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Hazaras: Afghanistan's Outsiders
One day Ahmedi, who is a young Hazara girl still at home, received a letter from her mother's cousin in Quetta. Ahmedi was
born into a culture that was not completely acceptable in her country of Afghanistan, they were considered to be odd, people
that did not follow the traditional cultures of the main Muslim traditions. The Taliban was seeking to destroy them. The
letter from Ahmedi's mother's cousin, said that they should come to Quetta in Pakistan because the Taliban were going to invade
Afghanistan (where they are from), and the Hazara people would be in danger. Her mother's cousin gave directions to her house
and started planning how to get them to Quetta, Pakistan.
Ahmedi and her mother talked about going on this trip. They talked to their neighbors. The neighbors were supportive
to them. They decided to take a bus. They made it to Jalalabad by bus and found directions to the 'other' bus station, which
really wasn't a bus station at all. there were vans there that led to the border. They had to wait in a crowd for a while
to get on a van. The van took them to the gate at the border.
The gate to Pakistan was closed. They saw a big crowd and tried to push the gate open, but being pushed back and hit
by guards, they were pushed backwards. The crowd pushed in waves, and only a few people were able to go through the gate.
Ahmedi and her mom were desperate to get through. The must get through, they knew that they might die if they stayed in their
own country. How sad that they couldn't even feel safe in their own country.
They had to spend the night out in the open air, and met a family there, that knew a smuggler's path to get through.
The other family said that they could leave really late at night to travel through the smuggler's path to Pakistan.
The next night, they set off to go through the smuggler's path. It was a long journey, but they finally made it through
the path into Pakistan. Ahmedi now felt that she was safe from the Taliban, and happy and relieved that they finally made
it to safety. Now they would set out to find their relative's home, and to be greeted by family, who would help them start
a new life.
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