I’m not a man of means. I’m a 35-year-old father of five – three daughters and two sons – who works as a day labourer. Putting food on the table for my family isn’t easy. When there’s work, I earn enough to provide for them, but it’s difficult to make ends meet when work is scarce. Fortunately, my wife is a skilled manager of our finances and puts money aside to help us get through the lean times. This past summer, my wife and I decided to take in a poor family of seven, even though we barely have enough to care for our own children.

The Hindu who came to the village

To tell you about how we ended up taking this family into our home, I must start from the beginning. It’s a story that spans over sixty years and three generations, a story marked by life-changing decisions, family ties, tragedy and events beyond our control – from the challenges faced by immigrants in search of a better life to the displacement of refugees and the spirit of communities who come together to help those less fortunate.

It began when a man from our village went to India in search of work in the 1960s and came back with a Hindu wife and her son from a previous marriage. Later, his step-son, now a Muslim, married a woman from Paktika province and was blessed with a son of his own. But despite the respect the family received from their adopted community, the echoes of their heritage as Hindus from India continued to linger in the background. To this day, behind their backs, people call them the Hindu Bacha (the son of the Hindu) family.

About 14 years after the grandfather returned to our village with his new family, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. By this time, the man and his wife had passed away. The step-son (Hindu Bacha) and his family, like many other Afghans, fled to Pakistan. They settled in a refugee camp in Quetta, where they opened a small but successful grocery store to support themselves. But tragedy struck when the man’s wife suddenly passed away. Not long after, Hindu Bacha also died leaving their young son alone and without kin.

This is where my family comes into the picture. The young man, now completely alone in this world, turned to the camp community to help him find a wife so that he could start a family of his own. With help from community elders, he married a distant cousin of my father’s. He and his wife went on to have six children – three girls and three boys.

Tragedy strikes again

The young man continued running the family business, but the camp’s once-bustling community dwindled as families moved back to Afghanistan. This took a toll on his shop, which gradually lost many of its customers. The business declined until it became impossible for the shop to earn enough money to support the family. Just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse, the young man was diagnosed with cancer. Faced with mounting medical bills, he tapped into the family’s dwindling savings, seeking treatment in the hope of a miracle. He died destitute, leaving behind a family struggling for survival without any support or resources. Finally, when the widow’s extended family moved back to Afghanistan, they brought her and the six children along with them.

When there is no hope

This past August, when I went back to the village for my uncle’s funeral, I asked after the Hindu Bacha family. People told me that the community was doing its best for them, but the villagers are all very poor and there isn’t much to go around these days. Despite their best efforts, they were finding it impossible to support them.

The widow and I had known each other since childhood and I was concerned about her wellbeing. So I asked one of my relatives to take me to see the family. I wanted to give them some money and see if I could help in some way. I was shocked to see the conditions they were living in. She looked frail and broken as she welcomed me into her impoverished room. The children were in an abysmal state, spindly and malnourished. I was really shaken. I didn’t give them any money. I could see that the little bit I could afford would only be a sticking plaster. I went back to my uncle’s house, lost in thought.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The image of the widow and her children living in such distress kept haunting me. How could we allow such a tragedy to unfold? What will we say to God on Judgement Day if we disregard this suffering? Surely, we have a moral responsibility to prevent such hardships, especially for innocent children.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

When I got back home the next day, the situation of the widow and her children was still playing on my mind. My head kept telling me I had enough to worry about with keeping a roof over my own family’s head, but my heart kept asking that if I didn’t feed them, who would?

Finally, that night, I talked it over with my wife and we agreed we’d bring the family to our home and support them. I discussed it with the extended family and told them that if they agreed I’d bring the family to my house and take care of them, same as I do with my own family. I then asked the widow if she’d be open to living with us. I told her she’d be good company for my wife. She could help with chores around the house and her children would grow up in my home with my own.

All you have to do is open your heart

Our family has now doubled in size and we have seven additional mouths to feed. These days, jobs are increasingly hard to come by, but I leave the house every day hoping to find work and come home with enough to get us through another day. My wife and the widow have started a small vegetable garden and we’re also raising chickens, which provide us with eggs and occasionally meat. When I took this family into my home, I promised to treat the children as my own. So at the start of the school year, I enrolled my oldest son and the widow’s eldest boy in the local school. Since the school is too far to walk, I bought them two second-hand bicycles.

The arrival of seven children – eldest is a 12-year-old girl and the youngest a son of three –  into our household has not been without its challenges. The house is certainly noisier these days. There’s still a lot to get used to and the kids are still getting to know each other and finding their place in our now expanded family. Still at night, I can put my head down and rest easy knowing that when I was called upon to act, I found it in my heart to open my home to a family in need.

***

Ruzi Khan’s actions exemplify the essence of a poem by Saadi, which celebrates the kind of compassion that is the cornerstone of Afghan identity and culture:

Human beings are members of a whole
In creation, of one essence and soul

If one member is afflicted with pain
Other members uneasy will remain

If you’ve no sympathy for human pain
The name of human you cannot retain

Saadi

بنی آدم اعضای یکدیگرند
که در آفرینش ز یک گوهرند

چو عضوی به درد آورد روزگار
دگر عضوها را نماند قرار

تو کز محنت دیگران بی غمی
نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی

سعدی

Edited by Roxanna Shapour and Kate Clark