Kids of Kabul Read Online Free Page B

helped a lot with that much money.
    My mother says that when it is her turn to die, it will be my responsibility to recite the prayers over her body. She says that praying over her will be more important than crying over her, so I should practice the prayers and have them easy in my mind to get to when the time comes.
    I hear that Kabul is a nice city, with parks and gardens and big shops and even a zoo, but I haven’t seen any of that. All I have seen is this area, and it isn’t very nice. It doesn’t really matter, though, if you live in an ugly place. If you have beautiful thoughts in your head then it’s like you are living in beauty.
    In the future I want to be a teacher and teach both English and Islamic studies. People who know English are more respected, and if I am a scholar of Islamic studies, I can help spread the news of the Qur’an.
    War comes when there is no unity, when people look out for themselves instead of each other. But through discussion we can solve all our problems, create unity and avoid war.

Mustala, 13

    Life expectancy for people in Afghanistan is, on average, forty-four years. In Canada and the United States it is about eighty. Poor nutrition, lack of access to health care and clean water, exposure to the elements, poverty-related illnesses such as tuberculosis, plus war and related violence all take their toll. Twenty percent of all children born in Afghanistan die before they reach their fifth birthday.
    Many people have fled Afghanistan because of the war. Others have left in search of jobs or a better life elsewhere.
    In Canada and the United States, we have an economic safety net. People over sixty-five receive a pension. People who are out of work are often eligible for unemployment insurance. For those who are too ill to work, there is another type of assistance. We have these things because the people who came before us worked really hard to make them happen. We have also never suffered the horrible destruction of prolonged war on our land.
    War creates poverty. In countries like Afghanistan, where there has been prolonged war, there is no economic safety net. People go hungry. According to UNICEF, nearly 40 percent of children under the age of five are undernourished, and over half of all children under five are smaller than they would be if they had enough to eat.
    Mustala’s family has been split apart by war.
    I live with my grandfather and grandmother. We are really poor. My grandparents don’t work. We have no money for soap, so I am often dirty and wearing dirty clothes. I would like to be better dressed, so when people see me coming they will think, “Oh, this boy is important, look at his clothes. He must be somebody special.” No one will think that of me if I don’t have nice clothes.
    My father left when I was quite small. He went to Iran to find work and also because some people here wanted to kill him. My mother got another husband and left us so she could be with him. I think she has other children now.

    Classrooms and playground at Mustala’s school.
    I get free food at school, which is often the only time I eat, and sometimes my grandparents don’t eat at all. When I can, I put food in my pockets at lunchtime to take back to my grandparents, but it is a thing that makes me nervous to do. I don’t want to get in trouble. So, sometimes if I am hungry for two pieces of nan, I take two, but I don’t eat them. I hide them in my jacket to take home. That’s not stealing, is it?
    This whole school is filled with kids who have a hard life but who are really smart, although not all are as smart as me or as good at playing football as me! Many have lost one parent or two parents in the war or from some illness. I have not lost my parents. They are both alive. They are just not with me.
    I wish my father would come back from Iran, even for a day. He would see what a smart, good boy I’ve become, and he would keep me with him. I don’t care where. I could go back to