I always describe my childhood as being split into two parts. The first part was before the war. Until that time, I’d lived a safe and peaceful life with my family in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. I was one of five sisters and we were all little balls of energy. We went to school and had many friends in the city – everything was normal.
My mother worked as a teacher and my father served as a general in the Afghanistan National Army. To me, my father was like James Bond. He was this big, intelligent guy – handsome and proud. I used to wake up really early for school and watch him as he went through his exercises out on the balcony every morning.
We lived in a massive apartment building, which was part of a complex designed to house the army’s generals and other highranking officials – even the president’s mother stayed there sometimes. It was very difficult to get in and out, with checkpoints ensuring that strangers couldn’t just wander in off the street. It felt like the safest place in the world to me.
But that was about to change. The second part of my childhood, after the war started and the Taliban rose to power, couldn’t have been more different. I went from a normal childhood to one of utter chaos and fear. We stopped going to school, stopped seeing our friends, and because of my father’s job, our family was thrust into danger. He grew more and more distant during the war – less like a dad and more like a general.
I remember once, when we were at home in our apartment, my mum told us girls that we had to leave immediately because the city was being attacked by the Taliban. Out on the streets, people were fighting, there were bodies on the floor and my mum told us not to let go of each other’s hands. I can remember that sheer terror as if it happened yesterday.
