A Journey to My Home Province

by Anonymous

Kabul is a city of bombings, suicide attacks, and drug addiction. Staying alive in Kabul often feels like a matter of luck. On the other hand, unemployment and poverty have forced people from all over the country to migrate there. Although Kabul was originally designed to accommodate fewer than three million people, more than eight million now live in the city.

The residents of Kabul suffer from various illnesses. Stress and anxiety are among the most widespread, affecting nearly 99 percent of its inhabitants. I, too, belong to that 99 percent deeply anxious and unwell. There was hardly a doctor I had not visited. And what doctors they were, local doctors who barely knew what they were doing.

Eventually, my condition worsened. The treatments offered by local doctors proved ineffective, and I could not afford medical care abroad. My friends advised me to spend some time in nature, and thus this cursed illness became the reason for my journey.

At last, I packed my bags and traveled to my birthplace, a remote province. I hoped that wandering through nature and escaping Kabul with its record levels of insecurity might calm my troubled mind. But when I arrived, I found myself grateful for my own condition, because the people there seemed even more distressed than I was.

Powerful men who had risen to wealth through drug trafficking and intimidation no longer regarded ordinary people as human beings. The common people resembled birds trapped in cages without food or water, living corpses with bent backs and dust-covered faces. It was as if the powerful men, driving their luxury vehicles with dark-tinted windows, had splashed all the dirt and mud of the world onto them. Yet nobody dared to speak out.

Since it had been eight or nine years since my last visit, one day I decided to walk around the town. The face of the city had changed completely. Multi-story buildings belonging to this commander or that strongman, luxurious hotels owned by influential politicians, left me astonished.

As I wandered aimlessly through the streets, I noticed Abdullah, a childhood friend. He was pushing a handcart carrying a few cucumbers and was hurrying away with a frightened expression. At first, I did not recognize him. Although he was only thirty or thirty-two years old, he looked like a bent and exhausted man in his fifties.

When I looked more carefully, I called out, “Abdullah! My friend, where are you running?”

He motioned with his hand that he was heading into a side alley to hide from the municipality’s enforcers. I hurried after him and found him there. We greeted each other warmly, but Abdullah had little time for conversation. His eyes constantly scanned every direction, afraid that municipal

officers might appear and, as they had done before, throw his cucumbers into the ditch and confiscate or destroy his cart.

Abdullah was always on the run, moving from one corner of the city to another. Since we had little time to talk, he said:

“Now that I’ve finally found you, come to my house tonight. We have a lot to talk about.”

That evening I visited him. After reminiscing about our school days when we used to walk an hour and a half each day to attend the neighboring village’s primary school and studied together until the sixth grade, he began telling me about the years that followed.

Abdullah sighed deeply and said:

“I wish I had left the village and continued my education. After you went to Pakistan, I spent my days herding my father’s livestock. Before I had even reached adulthood, my father engaged me to my cousin so that my future wife could help my mother with household work.

Not even a year after our wedding, my father told me, ‘From now on, you must become independent and build a life with your wife.’

I was only seventeen or eighteen years old and knew almost nothing about life. For a couple of years, I survived by selling firewood and doing daily labor. But I kept asking myself: how long could this continue? Sooner or later, I needed money. I wanted to build a house, buy cattle, cultivate land, and improve my life.

Eventually, I decided to dig at a site where villagers had discovered ancient artifacts several years earlier. I thought perhaps I might find something valuable that could transform my life.

One night, I took Ahmad and Javid with me. Armed with shovels and pickaxes, we headed toward the plain after evening prayers and dug until dawn. We found nothing. Empty-handed, we returned home before the morning call to prayer.

A few days later, rumors spread throughout the village. Some people asked, ‘What happened to the golden camel?’ Others asked, ‘What became of the golden dragon?’

Two or three days later, two soldiers arrived from the district center and took the three of us into custody. We spent several days in detention before district officials summoned us and angrily demanded:

‘What happened to the golden camel?’

Since I was older than Ahmad and Javid, I threw myself at the feet of the armed officials and swore that we had found nothing. But nobody listened. The fools kicked me away and beat all three of us so badly that even a stone-hearted person would have felt pity.

Anyway, each of us was fined twenty thousand Afghanis and released only after providing guarantees.

I do not know what happened to Ahmad and Javid afterward, but I had nothing valuable to sell. In the end, I sold a sheep that my father-in-law had given to his daughter, along with its lamb. I sold the donkey my father had given me and even some of my wife’s dowry belongings. Then I paid the fine to the district authorities.

After that, the village was no longer a place where I could live. I left my wife at her father’s house and headed to the city.

After a month of laboring and with some help from relatives who had moved to the city before me, I bought a handcart and began selling vegetables. During the day I sold vegetables; at night I slept in the homes of relatives and friends. Occasionally, I returned to the village to visit my wife.

Two years later, one of my relatives in the city took pity on me and allowed me to live in a small mud room on his property. In return, my wife helped with household chores.

Now we have been living here for several years. I continue selling vegetables, sometimes tomatoes, sometimes cucumbers, and on some days fruit that I purchase from the wholesale market. But the municipal officers demand money from us. If we don’t pay them, they smash our handcarts and throw our vegetables into the roadside ditches.

Yet even here we are not safe from the municipality’s stick-wielding enforcers.

Sometimes I wish God had

never brought me into this world.

Every day, from before dawn until nightfall, I struggle simply to earn enough bread for my wife and children. We have still not enjoyed a proper meal, and yet two or three times a day I must pay money to the municipality’s officers. If I refuse, they throw my goods into the ditch and smash my cart.

22 June 2021