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Marines
visit Kabul orphanage; conditions improve slightly KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. Marines handed out teddy bears, candy, wool hats and gloves to children at Kabul’s largest orphanage, where youngsters sleep two to a bed in unheated rooms but where smiles replaced tears for a few moments Thursday afternoon. “Me! Me!” the children shouted, holding out their hands as 10 fatigue-clad Marines — taking a break from guard duty at the U.S. Embassy — doled out goodies. Wearing two or more layers of tattered clothes to keep warm, the children hugged stuffed animals and held up toys for some impromptu show and tell. “With this I can see my way to the bathroom,” said 8-year-old Ahmad Ullah, holding up a fluorescent green light shaped like a laser beam. At the Allauddin orphanage in a bombed-out neighborhood southwest Kabul, there are only four toilets for 500 orphans and a lack of electricity brings darkness at night. The cement walls are barren, the rooms are cold and many windows are broken. Yet conditions have improved somewhat since an Associated Press reporter visited the orphanage shortly after the Taliban were driven from Kabul in November. International aid has been arriving, and new wool blankets cover steel framed beds that are lined up like sentries, 10 or more to a room. Still, 8-year-olds like Ahmad Ullah look as though they are 4 or 5. Malnutrition has taken its toll, and many youngsters have sores on their skin. “You can tell by the way they’re acting that these children haven’t seen a lot of the stuff we’re bringing today,” said 20-year-old Marine Cpl. Matthew Roberson of Floyd, Va. The items delivered Thursday — toys, canned food, candy and clothes — were donated by an individual in Massachusetts and a school in Virginia, said Roger Kenna, spokesman for the recently reopened U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The Marines are in Afghanistan to guard the embassy. Many of the children at Allauddin have lost one or both parents. Others come from families simply too poor to care for them. “Other countries have orphans because of traffic accidents. In our country, it’s because of war,” said the orphanage’s director, Abdul Habib Sameem. Laughing and smiling, the orphans jostled for the best toys as the Marines pulled gifts from plastic bags. Teachers — Afghan women who shed their head-to-toe veils inside the orphanage walls — reprimanded some of the kids for pushing. “This is the first time we’ve been able to get out and interact with the people,” said Cpl. Mike Mendez, 20, of Huntington Beach, Calif. During last year’s U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban, the orphanage fell into a desperate state. The well dried up, leaving it without water, and the children ate only rice for lunch and dinner. In recent weeks, however, both aid and hope have begun to return. Teacher Fahima Jomizoda, 35, said she went months at a time last year without receiving her $30 a month salary. Now, she says, she’s been paid. |
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TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
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