Bonus Episode Transcript — One Family's Journey To Escape Afghanistan

Project Brazen (00:00):
B-R-A-Z-E-N

Lucy (00:08):
I’m Lucy Woods, Managing Producer of Kabul Falling and the host of this week’s bonus episode. I’m thrilled you are tuning in, and I hope you have enjoyed the series so far. Whilst making this podcast, we had the pleasure of interviewing dozens of Afghans. They shared with us their harrowing experiences of attempting to evacuate their homeland after it fell to the Taliban in August, 2021. In Episode Eight, we followed up with Fatima, Ogai, Abdul and others to find out where they are now more than a year after the fall. We learned that whilst they are now safe, they still face many challenges and grapple with the trauma and guilt of leaving Afghanistan. One theme that came up again and again was the immeasurable challenge of resettlement. This week, we invite you to meet the Shakib family.

Hakim Shakib (00:58):
Yeah, I just want my family back.

Lucy (01:01):
That’s Hakim Shakib. When we first interviewed the Shakib family back in March, 2022, Hakim had not seen his wife, Paimana, or his young daughter’s, Neyo and Seto, since July, 2021. Before the fall, he was living in Delhi, India with his family. Due to the pandemic, he had been able to work from home. But by early July, he and his colleagues at the Ministry of Interior Affairs were expected to return to the office. He made the decision to return to Kabul, but asked his family to stay in Delhi as the situation in Afghanistan was becoming increasingly fractious. He had no idea that when he kissed his wife and girls goodbye, that he wouldn’t see them again for more than a year. Hakim’s family is everything to him.

Hakim Shakib (01:49):
So yeah, we had a, we were a very happy family. Am I right, Setayesh? Niyayesh?

Seto & Neyo (01:56):
Yeah, Right. Of course you’re right.

Lucy (01:58):
Neyo and Seto are eight and 11 years old. They are sweet, funny and cheeky, and they love to talk about school.

Neyo (02:05):
Okay, so when I had school, I was like, very, like sleepy because I was waking up in the morning. I was like, “Oh, I don’t wanna go to school”. Then was like, “Get up. You have to go school”.

Seto: I had the best time, the best teachers, the best friends. And my mom packed me the best lunch.

Lucy (02:27):
When Kabul fell on August 15th, Hakim knew he was in trouble. All flights from Kabul to India were canceled. He became increasingly concerned that his work for the Ministry of Interior Affairs would make him a target for the Taliban. So rather than returning to his home in Kabul, he stayed with a friend for a while. He then moved from house to house, hoping to evade the Taliban for as long as possible. Throughout this time, he tried to find a way to get home to his family in Delhi.

Hakim Shakib (02:54):
I was like, I was like searching every possible way to get evacuated. I can show you my email sent box that I have sent tens of hundreds of emails to different NGOs and different organizations calling for assistance, but unfortunately, no response from any one of them.

Lucy (03:15):
Meanwhile, Paimana and the girls were desperately worried for Hakim. Their dad is the apple of their eye, and they couldn’t wait to be reunited.

Seto (03:24):
Oh, my dad was my superhero.

Neyo: Yeah, I really, you know, the first thing that I do is I’ll, like, shout a lot, and then I’ll hug him super bad and then I’ll sit, you know, besides him and really missed him and talk to him.

Lucy (03:45):
In November, Hakim finally received the breakthrough he was looking for and was able to successfully apply for a visa to Pakistan. He arrived there on December 5th full of anticipation at seeing his family again. But Hakim was informed he would not be able to travel to India, and there would be little in the way of assistance in helping him to settle in Pakistan. Tired and weary from his journey, he still needed to figure out his next step. It was during his first night in Pakistan, that Hakim was introduced to Valerie Edmondson Bolaños of Warrior Angels Rescue.

Hakim Shakib (04:28):
I have no words. Like the work they have done for us, it was like completely an impossible work. And not only me, my family, my wife, my kids, and even my parents, they always are happy and they always have, uh, Valerie’s name, Laia’s name and Marilyn and all the other, uh, team members who worked for this. They have, uh, their names in their prayers. We will never forget them. Never ever will we forget them.

Lucy (04:59):
Valerie established Warrior Angels Rescue initially to help families impacted by Hurricane Maria that had hit her home island of Puerto Rico in 2017. After the fall of Kabul, the team pivoted their focus to evacuating vulnerable people from Afghanistan. When Valerie was introduced to Hakim, she helped him find a safe place to stay in Pakistan. Eventually, he began to volunteer for Warrior Angels Rescue, helping other Afghan families navigate living in Pakistan as many couldn’t speak the native language, Urdu. He even became a volunteer leader. Meanwhile, Valerie, her team worked tirelessly to reunite Hakim with his family. They hoped to secure them a visa to live in Spain. Neyo enthusiastically began to learn Spanish.

Neyo (05:42):
Spanish, Okay, so I’m gonna choose myself: [Foreign language]. It means: “hi, how are you? Nice to meet you” and [Foreign language] means my name.

Lucy (06:01):
Finally, the family’s visa interview was confirmed for June 29th, but there was a problem.

Hakim Shakib (06:07):
I mean, we have received our interview date for all of my family like me and my wife and my two kids. Uh, but, uh, the problem is that they’re there. They’re stuck in India in Delhi, and I’m here.

Lucy (06:21):
Valerie’s team worked tirelessly to bring the family together for the interview.

Hakim Shakib (06:26):
Valerie, Marilyn and Laia Marsal, who also works with Valerie, they started working, uh, for my family to get the Pakistan visa from India so they can come to Pakistan. And they did a lot. They worked a lot. They tried a lot. I know, I know that they tried a lot, but unfortunately they couldn’t find any solution for that.

Lucy (06:50):
Eventually, they decided it would be better for Paimana and the girls to arrange a visa appointment in India without Hakim. On July 3rd, their visa was successfully processed and they boarded a flight to Madrid via the UAE.

Seto (07:05):
Well, at first when we were at the plane, I didn’t felt real. I thought I was dreaming, and I kept pinching myself to wake up. But I was wake up when I was in the airport. And the plane, we had so much fun because they had a little television and they had a movie of Harry Potter because I’m a huge fan of Harry Potter, and I love it. And I made a video, a short video on Snapchat that I was watching Harry Potter and dancing that I was going to Spain.

Lucy (07:38):
It would be almost a month of anxiously waiting until Hakim was able to secure his visa to Spain. On August 2nd, the day they had all been waiting for finally came. Even though Hakim had safely landed in Madrid, it was not certain that he would be able to see his family that day as he would first need to report to one of the immigration centers. So he and Paimana agreed to make his arrival a surprise.

Seto (08:08):
Me, Neyo and my other friend were just, uh, playing that day. Uh, we didn’t know that my dad would surprise us and come, so we were just playing. And then my mom called us to come, um, and get ready because we’re going to the park. It was very hot that day and I was very curious because we never go out in a sunny day to the park, and my mom looked really happy. So I knew that there was something going on, but I didn’t expect it even a bit. But my mom said, Okay, uh, we’re gonna take a taxi. I said: “Why are we gonna take a taxi?” She said: “Because it’s so sunny. You know that, right?”

Neyo: Okay, my mom’s doing something or pranking us or something. , I, I think she . I was thinking that… she told us: “it’s a surprise. I’m not going to tell you”. So I thought the taxi was the surprise. I was like, “ooooh taking a taxi”. And then when I saw, like, a person in the taxi, I was like, “Who is that? Are we going with the person in the taxi?”.

Lucy (09:25):
This is the moment, captured on video by a friend of Paimana’s, when Neyo and Seto see their dad for the first time.

Video (09:33): [recorded video]

Lucy (10:08):
Now reunited, they have relocated from Madrid to a village in northern Spain. Life here is quiet, peaceful, and a long way away from the hustle and bustle of Kabul.

Seto (10:20):
So I like the how, uh, lovely the sky was and the trees. I really love nature because, uh, you can, you can like get a really, really relaxing place and the people over there was very nice, very helpful. Yeah, I really like that.

Lucy (10:42):
Hakim has been struck by the kindness of the Spanish people. The language barrier can be a challenge, but the girls continue to learn Spanish and they hope communication will improve in time. Yet, their love for Afghanistan has not waned.

Hakim Shakib (10:56):
Wherever you go, you cannot forget your motherland. Yeah. Your motherland is your motherland. However you are safe, however you are happy, however you are healthy, wealthy, and wherever you are, but you, you will not forget your motherland. Of course, my family, my mom and dad, my sisters are still in Afghanistan in Kabul, but even if they were not there, I couldn’t forget Afghanistan.

Lucy (11:26):
Hakim is particularly concerned about access to education for young women and girls.

Hakim Shakib (11:30):
The situation is getting worse and worse. The schools are still banned for the, for the girls, and which is, which is making me very, very like unhappy every day. Like I have two daughters and I know how, uh, how painful is it that when a family’s daughter cannot go to school? It’s really very painful.

Lucy (11:58):
Seto is wise beyond her years and worries for her female cousins back home.

Seto (12:03):
I want to say something about the situation of Afghanistan now about the girls that are not studying in Afghanistan. So I am really, really sad and, um, our cousins, a lot of them are girls and they’re not studying right now, so it is, life is really dark in Afghanistan. So I really hope that it will get better.

Lucy (12:42):
Thank you for listening to this bonus episode of Kabul Falling. You can listen to the full series on Apple Podcasts or wherever you prefer to listen. To learn more about people featured in this podcast, you can visit our website, kabulfalling.com. You can send a voice message or Tweet us using #kabulfalling. This bonus episode was narrated by me, Lucy Woods. The producer was Megan Dean.