When we arrived in the first village, our resting spot was nothing more than a cluster of mud-brick compounds, behind which we could see the thatched roofs of tiny houses. These small compounds were clustered along a dusty street that ran down the middle of the community, emptying into a small square. There was a uniform brown dullness to the buildings. As nondescript and rustic as the place appeared to us, Masood assured us we would find what we wanted most here: a place to sleep, something nice to eat, and water to wash. Cows, chickens, and sheep were everywhere along the lane. I was so hungry; if I had had the energy to catch one of them, I would have wrung its neck like I’d seen done and begun feasting on it there in the middle of the street. We slumped to the dusty ground in exhaustion while Masood talked to one of the villagers, who agreed to feed us and give us a place to sleep. He motioned us toward an outdoor cooking stove, and we watched a few village women cook rice and vegetables. The women looked like they wore the same clothes they slept in, faded gray chadors and baggy kameez. When the food was ready, they placed the meal on a large platter and gave us each a little plate with a small serving while they began sharing what was left on the platter. They didn’t give us forks or spoons. We all watched the villagers for a while as they ate with their hands. We had never eaten with our hands before, but when hunger claws at you till you think it is going to burst you open, it is not too hard to pick up the rice with your fingers and stuff it in your mouth. I ate with my fingers, as the villagers did and as I’d seen my countrymen do before, and it was the best rice and vegetables I’d ever had.
After dinner we went down to the river to wash. After washing, we watched the villagers prepare for the evening. Once inside one of their huts, we sat on the hard-packed floor. There were no beds, no electric lights, and no running water for showers. When it was time to sleep, most of them curled up on the dirt floor, so we did the same. There were few blankets to go around, so we used our own clothes to cover us.
That night, as my tired body dragged me off into sleepiness, images of Noor setting plates of food on Mommy’s long dining room table flashed through my thoughts. The rhythms and routines of village life were so different from what I grew up with in the city. I had lived in a different world than the people in this village had.
We stayed in this place for a while, waiting for Masood to decide when it was safe for us to continue on our journey. We soon settled in to their rhythms. We rose each morning and washed in the river to start the day. Since we also drank directly from the river, which was the only source of water, I learned to look around and make sure I wasn’t downriver from village cows and sheep and other animals that would stand in the river and foul it with their waste while they lapped up the water with their tongues.
Village life was far removed from life in Kabul. The kids were dirty and wore tattered clothes, and the women, who worked hard in the sun, slept in the same clothes they had worn during the day. My sisters and brothers and I had whole closets full of clothes, and we had toys and bicycles and watched TV at night in a plush living room. In this village as dusk closed in, I watched a few of the kids play a game with sticks and rocks while they ran around in their tattered clothes. At night, as I slipped off into sleep on the hard dirt floor after a meager dinner of vegetables and rice, I wondered if my memories of Kabul were the reality in Afghanistan.
One night after everyone went to sleep, and a quiet had descended over the village, Masood woke us. In a hushed tone he told us to get our things; our way was clear to continue on. We were leaving.
“This is a very difficult part of the journey, so we must stay together,” he told us as we moved quickly down the dirt road. We were heading deeper into the countryside. He explained that we would have to go around Jalalabad, and the shortest way was through a large marijuana field. It was well guarded on all sides by the farmers, and he had received special permission for us to walk through it. “I paid them to let us pass,” he said. But he said we must be quiet and stay together and concentrate, or the unpleasant smell of the tall plants would overcome us.
I’d never smelled anything so rotten. The field was so vast and dense with plants that the concentrated aroma of the marijuana plants had turned into a putrid stench that burrowed into our noses and seeped down into our stomachs. It was like walking through a garbage dump where animal carcasses and waste food had been left to rot, producing one large overwhelming odor of death. We gagged every step. I wanted to throw up, but Masood prodded us to keep moving. We didn’t dare stop, worried that the stench would overwhelm us to the point we would be unable to continue. He carried a lantern and held it out in front of us and warned us to watch where we stepped. The field went on for miles. I figured this because we had to walk all night to get through it.
“There are scorpions and spiders, but don’t worry, if you get bit, it won’t kill you. I know exactly what to do.”
I knew scorpions well. I’d seen them when I walked to school or down by the Kabul River, where we went at times to picnic or to throw rocks in the river. They were a greenish brown, with spindly legs and a curling tail with a poisonous sting on the end. Masood tried to reassure us we’d be fine because they had poor eyesight. They were all over, and we often saw them scurrying out of the light of the lantern.
The odor was so intense it overpowered us no matter how hard we tried not to think about it. The sour smell settled in our stomachs, and every so often one of us would stop and start retching. Masood turned and waited when one of us was throwing up, then he marched on and we followed.
To keep our minds off our sickness, we talked about our days in Kabul. About how Shahnaz and Shapairi were the most beautiful girls in town and how boys used to follow them around when they walked to the store. And how boys would drive by in their cars and whistle at them. And how suitors would come by the house wanting to speak to Padar to ask for their hands, and he would kick them out for being rude, or too young, or too old. And the fun we had at our parents’ parties, with our friends, and during the holidays, when the family would gather to eat and talk.
“Will we ever see those days again?” Laila asked. “Go to the parties that we used to have in Kabul?”
A party? With every step we moved farther away from our home, my fears grew that we’d never see either of our parents again, that we would be stranded in one of these villages, eating rice and vegetables with our hands and sleeping on dirt floors for the rest of our lives. In the darkness that night, I began thinking maybe our parents were just trying to get rid of us by sending us on this journey. A party? I pictured myself eating with a fork again and smiled through another spell of gagging.
10
THIS IS YOUR LOT
Just after sunrise, with the sun at our backs as it peeked through the ragged edges of distant mountaintops, we tramped into another village of squat mud-brick houses that rested along the banks of a stream. By this time, all of the villages looked the same, born out of the Afghan dirt that had left a muddy hue to every building and every wall. The dirt path down the center of the village looked much like the others we had walked through, but here, we were greeted. A line of raggedly dressed children with dirty faces and hungry eyes watched us as we passed. The chilly air made me shiver, and I had a fatigue I had never felt before. I wanted to lie down in the dirt of this dingy settlement and sleep. I couldn’t put any more weight on my feet; my tennis shoes had rubbed against the back of my heels for too many hours. Laila, who had been throwing up all night, limped behind me, barely able to take another step. Zulaikha and Zia were both slump-shouldered and weary. Spent beyond our experience, we collapsed in a silent circle in the dust in front of one of the mud-walled compounds. None of us spoke when Masood left us to meet with one of the villagers.