Afghanistan 2003
02/14/2003

I returned from Pakistan 7 months ago with the help of UNHCR. We are from Kabul, but we spent 6 years in Pakistan. Neither my nor myself owned a house. We were renting a place when we left for Pakistan. Our biggest problem here is shelter. You can see where we are living. It used to be a stable. Animals were sleeping here. When we first arrived in Kabul, we had no place to go so we went to the mosque. We stayed there for a few weeks, and someone there gave us this address. This property used to belong to a Talib, but he left. We can stay here and don’t have to pay rent.

I shine shoes to earn money. On very good days, I can earn about $1, but I usually can’t earn that much. I can’t earn enough money to support them. It costs about $1 to buy food for my wife and four children. Many days, I just earn enough money to buy tea and some sugar and that’s all we ear. Since we returned , an NGO has given us a heater, some coal, and some flour, but our coal is will run out in less than a month. When we first came from Pakistan, I wanted to enroll my children in school. The school would not accept them because I did not have an identity card. It takes about 5 days to get a new card, during that time I cannot work because I have to wait at the Ministries. If I take the time off work, who will earn money for the family?

When we were in Paksitan we were happy. The government promised that they would gie us a house and food. Although we love our country, we are not happy here because we don’t have the necessities to live. Because we love our country, we won’t go back to Pakistan—even though we had electricity there. We are not happy with the government because they lied to us. They said, ‘Please come to your country, and we will help you.’