Fly swatters and chocolate

Today was an amazing day.  The highlights happened before lunch and after dinner.  After breakfast we were able to begin sorting items that we had brought and that Sozo had been given that we will give to some of the women here.  They are both everyday items like lotion, soap, and shampoo as well as little gifts like hand knitted hats and scarves.

In the middle of the sorting, the school teachers from the Sozo School in Kabul came to visit.  The Sozo School is a school that teaches kids that have to work to help support their families, by begging or selling little trinkets in the street.  If they don't work, there is a good chance that many of their families will not eat.  Because of the need for them to work, most of them have not been educated, so the Sozo School tries to fill the gap.  There are about 170 kids there now, and each class may have kids that are between the ages of 6 and 15, but they are all at the same ability level.  The teachers are all amazing women who have a passion to helping children who may not have any other chance to learn how to read or write.  They hope to give these children a better future.  We enjoyed some time sitting and talking and getting to know one another.  The wonderful thing about women is that no matter where we live we are all the same.  We all understand the fights that happen between sisters, we all understand family and struggle to balance it all.  It becomes so easy to connect with these women when you realize that they are just like you, they just live somewhere else.

The rest of the afternoon was spent bagging all of the stuff we had sorted in the morning. After dinner we all went into the living room to spend some time relaxing.  Wakil came and joined us, and in no time had us all laughing.  At one point I was laughing so hard that I began crying.  We sat around laughing and eating chocolate and having fun.  It was a wonderful ending to an amazing day.

"I pray that Afghanistan will no longer need guns... just fly swatters and chocolate" - Wakil