Friendship Well
Quiet moans drifted into my ear from the corner of the room,
waking me out of my restless slumber. I carefully climbed out of my
scratchy cot and tip-toed passed my 9-year-old brother Hamza and my 7-year-old
brother Khalid. They looked cute curled up on their cots, their chests
going up and down with each breath.
Away from my cot and my brothers’
cots, I knelt down beside my baby sister Amina’s rocker and gently rocked it
back and forth. She stopped moaning and looked up at me with large,
longing eyes. I smiled down at her and sadly stroked her thin wisps of
brown hair.
A doctor had visited our village last week and had told us that Amina had the first signs of a life-threatening disease. He informed us that the water we drank was definitely the cause and we should stop drinking that water immediately. When he said this, I remembered my daily trips to the stream a half mile away from our house. Every morning, I’d walk along the dusty path to the stream with my best friend Abdullah and a few other village boys. I remembered looking down into the murky brown stream waters and wishing we had cleaner water. I didn’t want to go home and give my siblings this dirty water to drink. I knew it would be bad for their health. But we didn’t have any other water. I knew that many village children had died because of drinking this water, but there was no other water to drink.
Thinking of all this, I bent down and kissed Amina’s forehead. I made du’a to Allah to save my little sister. I thought of all the people around the world who had so much water that they took for granted. My friend Abdullah told me so many stories his grandfather told him about people around the world who get endless supplies of fresh, clean water.
As I thought about this, I felt upset with those people who took all they had for granted. I wondered if they ever thought about us. I thought, ‘Do people know that we don’t have clean water to drink here in Somalia?’ Do they know that children and babies are dying every day because they don’t have clean water to drink? Do they even care to know?’
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A doctor had visited our village last week and had told us that Amina had the first signs of a life-threatening disease. He informed us that the water we drank was definitely the cause and we should stop drinking that water immediately. When he said this, I remembered my daily trips to the stream a half mile away from our house. Every morning, I’d walk along the dusty path to the stream with my best friend Abdullah and a few other village boys. I remembered looking down into the murky brown stream waters and wishing we had cleaner water. I didn’t want to go home and give my siblings this dirty water to drink. I knew it would be bad for their health. But we didn’t have any other water. I knew that many village children had died because of drinking this water, but there was no other water to drink.
Thinking of all this, I bent down and kissed Amina’s forehead. I made du’a to Allah to save my little sister. I thought of all the people around the world who had so much water that they took for granted. My friend Abdullah told me so many stories his grandfather told him about people around the world who get endless supplies of fresh, clean water.
As I thought about this, I felt upset with those people who took all they had for granted. I wondered if they ever thought about us. I thought, ‘Do people know that we don’t have clean water to drink here in Somalia?’ Do they know that children and babies are dying every day because they don’t have clean water to drink? Do they even care to know?’
woow Nur thats soo touching..iam so moved by your writing. Keep up the wonderful work you kids are doing
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