Afghans have known nothing but awar for the past 17 years. They have always been afraid—afraid of the Afghan secret police, of the Soviets, of the mujahideen, of land mines, of the cold, of hunger, and of the Taliban rockets that can strike at any time without warning. They are fed up of being afraid.
Maliha is 19 years old, a child of war. She has known little but sorrow, pain and fear. Three years ago, a rocket landed on her family´s house in Chelsetoun. "The ceiling crashed on our heads and I woke up in hospital. My father and mother, along with my four brothers and sisters, were all killed."
Taken in first by her aunt, Maliha lives today in this decrepit flat with the surviving members of her family: an alert sister of 14 and a seven-year-old brother whose eyes are full of fear. Maliha is lucky because her job with a Western relief agency earns her USD 100 a month, which is a fortune in Kabul these days.
Maliha´s freezing apartment with its plastic sheet covering broken window panes has a tenacious, all-pervading smell of burning. The "dining room" wall has a hole where a shell came in. The family room is separated by a curtain, and the furniture consists of a piece of yellowish linoleum on the floor with a few cushions. There has been no electricity, no heating, no water here for three years, and the winter temperature can fall well below minus 20 degrees Celsius.