I picked the wrong day to wear my sandals with four-inch heels.

Yesterday started out like any other: I went to work at 7:15, had meetings until 10:00 and then left the office to go four blocks to another meeting on gender issues. On the way out of the office, I saw three German ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) tanks moving down the road away from the Hanzalla Mosque in the direction of Taimani street. While an odd sight, I didn’t think anything of it.

I got to my meeting at the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief and proceeded to totally walk all over the condescending Afghan man holding the meeting (hence the four-inch heels, if you are going to railroad someone you need to wear stylish shoes). Basically, this guy wants to merge meetings on gender in the Afghanistan Development Strategy with meetings on programmatic gender issues which I oppose because in the past he was in charge of the meetings and nothing got done. When I got up to explain my position he acted like I shot his dog and then tried to ignore everything I had to say.

At 10:20 the phone rang, it was my husband but I didn’t answer because I was in the meeting. A few minutes afterward, I got a message from him that read: “I was told to stay inside rogur in streets because of car accident”. I had no idea what “rogur” meant so I sent back the message, “what?” but it didn’t send. I didn’t know it, but the network was overloaded which is what happens in Afghanistan when there is a bombing or kidnapping. At 10:40 someone at the meeting from Counterpart received a call that there were riots (aka "rogur") and that we needed to either leave for our offices or stay there. I called a car.

While waiting for the car I tried to call my husband but kept getting the “network busy” sign. As I got into the car, I asked Fraidoon, the driver, what was going on. He said that there had been a car accident with American troops and some people were killed. On the way back to the office I got a hold of my husband, “Where are you?” he demanded. I told him I was on my way back to the office. He said that there was a mob moving up Taimani street (the street my house is on, by the way) and to stay at the office.

When I arrived at my office, I went to talk to some of the people who were leaving from an earlier meeting I had left to go to ACBAR. I asked what was going on and they said 30 people were dead. The Americans shot at a group of people in Sarai Shomali (a place at the end of Taimani street where I buy plants and flowers) and the group decided to take the demonstration to the Parliament, the Ministries and any international group they could find.

I searched out our security guy—he was a mujahadeen back in the day—he acted totally nonchalant and told me to stay at the office, that it would pass. Besides, the group was far away. I turned on my four-inch heel with a “I am going home, I don’t know about y’all” and walked to my office to get my laptop. My husband called again and told me to get out of my office and come to his office across the street. “There are armed guards,” he reasoned, “you will be safe here”. I gathered my things and left my office for what would be the last time. At the door, a group of staff from Administration asked where I was going and a coworker urged me to go to her house. They told me not to go to my house on Taimani. The protesters were coming that way. I went to my husband’s office to wait.

At about 11:45 the shots started. We heard shouting and it sounded like there was gunfire coming from all directions. I kept searching google news to try to find out what was going on. There was an intense firefight around the corner. We thought it was DynCorp (big security firm with a bad rep among Afghans) but we found out later it was at the German Embassy. I stole looks out the window of my husband’s office. I tried calling everyone I knew, but AWCC, one of the only two mobile service providers in Afghanistan, was down. I tried to call my boss who was at the American Embassy when everything happened, but I found out later he was on “lockdown” in a secure place in the center of the Embassy and could not answer his phone. I called over the radio to let my organization know that I was OK. I heard a barely audible response—something about bombs and fire at my office. I tried to call two of my coworkers who live together to make sure they were safe at home but they both had AWCC phones. I called over the hand-held radio and got a short response from a woman I work with: “radio about to die”. I tried calling again over the next few hours but there was no response.

At 12:30 my husband and I joined his coworkers for lunch at the guesthouse adjoining his office. About ten minutes later we heard shouting and chanting and then loud booms against the side of the building. The crowd, taking advantage of a construction site across the street, was throwing rocks. One of the Afghan women who was there collapsed on the floor and started moaning and screaming. She obviously was terrified by the noise which brought back memories of past conflicts.

Once the group passed, we went upstairs to inspect the damage. A few broken windows, but that was about it. We went back to my husband’s office to wait. During this time, I was emailing my other boss who is in Bangkok at a workshop. Her partner (who is still in Kabul) had sent her an email saying that our office had been breached. I went out on the balcony to see what was happening. There was white smoke coming from the direction of my office building. My husband and I went back inside where it was safe and heard gunshots and explosions and saw people running from that direction.

I called my boss in Kabul and was able to get through. I told him what I knew and he said he would try to get in contact with the people still at the office over the radio. He said that quite a few organizations had their offices burned: IOM, UNOPS and a few guesthouses as well. There was smoke visible in different parts of the city. It seemed like there was shouting, gunfire and smoke everywhere I looked.

At 3:00, a former colleague of mine who just moved to Kabul called. “Your office is on fire and it’s on Yahoo news!” she yelled, with a little too much glee in her voice. I quickly got online and pulled up the slideshow she was referring to. There it was, my office, in flames. The crowd had looted it and set the computers and files in the middle of the street and set them on fire. The loud explosions we had heard earlier were gas cylinders in the kitchen being set alight. I started to cry. Then I saw something on the slideshow even more upsetting: houses were being looted. I panicked. At 4:00 one of the drivers from my husband’s organization agreed to take an unmarked taxi (all of his organization’s cars are marked with company tags) to the house to see what was going on. 30 minutes later he returned with the bad news: our house had been looted. They took the TVs, DVD players, satellite dishes and our laptop into the street and burned them. Nothing was left but the carpet, he said.

At this point the stress level was so high I was not sure how I could handle it. My husband, trying to find out as much as possible, sent the driver back with a camera because we were not allowed to leave the compound. He brought back the camera and we finally got to see how bad it was. Everything was turned over and smashed. They broke the windows, the dumped out our clothes, they broke dishes; everything was messed up. Then I realized I did not have my passport. It was in the living room at home. There was nothing to do, I got a drink.

I continued to check CNN and BBC to try to find out what was going on. There, on the front page, was a specific reference to my organization’s offices being burned down. I decided to call my parents because if they saw this and didn’t hear from me they would have assumed the worst. I told my mom all about the office and my house but told her not to worry. She laughed sarcastically. She was glad that I called, though, and I promised to keep her posted.

The person at my organization who manages the houses called and told me they would secure the house. I asked him to look for my passport and for my husband’s. He said that the group who looted the house tried to set it on fire but a neighbor intervened. Things could have been worse, I decided.

My husband’s organization gave us a room at the guesthouse for the night. I had a few more gin and tonics, all the while getting phone calls from friends and colleagues to ask if we were OK. Right before falling asleep, the guy at my house called to report that he had found our passports. I went to bed about 9, but woke up at 2 and could not go back to sleep. I kept wondering what had been taken, what did they want, how did this happen, and what could I have done to have prevented it. Without any sleeping pills at my disposal, I went downstairs to try to get my hands on some chamomile tea but the closest thing available was Horlicks (which is really gross and is non-narcotic so I am not really sure about all of those sleep-inducing claims). I went into the kitchen and struck gold: NyQuil. I knocked back a shot and went back upstairs. My husband was in the bathroom puking from all the stress.