Meals in Kabul restaurants: separate dining rooms for men and women

KabulNot long ago, for me, going to a restaurant wasn't just about eating out; it was a way to breathe. With the aroma of hot rice and freshly baked bread, and the clinking of spoons and laughter, I could forget for hours what was happening outside those walls. For my generation—I'm 25—restaurants were a space halfway between home and the outside world, where family, couples, and friends could sit together and have a normal life.

Over the past twenty years, going to a restaurant has become one of the few leisure options available in a country like Afghanistan. Even after the Taliban's return, for a while, restaurants remained one of the few places in Kabul that didn't change: girls and boys sat together, families ate side by side, and the Taliban's morality police—known as agents for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice—were a rare sight. I still don't quite know why. Perhaps they were too busy enforcing restrictions elsewhere, or perhaps the rumors were true that restaurant owners were paying the Taliban to leave their customers alone. Whatever the reason, for a time, restaurants were the last semi-normal spaces in the Afghan capital. But even this has now changed.

In the summer, after a long time, I went to a restaurant in Kabul's Shar-e-Now neighborhood, where such establishments abound. From the moment I entered, I realized the space had completely changed. The garden area, which used to be where families sat, had become a "women-only" space, and men were not allowed. I went with my family, and my father and brothers were forbidden from sitting with us in the garden. The waiters said, "Ladies, stay here. Gentlemen, you must go to the men's section."

Nonsense

It seemed strange to me. We were a family. It made no sense that we had to sit separately. We protested, and then the staff suggested, "Go to the second dining room, which is for families." But this "second dining room" was an enclosed space. In the summer heat, I would have preferred to sit with my family among the flowers, under the shade of the trees, and enjoy the fresh air. But we had to choose between the fresh air and being together. So in the end, we chose the enclosed dining room.

The family dining room was divided into wooden-walled compartments, which separated not only the space but also the people. That is, one family couldn't see the others. "Do the Virtue Promotion Taliban come here to monitor things too?" I asked. "Yes, they come every week. We never know when, so we must always be on our guard," one of the waiters replied. If a woman was with a man who wasn't a relative—that is, her father, brother, or husband—she was forced to sit somewhere else and keep her distance. And not only that: even men and women who belonged to the same family had to prove it with an identity document or a wedding photo. The Taliban checked this table by table.

This week, at a friend's insistence, I went back to the same restaurant. It was cold, so this time we went straight to the family dining room. While we were sitting and talking, two girls and two boys arrived with a cake in the next stall. It was one of the girls' birthdays. Her boyfriend wanted to sit next to her to take a picture, but the waiter quickly stopped him: "Don't sit together!" he shouted angrily. His voice echoed loudly in the dining room, and a deathly silence fell. "Why can't we sit together?" the boy asked, surprised. "Last month, another restaurant in that same chain had to close because someone posted a picture on Facebook of a girl and a boy sitting together," the man replied. I couldn't believe it. A simple photo had forced a restaurant to close and left a lot of people without jobs.

When I left the establishment, the air was cold, but more than the coldness, what pressed against my chest was a feeling difficult to describe: a feeling of oppression, of control. Kabul is still the same city: the same streets, the same buildings... But something has changed: we constantly feel watched.

Perhaps, one day, I'll be able to sit quietly with my family in a restaurant again, enjoying a good meal and a moment of happiness. Now, every time I go to a restaurant, more than hunger, I feel the emptiness of not having a normal life.