Good morning,
Internet access for Belinda is looking unlikely for a while to come, but they have been generous in allowing phonecalls home. Their post(camp) is very spartan at best, so I suspect the phonecalls are a morale booster- and I am grateful for more contact with Belinda at least while it lasts as there are also frequent blackout periods regarding phonecalls home. It has worked out well with the time change...I had been worried we would miss calls due to being at work, but her noon is our midnight, her evening is our early AM etc etc...
Belinda spoke of watching some of the children playing with a soccer ball in a nearby feild, watching them race about, laughing and playing...moments later, there was explosions- not in their immediate vincinity, but close enough that the vibrations went through you and it could be seen on the horizon - the children didn't miss a beat, and kept playing like nothing had happened. She realized with utter sadness that this mortar that had startled the adults was not 'new' to the kids... it was common to their life now and what they had come to know -and they kept on playing without even a slight pause.
The impact of war on children is probably the most difficult thing for her to witness. Barely out of childhood herself...it awes and saddens her to realize what children have to adapt to.
The Afghan people have so little, yet are also the most generous she has ever met. They will litterally offer the shirt off their back for a soldier. She spoke of a story of a Canadian soldier hovering over a bowl of water, washing his shirt...and the afghan man seeing the soldier with no shirt, immediately stripped his own off and rushed over, trying to give his own shirt to this soldier so that he would not be without.
Sometimes in life, the less you have, the more you have to give.
Belinda sends a hello to all and sends her love.
Till next time,
Julie
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