Rock a Bye Baby

So I was talking with Jana about the kids here, and I sent her the following pictures, which she said should most definitely be put up here. So here they are!

20% of Afghan children die before the age of five.

Notice the cradle rocking gently in the background. Perhaps not so bad if there were adults there, or if it wasn't at the top of a freakin' terraced draw! Keep in mind also that this area where the children were playing is hundreds of meters from the actual village itself, and at the time of this visit, all the adults were either at the village or busy threshing wheat in their fields further down the mountains.

A closer image of one of the cradles. I wish I'd gotten pictures of how it was actually attached to everything, but I didn't, so a description will have to suffice: the rope you see in the picture is knotted together at the top, then tied to another rope which goes higher up into the trees where it is tied off. Not any knot I recognized, like, say, a bowline, and not attached with a clip, just tied off in a jumbled mess.

Note the scabs on this tyke's head. I spoke with our medic while we were there, and he said we have no idea what caused them. It could be anything from abuse (burning, etc) to any of hundreds of diseases we haven't been able to diagnose. I'm sorry the picture quality is so poor, but he was very self conscious around cameras. I had to give him a tic tac to get him not to avoid me long enough to get this picture.

Here a young boy (The same as in picture 2) was showing off to us by climbing a fairly tall tree. Like a little spider monkey he was, but he scared the crap out of us. (There are two soldiers under him, with their arms outstretched ready to catch him, to let you know how high up he was). Luckily, because the poor kid is so skinny, the tiny branch he is currently sitting on did not break. I guess malnutrition has it's good points.

This last picture is from one of my teammates, and I don't know the story behind it. I include it only to further highlight the malnutrition problem.

In conclusion, The children of Afghanistan, though cute, need much better supervision. Not to mention cradles!