Freshta Jalalzai
I was finally, truly, in love.
Just before the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan collapsed in August 2021, I had made the decision to return to Kabul. I had long dreamed of owning a home in my hometown, tucked somewhere between the storied Jewish quarter and the city’s ancient Hindu temples, resting along the rugged slopes of Koh-e Asamai, the mountain at the heart of Afghanistan’s timeless capital.
In the evenings, the mountain blazes like a ball of fire, lit by the lanterns and bulbs of the homes clinging to its sides, and as the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, echoes through the valley, the entire landscape turns majestic.
That is where I was born, on a rainy evening, and was carried home from the hospital wrapped in a newspaper, as my parents were unprepared for my arrival, much like the city itself, never quite ready to hold me. For most of my life, I have lived unmoored, never fully rooted anywhere, and after years away, working as a journalist in Eastern Europe, I had decided it was time to go back. It was time to build a home, to reclaim love, a place, and a part of myself I had left behind.
But returning to Kabul meant facing memories I had tried to bury.
The last time I had stood in Kabul was only three years before, in August 2018, a visit shrouded in grief. I had buried three colleagues lost to the violence engulfing the city, and I was reminded of many others who were silenced before them.
Kabul continued to bleed in a war not of its own making.
I had become witness to the heavy cost our city and its people had paid.
Kabul was grim, the air thick with the smell of smoke and gas from heavy military vehicles and tanks roaming the streets.
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