Kids of Kabul (8 page)

A rainy day in the Women’s Garden.

I don’t feel free outside the garden. Neither does my friend. It’s because of men that we don’t feel free. We feel they are watching us and judging us. They haven’t said anything directly to me or tried to bother me, but my mother tells me to be careful around them, and not to relax out there. She remembers living under the Taliban, when all men were cruel to women, not just the Taliban. She said the Taliban told men that women were bad and a lot of men believed them, and they would treat women badly even if they weren’t part of the Taliban. I try to tell her that things have changed, but she always says, “Things haven’t changed that much!”

So we’re careful when we are out in the world, but behind these walls, in this garden, we don’t have to be careful. We can play and laugh and there is no one to frown at us.

Sometimes my friend and I like to play on the swings, like we’re doing today. Sometimes we run around on all the pathways until we are breathing really hard and we can feel our hearts pounding. Sometimes we feel like being quiet and we just sit on a bench. There are shops as you just come into the garden. Did you see them? They sell dresses and things for hair and for babies. Sometimes we look in the shops or buy a treat from the tea house.

Outside the walls there are a lot of soldiers in the streets. You see them on tanks or army trucks and they carry big machine guns. Some are foreign soldiers, some are Afghan. I am not afraid of them. It’s what I have always seen, ever since I can remember. They don’t bother me because I don’t make trouble for anyone.

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 America 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.