Sunday, December 28, 2008

Kabul on the other side of the wire

Back in NOV, I had a chance again to head outside the wire, to see a little sliver of what we are all here for - the people of Afghanistan.

This time we went to one of the many epicenters of the challenge where you can find the most needy in the most needy part of Central Asia - in this case the Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital burn clinic.

As you can gather by the fuzzy image of the cheesy 'stash'd old guy in the background - visit wasn't about us - the focus was on the children there. I wasn't there by myself either, there were a good dozen plus there - I was just a worker bee.

To get the full background of our trip, you should read the full article here, (it was our second trip, the write up of my first trip is here) but this is the core,
Children in the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health’s burn ward undergo a huge amount of suffering. In a place where their recovery includes flies swarming around open flesh and bandages often being reused, service members from International Security Assistance Force Headquarters regularly bring hope and smiles to the children’s faces through their gifts of medical supplies, crayons, stuffed animals – and themselves.

Many of the donated items come from the United States, while service members come from Great Britain, Germany, Turkey, Canada and others. The language is universal – love – and it’s spoken through the gift of a beanie baby or a game of Pictionary.
...
The hospital is the only pediatric hospital in all of Afghanistan. Its operating budget provided by the Afghan government is $400 a month. The 15 boxes of medical supplies brought by ISAF service members on Nov. 20 will help to bridge the gap between life and death.
Yep, $400 a month. The one thing that keeps going through my mind are all the pediatric hospitals throughout the West - and as I walked through this hospital I thought that no one would leave their pet there - but this is all the Afghans have. For the price of a round-trip to one of those anti-war marches we have seen over the last few years - you could sure buy a lot of medical supplies. For the price of one week's lawn service at your standard US hospital, you could create so much good will here, and truly help the needy. For the cost of a board meeting ...

There were even a few videos posted up about the event, a short one and a long one.






Now that I have broken open Limburgerandcrackers, I think I will post a few other slices of life in Kabul over the next month or so.

For those interested (that is you Mom), the high resolution pic of the above right is here and even better here.
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