I just finished watching Saira's Story about adopting a baby girl who was abandoned outside the Edhi orphanage in Karachi. Some people at work were talking about it at the lunch table and I had seen it on the tv guide last night but had just missed it. BBC's iplayer is just brilliant for instances like that.
It was such a touching story and I'm so happy that after everything she went through, Saira finally managed to adopt a baby girl. There was something at the end that she said which she articulated so much better than I could have. And it's something I feel when I'm in either Pakistan or the Philippines. Like Saira, I struggle with my conscience. I'm from a working class family but compared to the majority if the population in Pakistan I live a life many privileges. And she was right, if you are poor here you have the welfare service and benefits system. Yes, the government is changing it and making cuts but we're still so much better off. If you experience domestic violence, you have somewhere to go. Thank God for people like Abdul Sattar Edhi.
The world needs more people like him. He started off by picking up dead bodies in the streets of Karachi and burying them and has gone on to having the largest voluntary ambulance service as well as looking after abandoned children. May Allah bless
him. After hearing about all the evil that goes on in the world, it's knowing about people like Edhi that soothes my soul. I haven't been able to completely express what I've been feeling since I finished watching the programme but I needed to write about it. I've been through choking back the tears to smiling like a crazy woman in that past hour. And I swear, after becoming a mother I seem to feel everything so much more intensely.
More information about Edhi can be found at www.edhi.org.
