Outlook Anniversary Issue: Dispatches From Chaos

Kabul fell to Taliban control on 15 August 2021 —the writers were in touch through the night that followed. All of the writers in this section were writing from the city of Kabul. This is their collective diary: in it, they watch schools and offices close, families change and freedoms disappear. They share stories of chaos, protest and flight—and of life continuing.

Maryam

I don’t have any sleep. It is night-time, and Kabul has fallen fully. I cannot believe it. I want to tell everyone: they took Kabul. I want to tell my mother, my sisters, my brothers—they have taken Kabul. I want to go up to the roof and say quietly – they took Kabul. I don’t know why I can’t just shout it out: THEY TOOK KABUL.

Through the night and into the next morning the writers reflect on what has happened and recount the day they have just lived through.

Fakhta

Fakhta lives in a university hostel in the capital, and is close to getting her degree in Law from Kabul University. Her home is in the mountainous province of Daikundi.

I woke up when my phone rang. My mother gave me the news. She said our whole province—including our district, Nili, at the centre of Daikundi—is in the hands of the Taliban. She was upset. She said, ‘I wish you had not gone back to the university in Kabul.’

She was right. Apart from Kabul, all other cities are already in the hands of the Taliban. They now control all the highways. The only thing left to happen was for the Taliban to enter the capital and take over the presidential palace. I said goodbye to my mother and lay back on my bed in the hostel, looking out of the window, shocked and anxious.

I got up and went to class. I was late and slipped into the lecture. After about twenty minutes, everyone’s phone began to ring; the lecturer’s too.

Sadaf

Sadaf is a teacher. She is teaching a class of girls in Year 8, most of whom would be fourteen or fifteen years old.

I distributed the exam papers and gave my students their instructions. At 11 a.m. I explained the instructions to them and wrote a few more on the blackboard with white chalk. The students asked questions and I answered them. The class was so calm, like the silence before a storm. Then the door opened, and the head teacher came in. She started collecting the exam papers although we hadn’t even started. Her hands were shaking, and she asked me to help her. I saw my students’ faces, pale with fear. We told them to go home.

Parand

I was at the office, as usual. I had only just started working when the office phone rang. We were told that the situation was getting worse, that the Taliban had entered the city and we should leave the office. I was not afraid: it was not news. We knew the Taliban would be coming back and I witnessed the same turmoil twenty-five years ago. But I had no choice but to leave alongside two of my colleagues, who were younger and so afraid you could see their skin turn pale.

Fakhta

As I walked quickly back to the university hostel, I worried about my fiancé. He is in the army in Uruzgan Province. He is someone who has fought the Taliban face to face. If he is recognised by any of them, I will have to say goodbye forever. I knew he was in Kabul for a few days, on leave, and all the way back to the hostel I kept trying to reach him on my phone. I must have called twenty times. But I never got to hear his voice.

Hurrying my steps, I ran into the hostel grounds. As I entered the corridor, everyone was leaving, some with luggage, some with belongings stuffed into plastic bags. In my room, I saw Mitra gathering her things. Without saying Salam, she told me to collect my stuff and leave the hostel as soon as possible. ‘The teachers said, it is only for a few days. When the situation gets better, we can come back.’ I said goodbye to Mitra and picked up a plastic bag. I put in a few clothes and Kafka on The Shore. I was reaching for my ID card and other documents which I keep at the back of my bookshelf when the teacher in charge shouted at me to leave so she could close the hostel.

My Dear Kabul: A Year in the Life of an Afghan Women’s Writing Group published by Coronet/Hodder, 2024. Translated by Parwana Fayyaz and Dr Negeen Kargar.

My Dear Kabul is an Untold Narratives project. Untold—a development programme for emerging writers in areas of conflict and post-conflict—was founded by Lucy Hannah