MINNEAPOLIS — It has been a nightmare for days for the people of Afghanistan.
Many left the only homes they've ever known in an attempt to get out. Others are hiding in them waiting to see what their country will become. Afghan Americans with family caught there are helplessly watching the turmoil unfold.
One of them spoke Friday from her home in the metro.
Amina Baha's mother, cousins, aunts and uncles are trapped in their homeland.
"One day I wake up, the Taliban are taking province after province. The next day the president is gone. Then I start to see people trying to flee the Taliban, and then the last two days I couldn't get a hold of my mother," Baha said.
Her mother's cell phone data plan ran out, and in Afghanistan they don't have phone contracts like you and me - they have cards that buy time. But with the country in chaos, the cards are gone. Amina figured it out and put time on her mom's card last night.
"She's okay right now. She's with family and she's in Kabul, Baha said. "Kabul is a little bit more safer compared to the rest of Afghanistan, but we don't know for how long."
And they don't know how they will get her back yet. It's just one more worry on top of so many.
"What gets me so emotional and almost makes me cry sometimes at night is there are a lot of people my age that don't know what peace feels like. They don't know what freedom is like; they don't know how to leave a house and be sure that they will return because everything is up in the air," Baha said. "They leave their houses and they're not sure if they're going to return."
While that is true for all, it is most acute for women.
"The sentiment is from the Taliban regime. They are saying, 'We are Taliban 2.0 and we are okay with women. We are going to let them get education. We have learned a lot from when we were in power the last 20 years.' I don't think anybody believes them," Baha said.
Reports came today that women news anchors have been taken off Afghan TV. Amina's female cousins are in hiding, but just two weeks ago they were surgeons and in government jobs. They weren't adults when the Taliban was last in power.
"A lot of the younger generation in Afghanistan that are 20 years old, or 18, 19, 20 right now, they also don't know how to live like her," Baha said. "For them to go from almost one extreme to another is going to be really difficult and I'm not sure how they're gonna do it."
Unsure there and here, while watching every moment of there.
"I feel like things unraveled so fast, I'm still trying to process things emotionally," Baha said.
Baha says she is volunteering as an interpreter to help states like Minnesota and Wisconsin welcome refugees.