Afghanistan? What was that like?

       You are seven, and your mama just told you that you’re moving to Kabul. The place from T.V.? The capital of Afghanistan. The country at war? We’ll be happy there. Your mama is running, running around the room, snatching up shirts and smelling them before throwing them into a bag. What do you pack when you’re moving to Afghanistan? Bratz Dolls, Nancy Drew, dress-up costumes, stuffed animals, American Girl Doll, colored pencils, Scooby-Doo action figures, purple kaleidoscope, Magic Tree House, and the scooter, if it can fit. You imagine what the kids in Kabul will be like, and what kind of toys they’ll have. Hopefully they’re nice. Hopefully they know it's rude not to share. On the plane mama puts away her newspaper and asks if you’re afraid. She doesn't believe you when you say no. Just nervous, and excited. The combination makes you feel like you have to poop. But the plane is descending, so you stay in your seat, and look out the window at the mountains towering over your new home.

       The Hindu Kush(Persian for the Hindu Killers). Even the mountains in Afghanistan are terrorists. Cradled by that rugged rock face, Kabul nestles itself under layers of dust. A pastel yellow dust that sits in the air and floats in your lungs. It smells like feces on the back of your tongue, and feels like dead skin you can’t shed. The streets are pale and chalky, and rub off on every pair of chaplak(sandals) and shalwar(pants) that cross them. There are no traffic-lights. Cars, bikes, buses and motorcycles weave between beggars and peddlers in a dance with no rules. Bees swarm and suckle at the cow heads and lamb carcases hanging in front of the butcher. And goats are responsible for eating most of the city’s trash. Children with knotted hair and charcoal fingernails rap-tap on the window of your car, or tug at your chadar(scarf), pleading in broken english for “paisa(money) pliz”. I wonder what it’s like to be poor in Afghanistan. I wonder what it’s like to be Afghan.

       During the six years I spent in Kabul, I never got caught in the middle of anything dangerous. Apart from the occasional crackling of gunfire or vibrations from a forgotten mine, my life in Kabul was as safe as white American money could buy. On a normal school day, our driver and bodyguard would drop me and my step sister Mina off in front of our missionary-funded international school, and we’d walk into class with our friends. If I didn't have an after-school club that day, and if Mina wasn't feeling exceptionally chatty, we’d head straight for Chicken Street. Chicken Street has nothing to do with chickens. It's a narrow section of the city’s bazar, known amongst foreigners for its vast collection, and up-to-date selection, of pirated movies. This was part one of our after school tradition. After we’d had our way with Chicken Street’s goodies, it was on to The French Bakery (which was run by Afghans) to buy some bread and cherry juice. Once we were home, and our shoes were kicked off, we’d roll up our sleeves and plug in the panini press. Mina poured cherry juice into tall glasses full of ice, while I assembled the sandwiches: Two slices of white bread. Two slices of American cheese (the kind with the plastic wrapper). And, most important of all, ham slices (only found on the occasional trip to the Italian military base). Coated with butter, our secret sandwiches would hiss, coaxing our ears and tempting our noses with the smells of barely burning cheese and the forbidden pork product. I've never felt more American, or more humbled by my privilege, than I did sitting in front of the t.v., eating ham and cheese, watching CSI with my sister, in the privacy of our heavily guarded, barbed wire lined, Afghan villa.

       You are thirteen, and your mama just told you that you're moving to Charleston. South Carolina? Where you were born. The United States? Won't you be happier there? You return to America and learn that ignorance is not bliss. It is stupidity, and the fear to learn. “Isn’t Afghanistan like in a war?” “Weren't you afraid of all the muslims?” “How did you take showers if there’s no water in the desert?” “Did you ever get to blow something up”? You are the new white girl from the brown land. Their eyeballs bulge and their jaws catch flies. “Wait, where are you from”? Can I say I don't know? It’s a funny thing feeling foreign when you're technically home.

Photo by Getty Images/sasacvetkovic33