Mahboba’s Afghanistan Diary - 20 July 2011

I have been in Afghanistan for the past few days. It takes time for me to adjust being back here in my country. Yesterday while I was driving toward the orphanage I could not hold back my tears looking at the children who were walking towards their school with dirty old school uniforms full of dust. I also passed what seemed like thousands of children - none of them have decent school shoes or are wearing socks. Those who have shoes wear only the cheap slippers available locally. They have to walk for hours to school.

Looking at the children everywhere in Afghanistan tears me apart. As I saw these children I began to cry and said to our driver that I wished that I had a million dollars to spend to give free uniforms and school shoes for these children. The driver said “What will they do with the uniform? They walk to school having eaten no breakfast. A glass of milk will be better than shoes and socks.” Unfortunately, this is the reality of Afghanistan.

The government knows all about the poverty but seem incapable of fixing the problem. Has the Afghan Prime Minister forgotten about the basic needs of his people? I do not understand leaders who are capable of changing the lives of these children yet do nothing. How can they sleep at night knowing millions of people have no life, especially the children? It has been so difficult to see the country going backwards even since my last visit two years ago.

The level of poverty seems to have increased. People cannot even afford the basic necessities of life. People in Afghanistan are patient when it is come to difficult times, but I can see people have had enough of security issues and suicide bombers.

I was at my cousin’s place when we heard on the news that there is fighting a few kilometres away from where I was. I was so scared I sat down all night thinking that this may be my last night. I could not understand how everybody else was fast sleep!  

On my trip back to Hope House I looked at the mountains and I wondered if there was something useful inside those mountains. When I looked at many dusty roads with children walking along with no shoes, then I am confused. I pray to God to fix this problem for my people because I find myself overwhelmed to begin to think about how to solve these problems.

After 13 years of my work for the first time I am scared of my work. My work has become bigger than my life. The beauty of my work is that I can see the children we help are happy and the women becoming self-confident and having some control over their destiny – able to stand on their own two feet.  Children live together like brothers and sisters in Hope House. They have a full uniform, they have water to have a shower, they have a car to drive them to school, they have a garden to walk in, they have fruit to pick from the trees, they have someone to protect them, and they have faith to keep them strong. It’s like they once again have a mother and father after having lost their family many years ago.

I sleep with kids the in Hope House and they fight over who sleeps next to me! It feels so good to know hundreds of children call me mother and I can feel they accept me as their mother. Every morning many children will say ‘good morning mother’ and I can barely keep up in wishing them a good morning in return as there are so many of them.

The most beautiful gift I have received at Hope House is a hug from each one of the children which may take hours, and sometimes they jump on the line again for another hug!

I am proud of the fact that I know we have created a role model for the whole of Afghanistan and I hope one day that the government will do the same for all the children of my country, just like we do at Hope House.

Kindest regards

Mahboba