Forest path
“The ground we are walking on now is not my birthplace. But I can think of it: the mountains of Afghanistan, the waterfalls. After winter, the snow melts and the rivers fill up. Then most provinces will be green. From May it is dry until November.
There is a lot of rice in Kunduz. In the past, a lot of cotton was also grown and processed in a factory. Oil was pressed from the cottonseed for use in the kitchen. And the waste became fodder.
I can still smell love from the people there. To smell the sense means to me: with my heart. That everyone loved each other. Literally I also smell the flowers, a strong smell. I smell… ah, nice bread. Bakers who put their bread outside, delicious flatbread. I’ll show you some pictures in a bit.
And in the spring – there’s a piece of flat land, so long you can’t see the end point. There we went to play with the family, have a picnic, but that is no longer allowed by the Taliban. After the spring rain, a lot of grass grows there. And that grass smells really, really good.
Cucumber also smells very nice. Cucumber no longer has that smell here.
When we broke the fast in Ramadan, everyone gathered and shared their own food with others. I remember that very well. When someone was sick, everyone came to visit. It fell apart because of the war. That love no longer exists.
Occasionally I talk to my family via WhatsApp, when the internet is working. I have three brothers and four sisters. My father worked as a merchant, and we went to school. Now an entire family has to work in Afghanistan to get enough food.”
Sand path
“Walking down the street with my friends, I miss that. Colleagues, classmates, teachers, neighbors – when I say neighbor I mean the whole neighborhood. When I came to live in Oegstgeest, I started looking for voluntary work. That’s how I ended up at the thrift store. Sometimes I worked indoors, sometimes as a driver. I wanted to broaden my network and improve my Dutch. And I started helping out at my children’s school, with a class breakfast, or on school trips.
In our culture you don’t have to make an appointment if you want to see someone. You don’t have to say: I’ll visit you next week. Because then you actually say: you have to prepare something for me. You just come, no matter what time, and you are always welcome. In Afghanistan, people have a lot of time for each other. Not here, I have to respect that. But Dutch people with whom we have contact have also become somewhat accustomed to our culture.”
Dune path
“In Afghanistan we also have a kind of dunes, you can’t go there, there are still land mines from the war with Russia in the 1980s.
I have worked with people from different countries, in recent years with Dutch people at the police mission in Kunduz. Nice people. I knew nothing about the Netherlands, but I did see a difference with German people. I didn’t find integration difficult, and if you come and live somewhere and stay there, you have to get to know the people and the culture, that’s important.
My eldest son was born in Afghanistan, my second son and my daughter here. We have never been back. We don’t tell them about the war. I’ve been through too much myself. When I was six or seven years old, we regularly had to flee. I’ve seen people lying on the street. But I don’t tell my kids that. I tell about the beautiful things. About how warm and caring people there are. I am happy when I see on my children’s school reports that they get good marks for behavior towards the teacher and other classmates.
The Netherlands is now their homeland. My father passed away when I was 25. My mother at the start of the Covid pandemic. I haven’t seen her again. My wife’s mother is still alive. Occasionally, when we are on the phone, we give the children the telephone to have a chat with the aunt, uncle or grandmother.
At home we speak Dari. I am a Pashtun and I also speak Pashto. Nazanin, my wife, belongs to the Tajiks. In Afghanistan she was a radio journalist. Now she works at a nursery and is doing a pedagogical training. People also know her from the pieces she writes for the Oegstgeest Courant. She just called to ask if it’s still fun on this walk. I had to take a few pictures.
I’m not good at cooking. Baking eggs, pancakes are still possible. My favorite dish is palau: rice with almonds, sometimes pistachios, raisins, carrots, herbs, meat.
When people think of Afghanistan now, they think of the Taliban and war and heroin, but it wasn’t like that. Forty years ago, Afghanistan was more beautiful than the Netherlands, women worked just like men, everywhere. Girls went to school and college in short skirts. Now they are not allowed to go to school and only in the street in a burqa and not without a male supervisor.”
Asphalt
“Look, those people drive to the golf course in their car. Maybe they are retired, that is well organized in the Netherlands. In Afghanistan we do not have a pension. Nor vacation. If you work one less day, you have one less day to eat. We don’t have many good roads either.
During my nursing school, I often heard my classmates complain. I said: your safety is free, you have done nothing for that until now. You have good food, a loan from the government for your studies. And you complain! People worry about energy costs, but spend hundreds of euros a month on cigarettes.
When the Taliban returned, many Afghans had to hide their dreams. My family too. I try to think positively about the future. If I was single, maybe it wouldn’t matter if I was sad… But now I have a family, we are connected. If I get sick, my wife will suffer, and my children. I want to avoid that. Usually I am busy with simple things so that I do not remember everything. I don’t have much contact with my family, otherwise I get sad every day. Then I say: I can only be reached on Saturday and Sunday, I cannot always answer your calls when I am at work. But yeah, I can’t do anything either.
It was my mother’s dream that I would become a doctor. I started dentistry in Afghanistan. In the Netherlands I wanted to continue with that, but that didn’t work out. Then I wanted to do dental care. My English, physics, chemistry and biology were good, but my Dutch was not yet sufficient. Then I went on to study nursing. I now specialize as an endoscopy nurse. When I’m done with that, I want to do the master’s physician assistant, with which you can take over some tasks from a specialist.
During Covid I worked day and night. A colleague said: you now have to rest for two weeks. That was my two weeks vacation. When someone can go home with better health, or can live for years after surgery, it makes me happy. Helping people is a good goal for me.”
Shell path
“Sometimes I think: who has determined what a country is, where the borders are. Why has we been at war in Afghanistan for years? What’s with us? Why do so many ordinary people have to die? Look at Ukraine. I have many such questions.
I saw the sea for the first time in 2016, in Katwijk. I love the sea, the sound of the sea gives peace. I come here with my kids in the summer. But I’m not swimming in the sea yet. I am currently working on my A degree. I do it for them too, you have to be nice to your kids. The oldest two are now going for their C diploma. They make bombs and say to me: come into the water too, we are going to the deep end.
My parents had another son. He drowned in a water where we were with the family. His name was Barialai.
Sometimes I come here to think a little. A small part of space near the sun, that is earth. We live here. How is that possible? I’m afraid of the scorpion, but you use its venom to make medicine. Everyone has come here for a purpose, everything has a function. And those crazy Taliban don’t understand what our goal is.
You were born here and connected to this part of the earth, but that place is not ours. If I die, someone else will come to life. I can’t take that place. Everywhere, soil is just soil to me. It is important that you use it well, that you live there with love and that you are useful to other people.”
photos Olivier Middendorp