18) Frightening news from the House of Flowers, Thanksgiving Day

All this time, we’ve been waiting for something like this: on Thanksgiving Day we received an email from Dr. Inayat at the House of Flowers: a bomb had gone off within 100 m of the House at 8 am. It was a great blessing that no one was hurt, but some windows at the House were blown out and it was terribly frightening for everyone. (The apparent target was a nearby private high school where government workers and affluent families send their children.)

The smallest children of the House of Flowers were off at school, and some of the staff were just arriving that morning. After the blast went off, the remaining children sat in a room with their teacher Fatima while the staff locked the gate and stood guard as police and security swarmed the area.

It was a wake-up call to be ready, and our staff are now working on emergency plans, training the children on where to go in the case of such events, such as taking shelter in the basement of the House.

It is a sign of the times that this bomb did not even make the news. As the security scene shifts in Afghanistan, we must be ultra-careful with the lives of the children and staff at the House of Flowers. We remain committed to their lives, even as other NGO’s are pulling out in fear of the future. But they need us now more than ever.