In the summer of 2009, we were contacted by friends of the community concerning the compassionate interest of a local attorney in Afghanistan to provide legal assistance to establish freedoms and rights, especially among women and chidren. While there, she was made painfully aware of the absolute poverty and need among so many families, especially children. The Briar Patch worked with local churches, homeschool groups, and our customers to send boxes of items directly to the distribution teams in Afghanistan. Below, you can read the amazing experiences shared with us.

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In the summer of 2009, we were contacted by friends of the community concerning the compassionate interest of a local attorney in Afghanistan to provide legal assistance to establish freedoms and rights, especially among women and chidren. While there, she was made painfully aware of the absolute poverty and need among so many families, especially children. The Briar Patch worked with local churches, homeschool groups, and our customers to send boxes of items directly to the distribution teams in Afghanistan. Below, you can read the amazing experiences shared with us.

I finally got to go out on a distribution run. Without too many logistics detail, I have to tell you, I was expecting a very dainty and prim experience, like Easter baskets delivered to the poorer on "Little House on the Prairie". It wasn't like that -- it was wild, rough; there was the stench and presence of garbage and sewage everywhere, in a large dirt area, about the . The six foot tall Chaplain had to step in to save me; then the interpreter helped pull the kids off of me. Little children. They were only grabbing at things inside an open box I was carrying with lots of very small items like hair holders, and small rubber balls, and bubbles. I will never walk in there with an open box again.

The kids were grabbing blindly into this box I was clutching, and pulling on me eventually, and the buddy system failed me, because I couldn't get to my buddy, for all of the children. And this was just one section of the children, about thirty, out of a hundred.

I was part of the "child diversion (distraction) detail; to keep the children far away from the large truck full of supplies, and the real distribution of clothes and food and shoes and toys to families. A hundred and twenty very full, very large plastic bags. I had about 12 other child diversion folks with me, spread out in the large dirt buffer area. The Army and Navy guys who were six feet tall,and the women with the really strong "mommy voices" kept it together. A more experienced woman BBC photographer, shooting for a story on the project, got in front of me and told the children to form a single line. They don't speak English, but they understood her tone and her hand movement. I was speaking Dari for no, ("nay") but my tone and body language said WEAK, WEAK, WEAK. Same thing happened to me during my very brief substitute teaching career. I didn't get mauled, but run over, psychologically, as a substitute teacher. Very weak; kids sense it.

After we on Child Diversion team ran out of stuff (just diversion stuff); then, we really had fun, and the children completely engaged with us personally, and a lot more calmly. They wanted so badly to have some kind of interaction. I started playing patty cake with the girls. They had never played it. And just like the way one six year old teaches another, by slow clapping and slapping hands, we played patty cake. Just basic patty cake, not the fancy stuff. I knew some Dari numbers, and started counting. I had the girls tell me the numbers past four; and they knew some numbers in English. I got up to 9 in Dari, and one girl got up to 10 in English. We had so much fun, with simple patty cake, and numbers. The little boys enjoyed it just as much as the girls, but of course, they wanted to slap hands a lot harder.

I knew how to say " I don't have....." but I don't know many nouns in Dari. Almost none. I mostly doing long greeting rituals and good byes. But, when the children would say "pencil" in English, asking for a pencil, Or Cacao, for chocolate. I would answer back with a whole Dari sentence of I don't have "cacao"; or I don't have "pencil" (Ma pencil nadarum.) One 10- or 11-year old girl (I guessed her age) got such a kick out of that, she started feeding me Dari nouns, to have me say I don't have ...whatever the thing was, i didn't know. She was so smart, and I wanted to whisk her away. She had more fun playing the word game than she had getting a toy.

The cutest cross-cultural moment was a little girl, about 8 or 9, who would only play patty cake with one hand, because she had to clutch the makeshift scarf around her head, with the other hand. She finally just held the ends of the scarf between her teeth, so she could play patty cake with both hands. Almost none of the other girls her age had to wear scarves. Maybe she looked younger than she was. Or maybe it's a family choice.

Patty cake, stuffed animals. and bubble-blowing with those little jars and bubble sticks -- seem to be innate and universal. These kids were hungry. For food; for water. Some were very sick and weak with unknown problems. More than one had eye problems from fecal matter getting in their eyes. We were banned from doing medical care, because we would be overwhelmed with people wanting us to literally take their babies, which I did not see. We couldn't take out water to wash the eyes of the two children who needed it, because we would be mobbed for water. They have water pumps throughout the city for people to pump and carry water for several blocks. The young teenage girls and women carry the water, it seems.

If I had taken my camera with me, in my pocket, I think I would have had to struggle to keep that, too. But many others took pictures, and I will try to get some to you.

I don't know if you received your thank you note from the Chaplain, along with power point presentation from the chaplain; but your donations were life saving. There is no aid agency sustaining these people, because it's too dangerous to go out there regularly. I assume that's why there are no aid agencies helping on a regular basis. Any other reason would be heartbreaking. I'll ask the military people if that; 's how it is. These were all U.S. military; and a few civilians like me. It's an extremely difficult thing to set up; and the military organizers, drivers, protection folks, vehicles, all put together and executed on their own time. I absolutely loved it, although I felt like a failure for a while, being overwhelmed by small children. Next time, I will practice the mommy voice, and place whatever toys I have far more strategically. I hear that this was an exceptionally self-controlled group of kids. They say you know they're a good group, if each child doesn't have to run for cover as soon as she or he gets some little doo-dad. If they can stay without the other kids pummeling them for the item, it's a good day, and a good group. So I was lucky to start with this group.

Thanks for all of your donations and for getting it here. They are so hungry, and the shoes and clothes are life-saving, from the filth. The adults are pretty shell-shocked; the children had such fun and joy over the toys. There was a purple dinosaur that almost got ripped in half. It was the last toy. One of the volunteers had stashed it in his pocket.

Floor blocks away, two children -- a boy and a girl -- were walking along the sidewalk eating big ice cream cones. They seemed rich to me, by comparison.

A good day in Afghanistan, and you were part of it.
~*~
I'm going to have it framed, along with other special items from this time and place. The military folks saved one of the boxes of donations from Alpine; using it to store more children's clothes for the next "sort" and it had my name on the box, written in bold black marker, along with the mailing label from Briar Patch. I saved both.

I was working with "the sort" this past Monday -- a sort involves a bunch of volunteers gathering to open boxes and separate all of the most recent donations into men's and women's clothes, girls' and boys' clothes; kids' toys; toddlers' toys; toddlers' clothes, etc. Outside on one of the many sidewalks inside the combined forces compound (Camp Eggers).

Then we take already sorted items that have been stored, like boxes marked "children's clothes," or "toys" and supplement our newly made piles of items. From these big piles, we made 120 bags( big plastic bags, like leaf bags) for distribution to families. Volunteers would stand at each station of items; and other volunteers went round and round, stopping at each station to have each category of items put in their bag. I lucked out and got the toys station. I was oohing and ahhing like crazy. Hundreds of beenie toys; balls; small doo dad toys, big and small and cuddly stuffed animals, crayolas. I had the most fun of anyone, I'm sure. I think I'll give toys next halloween in the States, instead of candy.

Had to withhold a couple of tiny cheerleader dolls for modesty issues: Barbie would not be welcome here. Also withheld one plastic pig. No pigs! Didn't know that.

We are making as many runs as possible, to get things out to the people and the schools. Sometimes they won't let civilians go, depending on the number of vehicles and the security. We can't do much off-compound or off-base in August because everything is focused on security so people can vote in the elections. Of all places, the schools have been designated boting places. Like schools aren't already under attack by you-know-whom. Wouldn't have been my choice. I guess accessibility and spread was the idea or maybe it was just who got the hot potato -- Dept of Education.

We will continue to collect items and sort them and have them ready to be distributed after Ramadan, which ends toward the end of September.

Alpine has certainly done it's share. I'm going to ask some lawyer list serves I'm on, to work with their individual bar associations all over the country. The really nice thing abut this project is that there is no middleman or middlewoman. No big agency where the donations get watered down, so to speak. The only thing that doesn't go directly to the people in need is the postage. It is direct volunteer work: fast, efficient, and heartfelt, from putting the items together in the states to putting them in the hands of the families and children and school teachers. This is something that can be continued from home, thankfully.