Noor Shadab: Leaving Afghanistan

[This is a transcript, lightly corrected for readability, of an interview with Noor Shadab about his journey from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Sioux City, Iowa. Part 2 of this conversation will be posted later.]

Noor Shadab

My full name is Noor Rahman Shadab. Well, the first name is Noor, N, O, O, R, and the last name is Shadab, S, H, A, D, A, B.

Mark Munger

You spent your life in Afghanistan from the time you were born to, to when?

Noor Shadab

My first flight was... my first trip out of Afghanistan was when I was coming to America. So I was born 1997. I just turned 27. Okay. Well, I know I look 35 but...

Mark Munger

I'm just thinking of leaving the country that you know as you're home at that age.

Noor Shadab

Yeah, yeah. Well, that was, I mean, one of the biggest tragedies. It's one of the very famous sayings that one of the biggest tragedies that could happen to somebody in life would be to leave.

Mark Munger

Can we go back and just slow things down a little bit? Maybe even starting with the morning you left. Could you just walk me through that day in a slow, slow way? You wake up knowing this is the day you're leaving. How is it that you know that you have to leave it? Why do you have to leave it? Because this isn't just a choice.

Noor Shadab

Um, well, yeah, you're right. It has never been a choice for me. Even when I was working with the Americans, I applied for a US visa. And the reason that I applied for a US visa is because we never knew what would happen to us. In case things get worse, in case I lose my job, in case Americans leave Afghanistan, in case the company, the project that I was working on, just ends. But when I was working for Americans, I had a wonderful job. Everything was fine. I was living with my family, parents, siblings, and in my home and wonderful things, but when I was receiving emails regarding my visa, okay, we just finished this process, and then we are going to do this process. And I was like, "Well, it's been so quick. Just please slow down," because I just want to be the way I am in my homeland, this job and everything. But, after the Taliban took over, leaving Afghanistan and coming to America was the only choice.

Mark Munger

When you decided to work with the Americans. Was that a difficult choice? Was it something that people worried about doing?

Noor Shadab

Um, well, to me, it was a wonderful opportunity. The luck was only a financial luck. I was, myself, and my whole family was in a really bad financial situation. So I was hired by Americans. The pay was good. So that really helped to grow, to grow life financially. And also now that, in case something bad would happen, now that it has happened, the Taliban has taken over, I was, I had the opportunity to escape, leave Afghanistan and come to America. These are the two big benefits of working for Americans in Afghanistan. But everything else is not, is not a benefit. Everything else is just, just, just, I would say, everything else would just be anxiety and depression because of safety working for Americans. The safety thing, we were always being threatened. We were always being chased, and there was also a very, very, very high likelihood of getting killed by the enemies of the Americans. Our murder was a priority for them because we are helping somebody that they don't like. And the threat was outside of the job area. The threat was inside my office.

I remember one day a picture was distributed, a picture of a guy who was working for the Afghanistan Air Force. His picture was given to us. You know, somebody came into the office. Hey, look at this picture. Have you ever seen this guy? Because this guy is working for the Taliban, and he was working inside the headquarter of the Kabul Air Force. And he was working inside right, right among the in the government, among Americans among us, but he was working for the Taliban, and his plan was to to kill as many Americans and Afghans that work for Americans as possible.

But luckily, he did not succeed. They found out about him, and I don't know if they found him later on, put him in jail… I don't know what happened to that guy. But since that day the work was really hard. It was really difficult to do what we were doing after that day, because it was, it was a matter of trust that broke.

Mark Munger

What was life like there, just your day-to-day?

Noor Shadab

It was, I mean, now I’m not only speaking about the threats. Well, I spoke about the threats and the problems that we were facing, but it was just a, I mean, it was a normal life. I would go to work at 7:30, work until five, 4:30, six o'clock. Sometimes it depended on the project that I was working on, and then I was also studying at the American University of Afghanistan. And I would just go to college, you know, study there until 9 p.m., come back home at 11.

Yeah, at eleven? No, maybe around 9:30, ten o'clock, come back from college, go home I would, it would take me... I didn't have my own car at that time, and I had to use like four or five cars. We don't have this Uber system in Afghanistan, but we'll just call them taxis. So it would take me four or five taxis to get to college and then just jumping into cars. You know, after you have worked for nine hours or eight hours or ten hours, it's also very tiring. Then go to college, sleepy, tired, study for two hours, come back home. It's five years of sleepless nights, yeah, yeah.

Mark Munger

And you're living with your family? Who is your family?

Noor Shadab

My parents and my siblings. I have one sister, two brothers, and then my parents, we were living together.

Mark Munger

Were they on the same schedule?

Noor Shadab

Well, my father was working in the Air Force as well. So we were just working in the same location, in the same place. But he was working for, he was a member of the Afghan government. He was a Major at that time. He's an aviation engineer. But I was working for this private American contractor.

My father or myself, we almost had the same schedule, except for me going to college, and then he would come back home.

Mark Munger

So you get up together?

Noor Shadab

Yeah, we would travel together. And yeah, but for sometimes we had to, we had to travel separately. I remember 2019, I think, or 2020 the situation got worse. The Taliban had guys who would just go after people, you know, and would shoot government workers on the streets, you know, on the way home, on the way to work. So we had to travel separately. Okay? I would leave at 6:15 and then he had to leave at 6:30 because, in case we get killed, at least we are not together, you know. So they would kill us both. Okay, at least one should lose his life.

Mark Munger

And so you knew you had to go when the Americans were... I'm assuming when the Americans said, “We're pulling out?”

Noor Shadab

That's when we got concerned. That's when we got concerned because I was working for the Americans, because, well, the thing is that the news would say it all the time: Okay, talk is going on that Americans would leave Afghanistan.

But we would never believe it, because, according to the news, we would see how important it is for Americans to have Afghanistan and to be in Afghanistan like, "Nah, they're not leaving." But when, when we heard the news, okay, Americans decided to withdraw, and it is beneficial for them to leave Afghanistan.

I heard it on the news, but I still did not believe it. But after a week of this news, I think our project started to kind of shrink things, you know, over-the-horizon operations plan came up, and we had to pack up stuff. We Afghans who work for Americans a long time, we would be their delegates, working for them in the country. And then our directors and bosses and managers would be in Middle East, in Dubai, and we would be the point of contact between them and Afghans. That's when I actually saw that, oh, America is kind of, I mean, it's serious about its withdrawal from Afghanistan because we were packing stuff.

Mark Munger

Americans are actually gonna leave? And you have your visa at this point?

Noor Shadab

No, no, I did not have mine. I did not have my visa. I had only got my approval, which is the start of the process.

On the day that Taliban took over. I didn't go to work. I was supposed to go to work after lunch in the evening because I had to go to the bank in the morning because I needed some money. I had to withdraw some cash.

I texted my boss,"Okay, I'm not coming in the morning today, but I'll see you in the afternoon."

So I go to the bank, come back home and tell my mom that I'm going to take a nap.

“You wake me up at 12:30 because I got to go back to work.”

She wakes me up at 12:30, I want to go to work.

She's like, "Nope, you're not going to work."

I'm like, "What happened? Why?"

"Well, look down."

And I look down the window, I see the Taliban on the street.

Nobody even expected it. It was a normal day. Everyone was going to work in the morning. I went to the bank to withdraw some cash. Nobody was talking about the Taliban thing. But, I mean, there was no, no expectation, no talks of the Taliban coming and taking over the capital, which is Kabul.

At 12:30 I woke up. Oh God, the Taliban has taken over the capital. The President has escaped the country, the ministers, the whole government just collapsed. Everyone is waiting at the airport to leave Afghanistan. The Taliban is everywhere, and it was just really unexpected, unimaginable and that's, that's when the big problem began, and that's when I really got anxious about myself, because now the Taliban is right in the capital, and they could just come in any second, any minute, and just grab me and just take me. But, yeah, I got stuck in Afghanistan after the Taliban took over. I got stuck for ten months, almost. They took over, August 2021. And then I left Afghanistan, July 2022. So, almost a year I got stuck there.

And I mean, I would get out. I would go out to the gym, because it was a city center, a safe place. I would go to the gym, and that's the only thing I was doing. And I was in my room, hiding in my apartment, studying, reading books, until I received the call that, okay, you're ready to go.

Mark Munger

You arrive on the day that you leave, and you know how far in advance the day you're going to leave?

Noor Shadab

Well, after the Taliban took over, for, sometimes for three, four months, there was no news, no updates on what's going on, on what's going to happen to us. Our American co-workers that were in contact with us, they couldn't do anything anymore. The US Embassy in Kabul closed. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I waited for two months. Hiding in my apartment, in my room. We gotta do something.

We have a case with the American government, the US government. We have a case, but we have to work on it. I have to get my visa to get out, but there is nothing I can do. I'm just sitting here, and there is no hope, no news, no means, no embassy, no Americans, no nothing. A country with no government. I'm just stuck here. What are we going to do? That's when you…. There is no option for you. There is no option for you. There was no hope. We kind of gave up. My family gave up. I myself gave up. Okay, I'm not going to America. I'm stuck in this country.

And luckily, the US government created this CARE team. This is the evacuation team that would work to take Afghans out. Those Afghans who work for them should be taken out of Afghanistan. So they came up with an evacuation team called CARE. I don't know what it stands for. Their email was given to me, and then I emailed them my visa approval. Not visa approval, the case approval, that I'm eligible for a visa. And this is the approval from the US government. I emailed them, and then after waiting for two-and-a-half months, they asked me for my passport. Then two weeks after they received my passport, they called me to stand by because they would, they would take me out.

Mark Munger

And what does it mean to stand by?

Noor Shadab

To stand by is that they are going to call you and tell you where to take your passport.

Mark Munger

And how much time are they going to give you?

Noor Shadab

Mine took two weeks.

Mark Munger

So they called you, told you where, and then you had two weeks?

Noor Shadab

Yeah, to stand by, wait. And then it took me two weeks.

Mark Munger

When did you tell your family?

Noor Shadab

After I received the call. That's, I mean, that's when this, I mean, everyone was praying that I should leave this country. You know, whenever possible, that's what they wanted. My mom, my dad, everybody: "We want you to just get out of this country. Just get out because you are not safe."

But after I received the call and was told to stand by, that's when myself and the family figured how difficult it is for them to send me abroad and for me to leave. That's how we realized, that's how we actually experienced how difficult and hard it is.

I told my mom. I was like, "Well, I received a call and stand by. They're going to ask me for my passport so they could stick the visa on it." And that's when she started crying.

Within two weeks, kind of do the shopping, you know. When I took my passport to where this evacuation team told me they were operating secretly, in a house, you know, with no boards, with no information that this is where they are operating. Just secretly. And they just told me, okay, this is the street address, and this is the color of the door. You knock on the door, and that's what I did. And I went there. Now somebody came out, took me in. They took my passport, and I said, "Well, how long does it take you guys?"

They said, "We don't know. We'll call you."

And then they called me in a week, I think, yeah, they called me after a weekend thing and told me that tomorrow, early in the morning, at four a.m. is my flight out of Kabul. Just a night, just a few hours, that's all you have, and you have to be ready by tomorrow morning, 4 a.m. You have to get to the airport to leave.

And well, the moment that I was leaving everybody and everything that was really hard. That is the hardest one of the moments that I will forever remember in life, leaving my parents, leaving my mom, and she was just crying, and I was crying. Everyone was crying.

And my dad, you know, he was not crying, he was like, "Well, it's hard, but I'm glad you're leaving, because you're not safe in this country."

But until the moment that I hugged my dad, and he hugged me, and we shook hands, and we said goodbye. Until that moment, I did not see any sadness in his face, but right at the moment of saying goodbye to me, I looked at his face, and I could see how disappointed and how sad he is. Because he never knew that his child, his older son, is leaving him, and he doesn't know when he will see, when he will get to see his son again.

Mark Munger

So after you tell them, I'd imagine you didn't sleep much that night?

Noor Shadab

No, no, I did not sleep at all. I did not sleep at all. Because, how could I go to sleep? Okay, 4 a.m. go there.

Mark Munger

Were you just up all night by yourself?

Noor Shadab

Yeah, just close relatives and friends that we had to tell them to come. And then I got myself prepared. You know, my bags and luggage and clothing and everything that I needed to take. My mom was kind of preparing that and cooking.

Mark Munger

What is she cooking? What does one cook when one's son is gonna leave?

Noor Shadab

Well, the thing that she cooked that night, because she knows that I love rice and beef together, that's what she cooked. Because she say, "Well, I don't know whether you get to eat rice or beef again, in life, but, but, okay, here."

So it took me a day to lose everybody and everything I had. The last person that I said goodbye to was my father at the airport.

I said goodbye to my mom, to my siblings, left the house, and then my father escorted me to the airport, and he was, he was the last one who said, "Okay, good luck. Goodbye."

And that's, that's after, after I said goodbye to him, I entered the terminal. No one else was allowed to be with me in the terminal. I was by myself. That's when I felt that I'm really by myself. I'm really alone. And that was, that was one of the hardest moments of life that I will ever remember, and that's when, that's when I realized that I'm on a very big and long journey. Nobody with me. All by myself.

When I was on the plane, I have a cousin, she was four years old when I left. And I was in the plane, and I saw a child like her, four or five years old, and she was in the plane, and I looked at her, and she reminded me of my cousin. The memories that I had with her, you know, she was the kid of the family. Because my uncle lived next to us, so there was, you know, they would come to us, and we would come to them sometimes. So, my cousin would just be in our house all the time, you know, because she was happy with us. She was happy with my mom and dad. Looking at that girl, I was thinking about my moments that I had with that kid. And that's, that's when I felt a really, really big and high wave of pain in my heart, you know, because I was like, "Gosh, this this life. I'll never get to see her again."

So I never get to see that child again. That child is never anymore. No, I'll never get to see her, that child again.