I’m a human like you!

In a warm afternoon of fall, there were two guards talking with one another inside entrance of Human Rights Commission and, right in front of them there were a few men sunbathing. I straddled much faster to get the office I’m working in, sooner. All of a sudden, a man wearing a threadbare coat, broken hat, and scar in his forehead with tears rollinig down his face, making him look more emotional turned my aside and stopped me.
Scratching his stick on the street, walking by an invisible power, I, unintentionally took some coins out of my pocket and handed them to him. He said nothing in response, starring innocently down, but he could no longer keep silence and blasted out.

“I’m sick.” He said in a very low tone.
“What happened to your forehead?” I asked while staring.

He blasted out as if he found what he was in search during all his life.

“I went to Human Rights Commission,” he said, clearing his streaming tears. “I told them about the situation of my life and that I’m sick. They answered me, get away from our face. I told them, doctors believed I would recover as soon as I went to the city. Right after recovering I would start working because I have six children. I would no longer let them be illiterate, and prevent them from begging.

They said we can do nothing for you, why don’t you go Red Cross Office? This is out of our duty. I went there not only once but over again, but they answered as you do. Human Right Commission employee interrupted saying we do something else; that’s out of our responsibility. As leaving the commission, I felt down because my mind was bewildered, even I didn’t know what to do where to go.

Pity! Pity! “What do you do?” I asked him. “You can do nothing?”

He answered, "I can do anything if get a little better. Weekly, I have to spend more than 1500 Afs going to and coming back from Bagram if we don’t count the debts I have to pay. Nobody cares about us. I went to religious leaders, but nobody paid me attention. After waiting a long time to meet Mula Mohseni, a famous religious leader, he made me more depressed saying I, myself have to pay my debts. “God bless you”. He told me, “you’re used to begging”. “No, I’m not, I said, only help me to become better. I would work then. Have you ever thought what would happen to my family if I was dead?” I showed him my prescription and medical letters. He mocked me saying I would give you half of Afghanistan if you pay me only 20,000 Afs. You are used to buying a cow’s entrails stinking, coming to Mula Mohseni. Oh, this made me regretful."

"One day I got to Muhaqeq. He said, we would cure you through the Red Cross. This was a momentary hope. But in other turns, meaning, for other times, they only gave me little money in order to make me go away. I went somewhere else, and I was told, here is where we run political affairs not a charity. When I go a charity or places like these, I hope I would never come to exist. But when I think of my family I become confused. I have to bear and live as I’ve done so far when Human Rights Commission, Red Cross, my religious leader and others don’t care about me."

I told to my self, he’s right. Every bit of money these greedy leaders give to others is money that they can’t spend on themselves.

There are a great deal of people living as Faqir Ali, but no Afghan official worries about such cases in Afghanistan. We hope at least you, as a reader, could help one of our tortured and suffering Afghans.

Faqir Alis Phone No: 0093 700239122
His Bank Account No: 100803100070921
Bank Name: Bakhtar Bank Afghanistan.