back home. |
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