Afghan Conversation 21: Chaos in the Courtyard

"No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. You only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well" – Warsan Shire (British writer)

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[NOTE: The following is the latest in a series of exchanges I’ve been having with a young Afghan friend since the Taliban took over his country. I’m withholding his identity out of concern for his safety.]

Dear David:

It's 4 PM, and about 500 tired, desperate, and angry people are waiting to submit their applications to get passports at the government office in the city of Helmand. The temperature is below zero, and all of us have been waiting since 3 am. Four or five Taliban guards are standing at the entrance with guns and hoses in their hands. If any males try to enter the courtyard of the passport office, they beat them and prevent them from entering. 

But they do  allow the women to enter the yard because they want to separate them from men. I asked one woman to please take me with her into the yard as her son; otherwise I cannot enter. The yard is full of forlorn people running from one station to another. There is no one who can process their applications or tell them what to do. Only the  Taliban guards with weapons and they know nothing. 

One applicant named Khalid says that he’s been coming every day for a week without results. Working under the rules of the Taliban is a silly thing, he says, because they are all illiterate. It's Insulting to educated people to have a group of fighters that has come from the mountains saying what we must do. 

While waiting to deliver my application I speak with another man who is 40, a teacher and father of four children. He complains that the Taliban have not paid his salary for five months now, and he has to struggle to feed his family. He is also concerned about the worsening security situation as it's predicted that ISIS is growing. He says he doesn't have any alternative but to leave Afghanistan. 

No one at all can get a passport in the provinces but here in the cities and in Kabul there are a lucky few who can get their applications processed by bribing the Taliban passport officers. Every day, there is a huge group of people arguing with the Taliban guards in front of the passport office. We  are told we should apply for passports online, but that site is so crowded that no one can get in.

There is a Facebook group with 55,000 Afghan members who  share information about passport issues. One applicant posted "Please sleep tonight, the site will not open." Another said that the site opened briefly for 20 minutes. Another said he stood in line for four days and four nights and finally got in.

This is the scene for those of us who wish to leave Afghanistan legally. The only word for it is chaos.

***

[Postscript: My friend has received his passport.]

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