quruti

Running up the hill (Karteh Parwan) to my Uncle's house. My mother was dragging me by the arm and she she held my two year old brother who was crying.

I heard the whistles of rockets and saw our shadows thrown against the dirt of the hill whenever they hit.

I thought they were fireworks. For a four year old, I'd only ever associated the noises and the lights with New Year's (Nowe Roz) festivities and I so very badly wanted to turn around.

My mother finally stopped jerking on my arm to adjust my brother who was screaming and fidgeting and I got my chance.

But all I saw as fire. No buildings, no hills nothing but red and yellow and orange blazes. It felt like we and the hill were the only things not on fire. I had never been afraid before, but could never shake it since.

No, never. It would be impossible for me to assimilate into the society there, I would always be a part of the expatriate community, never fully integrated. There is too much disconnect between those who left and those we left behind, a sense of guilt on one side, a sense of accusation and neglect from the other. My friends who have gone back only really ever socialize with other people also from the States or Europe, never with the locals.

The most common question is, "Do you love Afghanistan?"

The only acceptable answer is "Yes."

Which in turn leads to an accusatory "If you love it why didn't/don't you stay?"

I can only take such condemnation in small doses.

Eating. Pretty much all my happy memories involved food.

I used to open the drawers to climb them so I could reach the cupboards that held the 'Qurut.' Then I would smuggle them out in my cheeks. It was the first memory of taste I have.

Also, I taught my little brother how to eat our afternoon cookies around the edges so they would last longer. I remember sitting in front of the window and showing him how to nibble around the edges and sipping our condensed milk in between starting another round. You'd think I'd invented the wheel I was so proud.

Another was when we were driving back from Jalalabad and my cousins and I were in the back of the station wagon with the fish we'd bought and we were trying to pop out the eyes... we were pretty disgusting but it was fun.

Well, my father was jailed under Amin... my cousin died under the NA and my uncle under the Taliban... so all in their own special way were worse than the other. No one in my family died or was thrown in prison under Najibullah so that makes him okay in my book.

In terms of what they did for the nation, I've heard nothing but good things from my cousins who live in Afghanistan about Najibullah. Though, they were also heavily indoctrinated, one cannot deny that for the first and last time, Afghanistan had positive economic growth under his reign.

I'm from Kabul but my Grandparents were from Kandahar via Ghor and Shiberghan.

I loved living in Germany, I think it was a combination of being so traumatized right before we got there and the relief my mother felt at being in a familiar environment coupled by the child-friendly atmosphere of Northern Germany.

One of my fondest childhood memories occurred shortly after we arrived in Hamburg. To give some context, we only brought a few pieces of luggage and my mother could not have anticipated that we would outgrow our winter coats, boots and mittens from Afghanistan, so we were unprepared for the German winter.

In Northern Germany, the Christmas tradition is for kids to leave their boots outside their rooms or homes and they would be filled with candy and small toys. Even if we had been aware of this tradition, we were Muslim and didn't celebrate Christmas.

Christmas morning we woke up to find four pairs of boots outside our door filled with toys, candy, two sweaters and parkas for both of us. Despite the fact we weren't Christians, our German neighbors made sure we had what we needed.

Up until then, I don't remember ever feeling so elated, amazed and grateful in all my young life. My brother and I put on all our cloths, put the extra pairs of boots on our hands and danced around our little apartment.