Sahar Jahish (25) was five years old when she fled to the Netherlands. She is now returning for the first time in 20 years to Afghanistan, where elections are being held this month. She has agreed to give an account of her personal impressions to Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

I have been in Kabul a week and I am beginning to get used to being here. I am no longer surprised to hear people speaking Dari on the street. In the Netherlands I automatically speak Dari at home and Dutch when I am outside.

I have also gotten used to the weather, dust and traffic. The temperature is usually around 35 degrees Celsius. It has not rained for a long time and a large cloud of dust hovers over the city. There is a cool breeze in the evening which is refreshing on the one hand, but on the other fills your eyes, mouth and ears with dust. The traffic stirs up even more dust.

Full of preconceived notions
The state of anarchy in Kabul is remarkable. There are no traffic rules, garbage is thrown all over the place and the police cannot be trusted. Time goes by quickly. I have done a lot in the short time I have been here. I visited a village in the province of Kapisa, where I enjoyed the country life. The people I visited were very kind and hospitable. They were quite different than the people in Kabul, whom I found to be more reserved and closed.

My female hosts (upon arrival I was immediately bundled into the women's quarters) were, in spite of their friendly nature, full of preconceived notions. They thought that I would not understand Dari, would be cocky and entirely Westernised. I saw the surprise on their faces the more they got to know me. It seemed as if they did not want to accept the fact that I am also an Afghan. Together we ate using our hands (in the villages people eat more often with their hands than with cutlery) and after the meal I helped to clean up. In Afghanistan a guest never does that!

Deeply grieved
However, they also said things that grieved me deeply. Every time that I said that Afghanistan was my country too they would deny it. "The land you live in is your watan (fatherland).." And I replied: "The land where your heart lies is your watan." I felt a lump in my throat and I wanted to leave. Fortunately they changed their opinion of me faster than I thought they would. Later in the evening they began to joke with me.

Nonetheless, there was a gap between us. Their life consists for the most part of bearing children, caring for their husbands and cooking three times a day. The life of my cousins is exactly the same. They are engaged when they are fifteen and marry as soon as possible.
 
There is still hope
My cousin Samia, with whom I have the most contact, only talks about what kinds of dishes she can prepare. She is full of pride when she tells me she plays truant. She does not hang about on the street corner - she cooks for the family in the kitchen. If I say she is an illiterate she gets angry.

When I had given up all hope about the future of the Afghan woman I met Spozjmai Wardak, who works in Kabul for Cordaid. She represented the Afghan woman I was looking for. She is highly educated, 26 years of age and single. Fortunately I could speak to her about other things than cooking.

Smell of kebab and poop
This week I encountered one surprise after the other. The city of Kabul differs as much as the Afghan women. There is an enormous gap between the rich and the poor. In the same street you see enormous villas furnished with every luxury imaginable as well as clay huts where a hole in the ground serves as toilet.

I have also visited a refugee camp run by Cordaid. The conditions are terrible. Most of the refugees are from the provinces of Helmand, Jalalabad, Uruzgan and Kandahar. They hardly own a thing. There are shops which sell splendid party dresses just fifty metres away. Some parts of the town smell like the most delicious kebab. Fifty metres further on you smell piss and poop. Kabul is indeed a city of contrasts.