My family was among the thousands of families who decided to leave my hometown in Ghazni Afghanistan due to Taliban’s aggression in 1998. The Taliban had sieged the district and there a severe shortage of food and medicine.
Over the years of living and studying abroad my family and I had managed to keep our Afghan passports and citizenship. In 2014, I was the first in my family to go back to live and work in Afghanistan. I went to a country I didn’t grow up or went to school, having no friends. But I fully embraced the challenges of moving back. I adjusted very well, found a job and learning more about my ancestral culture and living among my people, the most resilient and loving.
Yet, there was difficulties residing in Kabul. There was weekly or sometimes daily suicide attacks - targeting civilians and protected sites. The intensity of these attacks were increasing over the period that I was living there, yet the people never seemed to give up their normal life to the fear of such terrorist attacks, but worked towards a better Afghanistan. In 2016, I received Fulbright Scholarship to do my second LLM in the United States. My Fulbright journey is my most profound experiences yet, it fulfilled my dream of being among Afghan student’s cohort and make friends from all part of Afghanistan. Because I always fantasized of how it would have been to live study in Afghanistan all those 17 year away. Today, I watch Afghanistan descending into chaos again, yet again the mass Afghan exodus has started. My relatives and friends are being evacuated in fear of being persecuted by the Taliban. Their crime? Working and believing in a better and inclusive Afghanistan. I thought living in exile or as a refugee was something we had been through and heeled from. Yet again, I am not sure I will ever be able to visit my beloved motherland ever. Three weeks has passed since the Taliban takeover, yet everyday, I wake up with a wish if it was all just a nightmare. I still haven’t comprehended of what has happened, I still have the initial denial, anger, and having emotional reactions. Although, it has started to sink in, and it’s painful. My heart is broken beyond repair. But, I know one thing for sure, I will never give up on the Afghanistan that I and my generation has envisioned and I will work towards it no matter where I am!
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