Some of us know that we are blessed to live in a first world country by reading the news or poverty facts. It takes living in a third world country to truly understand what that blessing means.
Over winter break, I traveled to Afghanistan to visit family and distribute some money fundraised on campus at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Coming to Afghanistan is hard due to a few reasons: security issues and distance (a flight from the U.S. to Afghanistan is approximately 17 hours). This is nothing compared to what a U.S. citizen has to face once they are in the country.
Depression follows you in every aspect of life, from health to people’s day-to-day conversations.
Every time I come to Afghanistan, I get sick for at least two to three weeks because everything is so unhygienic. There is barely any hot water compared to what we have in the States, medication is also ineffective and mainly comes from Pakistan where it has been reported to be fake by Tribune, in association with the International New York Times.
In the winter, the heating system is inefficient for many Afghan families. People either use bukhari, which is a fire-chamber, where wood or coal is usually burnt; or they can place a rectangular table on a brazier and cover it with a big blanket, under which one can tuck his/her legs and stay warm that way. In both cases, people are basically warm only in that one corner of the room, underneath the blanket or by the bukhari, which makes it hard to function throughout the day around the house.
While in Afghanistan, I asked a few recent college graduates about their future plans, to which they all replied with, “You can’t get a job here unless you pay big money for the position or have strong contacts.” Students who attend college, despite the hard living conditions and safety issues, now find themselves unemployed.
In 2015, the unemployment rates were sky high. This followed into 2016, with families on the verge of starvation and crime rates increasing by 30% since 2014 according to the Criminal Investigation Department of Afghanistan.
If you go to a bazaar, what Afghans call a market, to get some shopping done, all you will see are children ages five and up begging on streets, polishing shoes, or washing cars without warm clothes or any indication of hygiene. If you try to help them, you’ll find yourself being chased by fifteen others begging for help too.
There are countries that are just poor as Afghanistan out there. It is unfortunate to be both a war zone and a country suffering from poverty. Some would argue that wars are the main reason Afghanistan is in the state that it is today.
After the inauguration of the new president, Ashraf Ghani, the country has become especially unsafe. The Taliban gained control of several provinces. Even ISIS has found refuge in the eastern part of the country causing thousands of internally displaced people. People are living in constant fear of either one of those two groups taking over their towns and cities. Others live in fear of simply walking by a bomb placed under someone’s car and becoming a statistic on the news.
If you are traveling between provinces or cities, there is the fear of thieves stopping your car and either killing you and raping the women or simply stealing everything you have with you at the moment. Sometimes, Taliban members stop cars, questioning them about their destination and then determines their fate: either to be killed or simply robbed and let go.
Even casual family conversations are unbearably depressing. While in the States, conversions at the dinner table revolve around discussing the highlights of everyone’s day. In Afghanistan, people discuss the amount of people that have been killed that day: “Did you hear that the Taliban skinned a man today?” or “A mullah shot an Afghan-American girl today because he didn’t like how she was dressed.”
Somebody else will continue with brining up a similar case that happened somewhere else: “That happened in Mazar a while ago, when a mullah stabbed a girl over how she was dressed.” After discussing individual cases of murders, they will go on to discuss the ones on news, “Three rockets hit Kabul today…” or “So many soldiers died in Helmand, trying to take it back from the Taliban.”
These are just stories from one dinner with my family.
On the mainstream media, Afghan refugees, who, in December of 2015 made up 20% of all the refugees fleeing to Europe, are oftentimes ignored. It is due to the issues above that they choose to flee the country, risking their own and their children’s lives. In addition, neighboring countries like Iran and Pakistan host around 4.5 million Afghan refugees, of whom only 2.45 million are legally registered, according to the Human Rights Watch.
These were the Afghans who fled the country due to persecution based on religion, ethnicity, the Soviet invasion, or the civil war. In the wake of the Syrian civil war, Iran gave many Afghan refugees a choice of either fighting in Syria in exchange for money and legal residence, or being deported back to Afghanistan, reports the Human Rights Watch. While Pakistan is not forcing them to participate in wars, many Afghans still face harassment, raids on their houses, and physical violence in the country. So, a portion of the Afghans fleeing to Europe are also coming from Iran and Pakistan.
Being aware of all of this and living through it in Afghanistan, I cannot, for one minute, blame the people for taking a risk and trying to escape the country and repressive governments any way possible. They are not bad people. They are people who just want to live.
I hope, one day, that the Afghani government can protect its people, create jobs for them, and provide them with good health care, but unfortunately, there are few indicatiors towards progress.
