Existing comment:
At the Marastoon:
Women in Afghanistan have hard lives. For those who are ill or have mental problems, things are far worse. The 16-year-old in the photograph was abandoned by her parents when she was 10 years old and left to roam the streets of Kabul. The police picked her up and brought her to the marastoon, or house of refuge, run by the Afghan Red Crescent Society.
She does not talk to anyone. But she shouts and waves her arms when she is happy. When she is sad, she sits apart, silent and inscrutable. She has been at the marastoon for six years. She has no visitors and the staff knows nothing about her. They call her "Gul ma" -- "our flower."
"Many of the women here have no notion of time," explains Nazuba, a nurse who works in the women's compound. "They just live from one second to the next." The women's compound is bright and clean. It has a garden and a wide terrace with a view of Kabul and the mountains beyond. The women will probably spend the rest of their lives there. |