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My name is Sayed Farouq Shah Sadat
I am a postman. I have been working for the Afghan Post Office for 41 years. I am 65 years old and I have lived in Kabul all my life.
Many of my friends and relatives escaped to other countries when the war started. We had no means of communication with our families apart from letters. I received letters from Iran, from Pakistan, France, and also from the provinces. Getting these letters made me so happy. I dreamt that one day that I would deliver letters to other peoples loved ones and make them happy.
When I first started working my salary was the equivalent of 1 Afghani in today’s money but it lasted me for two months. I now earn of 5,400 Afghanis, which goes nowhere.
Around 25 years ago I became obsessed with stamps. I would feverishly collect every newly designed stamp coming out of the Ministry of Communications. I had a special book for them. I couldn’t think about anything else so my beard turned white. It was a great stamp collection. Sadly I sold it because I needed the money. Now I have no stamps but a lovely beard. We have a stamp museum here in the Post Office so I can still go look at them.
Before the Taliban came I wore a postman’s uniform that was made in London. Now I am an old man and I don’t like to wear it. I don’t think it’s necessary. Especially the hat, seriously I hate it. It looks absurd.
During the Taliban regime there was a rumor that people had been poisoned through the letters. I had to take a letter to the chairman of the Ibne Sina hospital, when the chairman saw the letter he was really scared. He asked for a mask and put it on, and held the letter far from his face. I told him, ‘I am an official postman, and don’t deliver poisonous letters; let me to open it. So I took the letter and opened it for him. It was fine.
My work was originally in the suburbs of Kabul. The Central Post Office gave me a motorcycle but I chose to use my bicycle because there are too many cars in Kabul and the traffic is abysmal. Back in the day, I would ride 80-90 km per day and knew the city like the back of my hand. I would take letters to all over the place. From Darulaman to Gul Bagh to Firqi Rishkor to Char Asya, Khair Khana, Dashte Barchi, No, no one knew the city like me.
The trouble is, most streets and houses aren’t numbered. Although if a letter doesn’t arrive in the right hands there’s always a way of tracing it back to see at what point it got lost. Sometimes it was a wrong address or sometimes the person wasn’t at home and the letter was given to a neighbour.
Most of the delivering to the provinces used to be done by car but nowadays the security is bad and the roads are poor so letters go the provincial capitals by plane and then are delivered on from there.
During the Civil War there were many armed checkpoints whose guards were aggressive. I was always getting stopped and the contents of my bag searched. I don’t know what they were looking for. In the end I used to just turn my bag upside down before they could harass me. It was such a bad time… But now, thank God, things are better.
In 2004 when we had our Constitution prepared, I was selected to deliver a copy to the Provincial Governor of Kabul, Syed Hussain Anwari, a nice man, for his signature. But his guards wouldn’t let me in. They wanted me to give them the document. Of course I told them that I couldn’t and that I needed to deliver it to the governor myself. I mean, how could I trust them?
We were arguing with each other so loudly that in the end the governor came out and said, ‘you take your job more seriously than a fire fighter’. I replied, ‘the post office is one step ahead of the fire department. We do exactly as we are instructed. I was asked to get your signature and that is what I will do.’
He smiled and gave me a reward for my diligence.