Bemani

NEWSFLASH! Remember the girl I wrote about a few weeks ago who was badly injured when her house in Kabul was bombed? I wrote many emails on her behalf to specialist medical organisations and hospitals in the UK, only to be met by several weeks of resounding silence.
Today, at last, I was contacted by a hero of a doctor, a maxillofacial surgeon and expert in facial trauma in London, who has offered to operate on her for free. He even seems to be interested in establishing further contacts with HAWCA (Humanitarian Assistance to the Women and Children of Afghanistan), the organisation who has supported her and for whom I am volunteering.

I am very happy – now all I have to do is work out a way to raise enough money to cover the 350 pounds that the hospital will charge for every day the patient stays there. Having grown up in countries with basically free healthcare, I think I have been taking hospitals for granted – I certainly had no idea they cost as much as that!
Still, it’s very good because if we succeed, it means that our patient will be able to travel to London for treatment at a time when, as it happens, HAWCA’s director will also be in London studying for a Masters.

Our patient – whom I will call Bemani, after the heroine of a Dariush Mehrjui film, who is also badly burnt but survives to find happiness – is coming to the HAWCA office tomorrow so I have a chance to see her. Bemani means "Live!" or "To stay alive".