کور / بېلابيلي لیکني - پخوانۍ / REALITIES OF AFGHAN CHILDREN’S DESPAIRING

REALITIES OF AFGHAN CHILDREN’S DESPAIRING

It has been snowing for several days in Kabul. Now, one can see only a sparkling white mattress laid everywhere. The weather is misty and one can not have a wide view of Kabul’s surrounding mountains. But, the trees on two sides of the streets, half covered by snow, absorb our look and invite us to enjoy a fascinating scene of nature.


However, this joyful sight is not long-lasting and suddenly gets shattered when you think of hundreds of thousands of families who can’t afford to buy heating fuel. It gets shattered just as easily as stone can break glass or cold to fade a flower. And you start abhorring snow. You abhor snow when you see child peddlers or beggars running after cars and pleading with people to buy their goods or pay them money.


It even hurts when you see women with wet burkas following cars and begging. And it is even harder not to cry when you hear stories about families who sleep to ignore their stomach demand for food, but can’t sleep because of cold. Children are standing in the traffic jams, hands pulled into sleeves white with snow. They do not use sleeves as alternative fashion to replace gloves, but make it like a tube-kind-of-thing so that they can exhale the warmth of their breath in it. They run, many of them, after cars.


You will see faces appearing at the back of the half misty window, shivering and begging, “Khyrat Bedeh”. Their breath is frozen on their lips and they still beg, “Give me money”. Children’s eyes tell you a secret tale: they have not had breakfast and have slept hungry last night. Their skinny faces tell you that they have not had enough food for a long time. And their torn-up jackets complain and tell you that they can not protect them against snow and cruel cold. Snow flakes one after another and covers the stain hairs of the child.


The snow slowly dissolves, changes to drops and starts sliding-down from the hair of the child, but freezes before it can fall down to the ground. Some people think of snow as an elixir that will help them triumph-over the fears of drought, but snow, beside its entire beauty, makes some people cry.


Cry for a father whose children cry for enough food and little warmth. Cry for a mother who begs out in the cold weather to bring food for her children, and her children cry at home for having her to be with them. Cry for a mother who squeezes her little baby under her jacket to keep her warm, but can not do anything to feed him; she herself has not eaten enough, how can she feed her baby.


Cry and cry and cry for a mother who squeezes herself in the Burka to survive cold and still screams for money to buy food for her little young children. I can’t cry anymore. Help me one more time, please. Please help me cry for a family who live not in a physical kind of protective thing that is called shelter, but who live under a tent with many holes on it, camped on a piece of wet land, crying for enough food and dreaming of a little warmth. Yes, these parents dream too. They are ordinary people and dream as we do. The only difference in-between is that we have everything for today and dream of more wealth and a better tomorrow, but they dream of fundamentals of life for today.


They dream of full pieces of bread for their children for the coming lunch. And they dream of a time when their children will have enough to eat and will be warm. These parents dream of a time that their children will be satisfied and they themselves can look to each other. HELP NEEDY PEOPLE AS AN ACT OF THANKS GIVING! Note: Should you feel empathized with these children and families, please do anything that will take to get this article read by as many people as possible. I am sure, having read this article, you will ask if there are organizations to donate fund through them. People asked the same question last year and some of them sent winter cloths and food items and I managed to distribute them to some of these needy children and families. However, people from other countries could not do that and can’t do it this year either.


So, the best way will be to search for Afghan or international charity or child focus organizations on the Internet and donate through them. Save the Children Sweden or Save the Children Norway are two key organizations that work for Afghan children and can be trusted accordingly. HYPERLINK “http://www.rb.se/eng/” http://www.rb.se/eng/ Sayed Farhad Hashimi T