Lunch was served to the boys around noon—usually beans, rice, fruit, vegetables, and maybe some meat. I couldn't make it to lunch at the project because so many women gathered at our gate in Wazir at lunchtime, and I could never get away earlier than just before one o'clock. After lunch the boys played soccer outside in the big courtyard. We filled a small, concrete, basinlike area with water so some of the boys could swim. And a few others helped us tend the garden for a modest income.
Sitting alone in the sedan now, I began to wonder whether the Taliban police might torture or beat me during interrogations. Would they ask me to renounce my faith? Would they demand I give them the names of any Afghans who had asked me about Jesus? I tried to prepare myself mentally for any physical abuse I might have to face. I did not know whether I could handle torture, but I prayed God would give me the strength and courage to bear whatever lay ahead.
In total, interrogations lasted for about three weeks. The sessions were most intense during the week and a half Dayna and I were separated from the other SNI women, and on the whole the interrogation process itself was chaotic. It became a running joke with all six of us foreign women, that almost every time we were questioned—or so it seemed—we had to fill out a form giving our father's name, our grandfather's name, our province, and our village. Diana, who did not know her grandfather's name, took to filling in a different name each time the information was required. No Talib ever noticed.
One Talib translator heavily involved in our case was a young man named Karim. A slight, fair-skinned Pashtun in his late twenties, Karim became our friend and was on our side. He spoke excellent English. His gentle presence during questioning brought us great relief. Eventually, we started referring to Karim as our "Taliban angel friend."
Facing the Fear of Death
Heather: In the face of death, I grew faint. I was not confident that I would give up my life for my Afghan friends. "Lord, I'm not there yet," I wrote in my journal. I was so disappointed in myself. Why was I falling apart? "Lord, change me!" I wrote. "Let me be so free that I could lay my life down for my friend [and] even my enemy."
When I later learned that Taliban officials were talking about the death penalty as a sentencing option in the media, it confirmed my worst fear. The Taliban announced they were going to try us in the Supreme Court of Afghanistan under Sharia law, and my heart sank further. To our knowledge, the Taliban had never gone to such extremes to punish foreigners. As the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on America unfolded in Kabul, fear nearly wiped me out. My heart physically hurt with the pressure and pain. I felt as though I were suffocating. "Oh, God," I cried. "Why don't you do something? I feel like I'm dying."
I wrestled with God. I did not understand why he was letting everything crumble around me. I could not grasp why after spending only four and a half months fulfilling my destiny in Afghanistan I might lose my life. I was not ready to die, not at the age of twenty-four. "I have only just begun to serve you," I prayed. "Would you allow it all to end now?" I was so confused.
Prison Life
Dayna: One day we ordered fly swatters from the bazaar. We could not sit in our room for more than a few seconds without flies landing all over us. At night we noticed that hundreds of flies took to resting on the blue plastic clothesline strung across our room. Once we bought the swatters, fly killing became a sport—we considered it a way of simultaneously passing the time and entertaining ourselves.
I would tear off a couple squares of toilet paper to use as burial cloth for the flies and would wrap up the paper only after retrieving fifty deceased insects. My goal was to kill 150 flies each day. Every now and then Kati, Silke, or Diana would take up the other fly swatter and join in the battle. We would count aloud as the flies dropped dead: "Twenty-three! Twenty-four…"
Heather: No matter how tough prison life became, I reminded myself that God was fulfilling my heart's desire to live with the Afghan people. Among the women in our courtyard, we witnessed love and cruelty, both in great measure. The Afghan women looked after one another, and they brutally cut one another down. They tended to one another's wounds after beatings, and they inflicted wounds.
September 11
Dayna: Two planes had crashed into each other over Washington, D.C., and New York City, Karim reported. Four hundred people were dead. The account was confusing. Obviously, Karim did not know his geography. Why would people in Afghanistan care about a plane crash in America?
Karim went on to say that America thought Afghanistan had something to do with the crash, and he insisted Afghanistan was not guilty. We did not understand what he meant.
Move to Another Prison as the Northern Alliance Presses In
Heather and Dayna: "Do not worry," the boss kept saying. "We are taking you to a nice, comfortable place in Kabul. You will be well looked after. You will be safe there." We wondered where such a place might be, but we believed the boss could be telling the truth. Maybe he planned to take us to Wazir and put us up in one of the foreigners' homes the Taliban had confiscated.
The wooden door opened onto a dusty wasteland. Rocks covered the ground, and there was nothing green to be seen. A silver water pump was positioned in the center of the yard. A couple of broken metal chairs languished nearby. Shoved up against the wall opposite the courtyard door was a soiled toshak. To our left stood four wooden posts wrapped with burlap. Inside the enclosed area was a mountain of feces.
A two-story, concrete prison building formed the right-hand wall of the courtyard. Rusty bars covered the windows. A set of windows on the ground floor was bricked up. Pieces of concrete that had fallen off the building were strewn over the ground below.
Two women jailers greeted us. "Welcome," they said, and showed us to a room the size of a large closet just inside the building.
Taken From Kabul
Dayna: Just beyond the city limits, we stopped on the side of the road so our driver could consult with some other men. We did not know whether men were being added to our caravan. Perhaps the men were discussing where they would take us.
"Kabul gereft. Kabul gereft," the driver said. Kabul has been taken.
Wow, I thought. We missed it. We missed the Northern Alliance. We really missed our chance to go free in Kabul.
"We missed it by thirty minutes," Georg [an SNI leader] said.
For some time, I had dared to hope our release would happen soon, that we would be home by Thanksgiving. I believed God had spoken to me. Now we were in the hands of men we did not know, men who were not interested in our safety, men who, in fact, had just been overthrown. We were hostages.
The Taliban Flees
Dayna: Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Seconds later, our door flung open. A scruffy, beardless man in ragtag clothing burst through the entrance. Rounds of ammunition were wrapped around his chest. In one hand he carried a rifle; in the other, what looked like a rocket launcher. His eyes were wide open; his hair was wild and coated in dust. He was panting and looked astonished to see us, a group of foreigners, there in the room at the Ghazni prison.
"Hello," he blurted out in English. That was the only English word he knew. Farsi came next.
"Aaazaad! Aaazaad!" You're free! You're free! "Taliban raft." The Taliban have left.
"Rasti?" Kati and I asked. Really?
He assured us it was true. "Raft, raft," he said. They fled, they fled.
Helicopter Rescue
Heather: I was not going to leave. We were in danger standing out in the field, but I knew the helicopters were not going to come back the next day. If we returned to the house, we would be open targets. The Taliban knew where we were. This was our one chance. We had to make it. We would leave tonight or we would not leave at all.
Heather: "Georg," I said, "we can start a fire. We can burn my headscarf. They will be able to see a fire."
We knew the helicopters were not looking for a fire—the flames might throw the rescuers off. But what choice did we have?
"Go ahead," Georg answered.
We spread out the wool head scarf given to me by the prisoner at the shipping container and poured oil from the lantern on it. I was sad to lose the keepsake, but nothing mattered outside of building the fire. The scarf burned quickly. I added another of my headscarves. Dayna added hers.
Heather: "How high does this chopper fly?" I asked one of the men.
"Don't worry, ma'am. You're going to be just fine."
Another soldier bent down and said, "I want you to know that since your first day in captivity on August 3, my family and I have never stopped praying for you."
No words could have been sweeter.
Dayna: The organization launched the street kids project in May 2001 after one of our coworkers, a young German woman named Katrin Jelinek, could no longer handle the numbers of kids turning up at her home at lunchtime for fruit and bread. Katie, a hardworking, cheerful woman in her late twenties, designed a program to provide street kids with a hot meal and then a number of job-training classes, which the kids would be paid to attend. The Taliban allowed us to open the program to boys, the vast majority of whom did not attend school.
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