Sosan Yaqobi

On the day when Kabul was toppled, my hopes and dreams also toppled. 

For 13 years my father had been working at Medica Afghanistan as a security guard. He cannot read or write but he did everything to ensure that his daughter would be able to study one day. On August 14, 2021, I was 19 years old and had just completed the first semester of my degree in economics. I was engaged. I was looking forward to the future.  

That night, the Taliban seized power in my home city of Mazar-e Sharif. The next day, they gained control of Kabul. In the eyes of the Taliban, my father was a ‘traitor’ because he had worked for an international organisation. His life was in danger, as was his family: my mother and myself. 

It took us five months to find a way out of Afghanistan. Five months of struggling against arbitrary decisions by government officials and trying not to lose hope. We got married in this time, but I was crying in despair. In the end, it was my love of Bollywood that helped us leave the country! 

Immediately after the Taliban took power, medica mondiale informed us they were working on evacuating staff and their close families. They told my father to take my mother and me and get to Kabul as quickly as possible and wait for the next steps. The first thing we needed was a valid passport. 

The passport authority did not re-open until October, but as soon as it did, we queued up with thousands of others.

For weeks we did not even make it as far as the building entrance. My fiancé was a pharmacist in Kabul. He accompanied me tirelessly. I could not give up. My whole life was waiting for me! A life that I wanted to live in freedom. Together with him. So inwardly I was torn apart knowing I would be leaving my homeland with my parents but without him. I wanted to strengthen our connection very officially so in October we organised a nikah – a religious marriage. 

And a few weeks later we finally managed to get into the passport office.  

When the official saw my papers, he threw them on the floor.

I picked them back up again and showed him the e-mails from medica mondiale. “Please!” I pleaded with him. “I can’t do this anymore.” Then he took the documents. “Wait until this afternoon.” Hours later, I saw him again. In front of the building, he was standing in the back of a pick-up truck reading out names. For an hour. The last names he read out were ours.  

I ran into the next office in the building to get the next forms I needed to fill out. It was 4pm. When I reached the front of the queue, the official signed the papers for my father. He signed the form for my mother. Then he put his pen down. “It’s 4.30pm,” he said. “Time to go home.” It took two of his colleagues to convince him to put his signature on my form, too. I was incredibly relieved. Now all we had to do was register our fingerprints and everything would be ready. However, listening to the evening news I heard that the passport office was going to be shut until further notice.  

At some point we paid 900 dollars to obtain the passports, and another 2000 dollars for visas to Pakistan. These were visas for medical treatment, which were the cheapest type.  

On the night of January 20, we left Kabul, reaching the border the following morning. “The system for medical visas has been suspended,” said the first Pakistani border official. The second then claimed he had mislaid our documents. Exhausted, my parents sat on our cases. Behind the border fencing, on the Afghan side, my husband wrote: “I’ll wait here until you are safely across on the other side.” When I spoke to the next official, he reacted with surprise: “How come you speak Urdu so well?” I love Bollywood films. And where I lived, we watched them in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan. I showed him the photos of our visas and passports. And then? He said: “Fetch your parents.” 

That is more than three years ago now. When I said farewell to my husband from the other side of the rusting border fence, he said: “Make sure you follow your dreams. We will cope with everything else.” I am longing for the day when this nightmare of despair comes to an end, and I can finally see him again.  

Now I am hoping my husband can join me in Germany under the provisions for family reunification. Once again, I gathered together the documents for the authorities: marriage certificate, passport details, his German language certificates... Once again, I am waiting for someone to approve my application. This tension barely leaves space for dreams.