By Gorata Fembo
On a chilly morning in Kabul, I find myself sitting cross-legged on a carpet over a cup of tea, interviewing three resilient women who tell me about overcoming tragedy, poverty, conflict and now surviving as urban migrants in a camp for internally displaced people.
I’m nervous. My gut feeling is “rejection’’. Maybe these two Afghan teens and a married mother of five will not want to share their experiences with a stranger from Botswana working with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Perhaps I am not fit for this role. Negative thoughts weigh on me.
But I don’t need to worry. As we begin, the connection is natural. We bond like old friends. Hours pass without anyone realising it.
Let me introduce my new old friends.
I call Shamsia Shams. She’s a mother of five, expecting her sixth.
Madina is a well-spoken teenager from Baghlan province who wants to overcome stereotypes, become a doctor and break her family’s cycle of poverty.
Khumari is 18 and used to live in Charmgar village, also in Baghlan province. There’s something about her story that stays with me.
As they talk, and my IFRC colleague translates, I take notes that will become stories published online. Days later, I can’t stop thinking of these ladies.
Khumari lives with her family of 12, who all depend on less than 40 Swiss francs (40 US dollars) her 9-year-old brother can earn at a bicycle repair shop.
It’s barely enough to survive on. “On average we eat one meal and the next day we go a full day without a meal, knowing we are saving for another day. So, we basically skip a day’s meal. This is how we survive.”
Rations of food from the Red Crescent — cooking oil, rice, flour, beans, tea, sugar and salt — are a big but temporary help, part of an 8-million Swiss franc programme to help 675,000 people affected by drought and floods. This is just one-tenth of the 6.3 million Afghans reported to be in need of critical humanitarian aid.
But even emergency food and decent wages wouldn’t solve all their woes. Khumari shares the pain of losing a 45-day-old baby sister during a firearm exchange between armed groups in her village.
Life wasn’t always this hard.
“For years, my father was a successful businessman. Our family also owned a flour milling machine, which was a sustainable business, seeing us into school and a comfortable home full of love and protection,’’ Khumari says.
Forty years of war, poverty, sickness, drought and floods have taken away so much.
As she talks, tears engulf her eyes. I feel like embracing Khumari but we both manage to compose ourselves. I offer her a little pat. Now we sit quietly, and I think to myself there is nothing more humane and remarkable than two strangers who can understand each other even in silence.
Something about Khumari draws me close to her. Perhaps it is her compelling account of sorrows or her huge, beautiful brown eyes, her lean frame and long face wrapped in a hijab. I struggle to forget this girl.
Khumari reminds me so much of a young me when I started college. Not much separates us beyond just a few years. I discover we share the same dreams. We both want to travel the world, meet people and take care of our families. As we talk, I keep wishing better for these ladies. I wish they could go to school. I wish they could have the same privileges as I had and a fair chance at working towards their dreams.
At the end of that day, I kept thinking that although their stories are filled with so much tragedy, we are more alike than different. We all want the same things in life. I hope their wishes — and my wishes for them — come true.
