Today is the one-year anniversary of when it all happened.

At 8:30 pm on Monday, May 16, 2005 I got the call. Mark, a guy who works for me, phoned crying and said, “there’s been a kidnapping. It was C”. C was the manager of a program for vulnerable women and widows at my organization. I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless and distraught and phoned a friend I’ve had for years who is also living in Kabul. I was screaming and shouting and my friend, and having heard that someone from my organization had been abducted, she thought it was me. I calmed down enough to let her know what was really going on and to let her know the details: C was traveling back from yoga class. Mark and another woman had been dropped off when two white Corollas blocked the road, men with Kalashnikovs broke the passenger side window and dragged her out. They went in the direction of the British Cemetery—that’s all we knew.

Although there had been warnings and at least three prior attempts, we were not sure who had taken her or what they wanted. Was it the Taliban? Was it a gang? I sat on the patio in the Qalala Pushta house and drank wine and smoked cigarettes all night, waiting for the phone to ring. My husband came out and put his arms around me. “It’s going to get worse, so prepare yourself”, he said.

I thought back to the staff meeting we had had that morning. I remember seeing her there, all of us crowded around the table in my cramped office. She looked great; wearing a new black blouse that she got from my favorite shop, Crystal Light. I wondered what would happen to her. Would they rape her or kill her? What did they want? I kept saying to myself that she was such a nice person, how could this happen? The ironic thing was, she was supposed to leave Afghanistan three weeks earlier but had decided to extend her contract. The morning that it happened I went to Chicken Street to buy her a silver bracelet for her birthday party on Wednesday night. We were going to have a cookout for her 33rd birthday.

The next day at work was useless. All of the international staff walked in, zombie-like and feigned being busy. I went out on the back stoop to sit with the guys while they chain smoked. The Director called a staff meeting at 9 to tell everyone what he knew. He had been up all night—in contact with the Embassy, with ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), with C’s family and with our headquarters in the states. No one had any idea what was happening. We filed into the conference room and the Director explained the situation: no demands have been made; we do not know where she is or who has her; two groups are claiming responsibility. While the Afghans in the room were threatening to find the people responsible and do all kinds of nasty things to them the Director’s phone rang. It was the kidnappers. The negotiations began.

I felt like I was in an action movie or a documentary: sitting around the table in the dining room at the office talking about what had happened and what we were going to do. The head of security for our organization came out from the states and took over my office; two people from International Risk arrived to develop a strategy; there were reporters. Different groups started making demands: remove international troops from Afghanistan, shut down Arman Radio (a progressive radio station that plays heathen music such as Britney Spears); but soon we were able to determine that Timur Shah had her. He was calling from her cell phone.

Timur Shah was a murderer. He had killed and been found guilty, but since the police could not find him and put him away they had incarcerated his mother instead, hoping that this measure would force him to turn himself in. However, he did not turn himself in, but decided to kidnap a foreigner instead to secure his mother’s release.

The next few weeks were a nightmare. Timur Shah had said that he had strangled her at one point (which all the media in Afghanistan reported), then took it back. The guys at my work bought time with the local cell phone company to send instant messages to all subscribers asking for information. Stickers and posters were made and distributed. The widows from C’s program rallied. (One funny point was when the widows carried a sign at one of the demonstrations that read, in English, “C made us widows!”) We were on the international news. Consultants came and went. Negotiations dragged on. Two times in the first two weeks we were close to a release and then nothing.

The only reprieve for me was a trip to Bangkok for a conference. I thought that I had gotten away from all of the stress and anxiety until I picked up a Wall Street Journal during a coffee break. There, on the front page, was a short paragraph stating that a video had been released. It was on the news that night, but I refused to watch it. I just couldn’t take it because I knew what the inevitable next step would be. In the video, which I saw later, she was rolled in a carpet with a scarf on her head (which she never wore) and an AK-47 pointed at her. They asked her to state her father’s name and then her brother’s. When she said her brother’s name Timur Shah replied, “I am your brother now”.

After 25 days, she was finally released on June 9. No one called; I saw it on CNN. She was immediately whisked out of the country. We watched Euronews as her plane landed and she was greeted by her Prime Minister. Surrounded by her family as she walked off the plane, she was wearing the black blouse that I had envied at our staff meeting nearly a month before.

Two weeks after her release, we got an email from her telling us what had happened. After being abducted she was taken to a house not far from the spot where the kidnapping took place, in the same neighborhood where many of our staff live. The kidnappers did not hurt her in any way; she had only lost weight and gotten a lot of mosquito bites. There were children in the house who would come and peek at her from time to time and she could hear women’s voices. She tried to time her bathroom visits (the toilet was a latrine across the courtyard) to the sound of passing helicopters, but soon they caught on. Timur Shah would ride his bike far away to use her cell phone so that he could not be tracked. And, most amazingly, she saw on television the rallies the widows were having for her release.

All of us at work signed big banners to be sent to her in Europe wishing her well. Although the worst was over, some of us will always remember what happened on May 16. Mark still feels guilty that he was dropped off first that night (a consultant in Kabul when it happened placed the blame squarely on Mark) and many people from my work feel terrible that it happened and they could not do anything about it. C says she wants to come back to Afghanistan, but her government will not let her, at least in the near term.

Now whenever I go out after dark, I am wary. Kidnappings still happen; one Nepali died in captivity not long ago after being abducted with a colleague at dawn in Kabul, and there have been several kidnappings and murders linked to the Taliban throughout the South since the beginning of the year. There is a fine line between living your life and playing it safe. While you won’t see me at the Coca Cabana [sic], the local “club”, anytime soon, I still have my share of nights getting drunk and playing pool at the Uzbek place or going out for dinner with friends. It’s a risk I have to take.