Journey to Safety
Harrow International School Hong Kong , Robinson , Charles - 11
Not long ago , there was a mother and a baby . They were the one of the many million people seeking hope in Afghanistan . The mother named Aabroo and the baby named Azar . Aaboo was a beautiful young mother with deep black but dirty hair while Aazar was a child that had just learnt to walk . He had lovely young hair but a face that was starved to death . The father had been killed when their village was ransacked by the Taliban , he tried to stop them and 2 seconds later he was dead . The remains of the family were in grief . He was their only hope of escape and money . They were trapped in the forest living on wild plants and the few insects that they found . With the regular Taliban patrols , it was almost definite that they would be found and killed .
They knew they had to get to safety . The closest place where they might be accepted was Turkey , but that was 1000 miles away . Would they be able to do it ? ... They were on the border to Iran but that was still a risky place . Though many had made it across the border , many hadn ’ t . Anywhere was better than there . That night they went to the border and crept up to it the baby ’ s eyes were filled with tears though he did not cry . The mother in her rags , she carried her baby through under the barbed wire it tearing through the few things she had . But the real problem came when they got to the other side . It was swarmed with border guards , each one of them armed . The baby suddenly bursts into tears of the overwhelming sadness . One of the border guards noticed and started searching . This was their only chance . They got up , Aaboo picked up Aazar and ran for their life . Once she thought she was out of trouble she found a place to rest . Though it was just an old broken shelter it was a place to rest , it was all they needed for a night . In the morning it was a beautiful day , with blue skies in a war torn area . They took the good weather to carry on and make as much ground as possible . Then a young man in a van came over to them and offered them a lift . The mother accepted his offer and got in . He was a man traveling to turkey on work trip . His name was Pigsy and he loved to talk , almost nerdy , but with no idea of anything . He was a plump character with a warming heart . He said that he could take them to the border but no further .
The journey was going to take a day or two but it was going to be much better to be going by road than on foot . That night they stopped of in a car park and slept , hunched together between the bags . The place that they had stopped of at was in the middle of nowhere . So out of anywhere that a car would only pass by every hour . But all was not sweet dreams because the baby was getting sick with pneumonia . It was wriggling around like a hopeless stray rat . At first dawn the group headed out onto the road to head to south Iran . As a golden eagle soared through the air above them they carried on through the what felt like a lifeless village . Now the baby was starving but there was no food and they still had much more ground to cover till they got to turkey where they might be able to become a citizen . It was a risk . A big risk . But a risk worth taking .
If the baby was to survive they would have to get food and the man who owned the van had already given them enough . The only way to do it was to steal . The best way to do it was in broad daylight from the local market . Aabroo was very practiced at doing it from when she was a child , but that was a long time ago and she knew from experience how dangerous it was as she had lost so many of her best friends doing it . They had to do it . That morning Aaboo took Aazar to the market to pretend to do some quality shopping . There were many policemen patrolling the street looking for some nasty crooks . The road was bustling with people and chequered with colours . There were many different stalls each one slightly different in it ’ s own way . The street was mayhem with horns and store holders calling . They found a small store selling oranges that was owned by what looked like a big fat man in ragged dirty clothes with hair that looked like he had just got out of bed . A few seconds later the dirty man stood up and walked away . The Aaboo wandered over casually Aazar hunched up in her arms . Quickly Aaboo started stuffing oranges into her bag . Just as she finished the man started to walk back . He almost turned around when another man shouted at him . Aaboo made a run for it . She ran as fast as she could all the way there until she got back to the van where she hid the vital oranges in the back of the van . They got in too , to wait for Pigsy .