Free Range International

Brett Winterable was kind enough to have me on his show earlier in the week – you can listen to it here

Brett will be moving from the net to a broadcast station soon and asked that I join him on his inaugural show. That is high praise for an old Marine – Brett is a total pro and I am still stuttering too much. I sure do enjoy doing the show and hope his audience finds my rather unique perspective interesting.

The Taj is quiet this week. Our journalist friend has moved on and the Shem Bot is up in Mazar-i-Sharif on a job, so I have no pictures of me recording the show to paste in. They would have looked just like the last Covert post anyway – I think I was wearing the same clothes. So instead I’ll paste in a photo of Prince Very Very Good and his gang. They all live on the same street as the Jalalabad JICA office and greet me every morning with thumbs up screaming “very good, very very good.” The Prince lost his father a few years back and his family is dirt poor. The Bot and I pass on 50 bucks every month to the local mullah to help out the families around our JICA office under the condition that he not reveal where the money comes from. If the local people found out we were doing that we’d never have a moments peace as we would be besieged by people seeking financial assistance.

Here is a good shot of Prince Very Good (the other kids call him that now although I do not think they have any idea what it means.)

And here is the rest of the gang -

The tall boy to the right is developmentally disabled which is a common sight in Afghanistan. There is little doubt that much of this stems from the custom of having first cousins marry. The other kids treat their mentally handicapped peers well but the same is not true for children born with visual defects like cleft palates.

The American charity Smile Train is very active in Afghanistan operating on hundreds of cleft palates every year using international doctors who come at their own expense to donate their talents and expertise at the CURE hospital in Kabul. The French have a children’s hospital in Kabul too and they bring in specialists to do everything from reconstructive to cardiothoracic surgery. I really admire the men and woman who donate their time, money, and incredible skills to help the Afghan people. They are my heros.

Tim’s editor says: Make a donation to CURE’s Afghan children’s fund which works with the Afghan medical community to bring treatment to the Afghanis AND training to the Afghani doctors who work side by side with the expat doctors.