Suraya Sadeed - Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse: The True Story of a Woman Who Risked Everything to Bring Hope to Afghanistan

To the
Children of Afghanistan

SURAYA SADEED

For Hamid Huneidi,
for the gift of life

DAMIEN LEWIS

This is a true story. It took place between the year of my birth, 1952, and the present day. Afghanistan has been at war for decades. My home city, Kabul, has been particularly badly devastated. I have changed some peoples names to protect family, friends, and communities.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

NELSON MANDELA

Contents

PROLOGUE
Lessons by Lamplight
1997

I had no trouble finding a store that sold burkas in Peshawar, Pakistan. Id started to hear stories about the Talibans excesses in Afghanistan since their explosion into power started in Kandahar Province in 1994, and I wanted to blend in and go about my work unmolested once I crossed the border from Pakistan into my home country. All the burkas I could find were the same powder blue color and one-size-fits-all. They were too long for me, but the shopkeeper suggested I cut one off at the hem.

Later, in the privacy of my hotel room, I tried the burka on. I wasnt able to get my head into it. The gauze window remained stubbornly stuck on my forehead, and I couldnt see out. I went back to the shop and told the shopkeeper that I needed a burka with an extra big head. He found one that I could just about squeeze into. I figured it would give me a headache, but Id make do.

The route I planned to take to Kabul was the same that Id taken for the last three years, bringing money and supplies for medical and humanitarian relief into Afghanistan. Except for my route, though, everything had changed. This time, the entire journey would be in areas under Taliban control.

I exchanged our $35,000 for a sackful of local currency. I had hoped to hide the money beneath my newly acquired burka during the trip to Kabul, but there was no way I could strap that much cash beneath even the worlds most voluminous tent. Dr. Abdullah, Nawabi, and Sekander, my three trusted Afghan colleagues, had agreed to accompany me, so they would be able to share the burden of carrying the money.

The four of us caught a taxi from Peshawar to the Afghanistan border, where I donned my burka. As soon as the garment was on me, I could sense the difference. I could go freely wherever I chose without being stared at as a foreigner. At first the front kept twisting around to the back, bringing my eyeholes along with it, so I couldnt see. And whenever I wanted to eat or drink, I had to hook my arm up like an elephants trunk and pass the food under the burka, feeling for my open mouth. But I could live with that. For now, at least, the burka was a welcome refuge.

On the Afghan side of the border we joined a crowd of others whod just passed through the frontier post. We all boarded a battered Soviet-era bus together, our fellow passengers carrying every sort of cargo you could imagine: suitcases, pots and pans, chickens tied up by the feet. I guessed that some of them had to be Afghan refugees returning home to chance their lot under the Taliban. A thick and heavy curtain hung halfway down the bus. Under the Talibans rules, the bus had to be segregated: men in front, women in back.

The Taliban had strung roadblocks along the route where they stopped the bus and checked that their rules were being adhered to. If a woman was sitting in the wrong section, or if she wasnt properly covered, then the men traveling with her would be punished. No woman was allowed to go anywhere without a male companion, so the Taliban always had a man they could give a good beating to.

As we set off down the potholed road, the bus creaking and groaning at every bump, I wondered why the women were holding pillows on their heads. Almost immediately, the bus cannoned into a massive pothole, and we shot off our seats. Of course the women with the pillows were pretty much okay, but my head hit the roof with an almighty crack.

Shit! Goddamn it! I yelled out in Dari. Tell the goddamn driver to slow down!

Everyone turned and stared. I was so glad that I was enveloped in my burka. They must have guessed that I was a foreigner from my accent, but they still couldnt see me. I turned to the woman next to me.

At this rate Im gonna have a bump on my head the size of a pomegranate, I joked.

I couldnt tell if she smiled or not because I couldnt see her face. It was like talking to a mask.

Here, she said, passing me a bundle. Take this childs jacket. Its not a pillow exactly, but it might help.

What do I do with it? I asked her.

Stuff it inside your burka. The hood should keep it in place.

I fed the kids jacket up under my burka and wedged it into the headpiece. When I pulled the burka down again I had a weird lump on top of my head.

Im sorry, the woman giggled, staring at me. It just looks so funny.

I bet it does, I replied, laughing too.

As we drove on, the blinding sun beat down on us from the bright azure sky. The back of the bus grew horribly stuffy, embalmed within my burka as I was. We finally stopped at a place where a cool stream ran down from the mountainside, and the men got out to drink and to relieve themselves. I leaned forward and pushed the curtain aside so I could speak to Dr. Abdullah.

I need to go pee, I whispered.

Sorry, he whispered back. Theres nowhere for a woman to go.

But I need to, I hissed.

You cant. Women arent allowed to get out.

So under the Taliban, women cant pee? I need to go!

Just wait awhile. Theres a restaurant a little farther on. You can go there.

The men soon climbed back in the bus and started lighting up these horrid cigarettes. Whether they were opium joints or not, I didnt know. But whatever they were, the acrid smoke soon drifted to the back of the bus and started pooling behind the curtain in a thick gray haze.

I leaned forward again and caught Dr. Abdullahs attention. Can you tell them to stop smoking? We dont have a window back here.

The women are having a hard time breathing because of the smoke, Dr. Abdullah announced. Theres no window in the back of the bus.

No one seemed to pay him any heed, and the smoke grew thicker and thicker. A few minutes later, as we approached a Taliban checkpoint, I leaned forward for a third time.

Tell those bozos if they dont stop smoking, Ill unveil myself, I hissed again. And then the Taliban will beat the crap out of all of you.

All three of my colleaguesDr. Abdullah, Nawabi, and Sekanderturned to me and stared.

You cant do that, Dr. Abdullah objected. You never know what might happen.

Im warning you guystell them to stop smoking, or the burka comes off.

Dr. Abdullah nodded his head and smiled, figuring that I was joking. Nawabi tried not to laugh. But Sekander was horrified. Sekander knew that I was born and brought up in Afghanistan, but as far as he was concerned I came from a different planet. In his experience, no Afghan woman would act as I did; the only way he could rationalize my behavior was by labeling me as a foreigner.

Suraya- jan , Afghanistan is not like it was when you lived here, Nawabi remarked. Youve been away in the U.S. and things here have changed. Were in a time now where women cant

Thats baloney! Cant do what? I demanded. Its precisely because Ive lived in the U.S. that I cant put up with this crap.

See, thats what I mean. Youre impossible. We cant reason with you at all.

By now the rear of the bus was a dense fog of smoke. I felt nauseated and dizzy and I was quickly reaching the end of my rope.

You men in the front! I yelled out. I swear to God if you dont stop smoking Ill unveil in front of the Talibs, and theyll beat the crap out of every last one of you!