April 1978 Fifth entry War Time

April 14, 1978 Translated from my journal, perspective of an eleven year old

I turned eleven today! Baba gave me two big drawing pads. My brothers gave me drawing paper and crayons. Mammi gave me an Afghanistan dress. I also got two pens and an owl from little brother. A teddy bear. A treasure map from big brother, a pair of underwear from Mammi. After my treasure hunt I found the prize from big brother, a nice jackel fur. It was really nice! (Journal shows drawings of presents).
I had my birthday party. I invited my whole class, this is who came: (I left off the last names for the blog) Tamim (his house would get bombed in a few days), Yasser, Markus, Stefan, Nadia, Seema, Ann-Marie, Kamudu, Lisa, Line, Rebecca, Beatrice, Christina, Karin, Viken.

April 27, 1978

The WORST thing that has happened in my whole life.
I was cleaning my closet because Rebecca was coming over to spend the night. Mammi had driven over to Vera and Sten to borrow a mattress for my friend. My little brothers went with her. All of a sudden I heard something that sounded like someone shot a gun. I quickly ran to ask Baba what was happening. He said, "I think they are just training." Then the doorbell rang and I went to open it. It was Mammi and my two little brothers. Then it started sounding like this "BOM! BOM! BOM! ratatata...BOM! ratatata...BOM! BOM! An hour later small airplanes started flying over our house. Baba said, "if they start to shoot a lot close to our house we will need to go down to the basement." Mammi started taking out our passports if we needed to escape out of the country fast. A few minutes later they started shooting really close to the house. "We have to go down to the basement" Baba said in a calm voice. We ran down to the basement, the door was from the outside. Just as we got to the basement we threw ourselves on the floor, because a plane was coming close. When we were in the basement we sat on short stools under the upper windows. There were scorpions on the floor. When things calmed down, we sat against the stone walls. I prayed to God, I was so scared. I didn't want to die. I had just turned eleven. Mammi and my two little brothers and I sat by the left wall. Baba and older brother sat by the right wall. It was too tight where I was sitting so I had to go to Baba's side. We sat in the basement for about three hours. Baba then went up with Wahead our friend, to cover up and darken the windows in Baba and Mammi's room. We waited another half hour. Baba was covering the windows in one bedroom so the planes couldn't see light from the air. Then Baba came and said, "Come now." It was ten something at night. We had everything ready in case we had to go to the basement again. Nobody slept that night. I heard machine gun fire and tanks shooting all night long. I prayed and prayed for God to protect us. When it was morning, it was April 28th. Baba listened to BBC. The news said there was a curfew at nine. The next day the curfew would be eleven o'clock. BBC told us that President Daud and his whole family had died. Afghanistan had a new president, and his name is Nore Mohammud Taraki. We did not go to school for three days. It was like world war three. Thank you good God that you protected us. (Journal has two pictures of my family hiding in the basement, and a drawing of Tamim's house being hit by a missile. Tamim was a boy in my class, thankfully no one was home when the house was hit).

THOUGHTS FROM THE PRESENT:
A couple of years ago I read a book "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini, the author of "The Kite Runner." In chapter fifteen it has the title APRIL 1978. He states the events of April 27th, but through an adults perspective. When I read it, I was transformed back to my own childhood and in my mind relived that eventful scary day. The facts that I state as an eleven year old about President Daoud dying were all true, and his whole family had been murdered. What had just happened in Kabul, Afghanistan on April 27, 1978, was indeed Daoud Khan had been killed. A rebel Fourth Armored Division had taken over the airport and places around Kabul. My father was a diplomat, and even with his status, we still could not get out of the country by plane. Kabul Radio, communication and foreign ministry buildings had all been taken over. Rebel MiGs had attacked the presidential palace. Tanks had broken into the area. My friend Rebecca who was supposed to come over for a sleep over, her mother had received a frantic phone call from the servant of the presidential palace. Rebecca's family were almost neighbors to the palace. The servant had sounded petrified, said they were all going to die, and if there was anyway the children to escape and come to my friends house. Then the phone call was cut off. As news would tell us, President Daoud Khan had been killed, and the communist rebels had murdered about twenty members of his family, which included women and grandchildren. Rumors would later spread that he had witnessed his family's execution, before being killed. A revolutionary council of armed forces had been established, and for a short amount of time the country would be called the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. A year later the Soviet Union would invade Afghanistan, and occupy the land for ten years. Afghanistan would not experience peace even after that, and continues to be at war presently. Next time I write I will share about the remaing two months we spent in Afghanistan, and eventually how we had to escape by car through war torn Afghanistan, and troubled Iran.