The Galician municipality of Sobrado dos Monxes (A Coruña) is known for being one of the last stops on the Camino de Santiago.
In its monastery, which dates back to the 10th century, the religious sell dulce de leche to the pilgrims who stay in their hostel.
“Packaged in silence”, reads the label.
Monk Loren, of British origin, crosses the wet atrium with a coat over his habit.
"Before they were thick wool, but now they don't keep anything warm," he clarifies about the clothing.
Loren greets Zhore Kohi and Patkin Nazifullah, an Afghan couple who have just arrived in the village, in English and discovers that they are her new neighbors.
The couple has concluded a seven-month journey in this rural Galician town that began with the fall of Kabul into the hands of the Taliban.
She, a human rights lawyer, knew from the first moment that she was in the crosshairs of the new regime.
An international aid network, woven mainly by women, has managed to settle the marriage between pastures and cheeses of denomination of origin.
Now, with the collaboration of the Municipality of Sobrado dos Monxes, they have promoted an association that is already working on the arrival of new Afghan families and that hopes to bring Ukrainian neighbors as well.
The first words Kohi and Nazifullah have learned in Spanish are “hello” and “thank you”.
The usual in foreigners, but in his case the meaning of both acquires a particular weight.
They repeat them out loud with a wide smile.
In Kohi's imagination, Spain was "a good place to live".
She, sitting in one of the few cafeterias in Sobrado dos Monxes, remembers that, when she was young when she lived in Iran, her neighbor sold her house to move to Spain.
"He told me that he had good weather and lived quietly," she says.
So when the possibility of coming here arose, she did not hesitate.
Ángeles Sánchez, a native of Sobrado dos Monxes, does not speak English, so she does not understand what her new neighbor is narrating on the other side of the café con leche, but her feelings do not escape her.
She knows first-hand some of the suffering that the couple has suffered in recent months: low resources, lack of light, heating, overcrowding.
She experienced those same shortcomings as a child and she saw them later in her neighbors.
They were the ones who encouraged her, 20 years ago, to create an association of rural women and that is why she has also mobilized Sobrado dos Monxes to welcome this family.
"Everyone here is very supportive," she points out as she lists different actions that neighbors have done to assist Kohi and Nazifullah.
Beside him, Belén Vallina translates part of Kohi's story for him.
Vallina, a native of Ourense, has worked for the UN and the OECD and is currently the co-founder of Eunova, an agency for innovation and territorial development focused on rural areas.
She has been the connection between Afghanistan and Galicia.
When the evacuation of Afghans began last August, she joined with two other women activists to organize the departure of as many people as possible.
She acknowledges that at such times "there are no criteria."
Vallina helped several families who have also arrived in Galicia: acquaintances of acquaintances.
She found out about Kohi when she had already managed to reach Pakistan, but she was in a very delicate situation and needed a permanent residence.
Vallina had been told about Sánchez and his work in Sobrado dos Monxes: “One day I called Ángeles,
Sánchez spoke with some members of the women's association and also with the City Council.
They looked for accommodation, wrote asylum invitation letters, provided Spanish classes, enrolled Kohi in the University of Santiago so she could finish her master's degree in Afghanistan, and Nazifullah in an entrepreneurship program.
The mayor, Lisardo Santos, stresses that for the people this couple "is a shock."
Sobrado has 1,700 inhabitants, increasing the population not only means more life for its streets, but also establishing public services for its neighbors.
Santos explains that the City Council has the capacity to accommodate several families, but the impediment they encounter, even more than the economic one, is the bureaucratic one.
“We have a series of buildings that could be adapted for housing, but due to the paperwork it is difficult for us,” he exemplifies.
The Government has approved a ministerial order to reduce the reception and work procedures for refugees to 24 hours, but it only concerns Ukrainians.
Even so, this gives hope to municipalities that, like this one, are willing to collaborate.
In Galicia alone there are almost 1,600 places available.
To promote these efforts Kohi, Vallina and Sánchez have formed an association, Impulso y Territorio, in which the Afghan is the president.
Its function will be to support the transfer of other refugee families to rural Galicia.
Vallina shows that Kohi's experience, as a lawyer, but also as an asylum seeker, makes her the perfect president: “She knows the procedures at the embassy, the documentation, the languages...”.
She also points out that for her compatriots, knowing her first-hand, being an example of her success, gives them back the illusion of recovering a life.
"She Now she will not only defend the rights of Afghan women, but also of the women here," she concludes Vallina.
Flee from Kabul between bombs
Kohi had already been out of Afghanistan for months, taking refuge in Pakistan, when the opportunity to travel to Galicia arose.
Leaving her from her country was not easy.
When the Taliban entered Kabul, she predicted that they would come for her.
For 10 years she had defended women in court, especially those who had been victims of violence, and she was a well-known human rights activist.
So she took refuge with her family in another house, waiting to be able to leave the country.
She was not wrong.
Within a few days she received a call.
-Where are you?
-At home.
-You're not at home.
We are here.
Kohi remembers the Kabul airport as a battlefield.
Hundreds of people crowded to catch a flight.
They could only carry their passport, mobile phone and whatever fit them in a small plastic bag, he explains while showing an example of a cupcake wrapper.
The lawyer was accompanied by her husband and part of her family.
Two bombs fell at different times.
One of them killed almost 200 people.
Kohi breaks down remembering her three-year-old nephew's panic.
"I thought it would be better to die in his house, at the hands of the Taliban, than that way," she sobs.
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