Life as an Afghan Refugee
The city of Kabul hides in a mountainous valley where streets are lined with fruit stands, clothing carts, auto shops and restaurants. Afghanistan’s capital city holds buildings and huts alongside one another, some with windows shattered, usually from bomb blasts, others with crumbling bricks from the same violence.
Many streets are surrounded by concrete reaching 15 feet tall protecting embassies scattered throughout the city. The tallest walls often reflect previous attacks where embassies amp up security and protection. Upon one of the hills of the valley are small, brightly painted homes where the poorest of the city’s population reside.
Amidst this concrete jungle are the mud huts of the refugee camps. Within Kabul there are multiple slums where refugees congregate. Work starts early in the morning as refugees try and make some money for the day before the scorching heat halts their activities. Despite the valley protecting Kabul from the intense heat other parts of Afghanistan and its neighbour Pakistan experience, the city still blazes with congestion, foot traffic and the afternoon sun.
Work at the camp could include cooking kebabs, collecting plastic bottles for sale, selling plastic balloons to children, herding goats, and more household activities such as cleaning the camp of garbage, cooking for the family, fetching clean water and so on.
Everyone at the camp rises early to take advantage of the cool morning weather. Children run around in their colourful traditional wear of the Shalwar Kameez. The children played tag, cricket, spent the day invented games themselves, or helped take care of their younger siblings. Men socialized with one another while working and women cleaned their homes while looking after their children.
In the early morning near 6:30, kids filled the streets on their way to school. The uniform throughout the city showed boys in blue dress shirts and black slacks, while girls wore black with a white hijab. Interestingly, many students had different coloured backpacks, some with princesses, others anime characters, each a little unique.
Though many children were seen walking to school, few of those at the refugee camp were in the uniform other students wore. A known epidemic among refugees is a lack of resources and education, especially for children.
Throughout the world there are 25.9 million refugees. Though Canada resettled the most refugees of any country in 2018, Canada still only welcomed 28,100 of the millions of refugees still requiring resettlement. Moreover, these numbers only include refugees currently registered as refugees with the UN. This number does not include refugees displaced within their home country, such as those at the camps in Kabul, as well as anyone who has applied but not yet been registered as a refugee.
