KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In the hills above Kabul, Sima searches for things that others have left behind. She walks through cemeteries looking for plastic, scrap and anything else that might have value. What can be sold is gathered and carried away; some of what cannot is brought home and saved as fuel for cooking or winter.
Five years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, work is scarce. Sima, who believes she is about
60 but does not know her exact age, helps support her extended family. They survive largely through begging and collecting bread, scrap and recyclable waste.
Little is allowed to go to waste. Bread received from bakeries or other people can be resold cheaply to neighbors. Dry bread collected from the ground is saved and sold to livestock owners. Damaged tomatoes are dried for later, watermelon rinds become torshi, a homemade pickle, and meat received during Eid al-Adha is dried and stored for winter.
These small economies carry risks. Begging and collecting waste have been prohibited by the Taliban, and those caught can be detained. For women such as Sima, finding ways to support their families means navigating an increasingly restricted public life as well as severe poverty. Sima sometimes waits until night to beg, when she feels less exposed on Kabul’s streets.
A few months ago, Diba, Sima’s daughter, was detained while begging and held for three months. She had a breastfeeding baby at the time, and during her absence the family struggled to provide enough milk and suitable food for the infant. Two days after Diba was released, her baby died.
Sima now visits the child’s grave. The cemetery is both a place of mourning and one of the places where she searches for discarded material that might help the family survive.
At home, almost everything gathered outside finds a purpose. Food is preserved for another season; salvaged materials wait to be sold or burned for fuel. Sima sorts through what she has collected, while her family remains close around her.
The family lives largely from one day’s findings to the next. Tomatoes drying on a cloth, scraps gathered from the earth, food carefully preserved and a few coins resting in Sima’s hands speak to a life in which almost nothing can simply be thrown away.
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