Cinnamon Zone: children

The Cutest Thing Ever!

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:54:00 GMT

As much as I enjoyed the sun this morning, I couldn't wait to find a taxi before I froze over. So, I stopped that taxi and the driver pulled over. I noticed there was a little girl in the passenger seat. I told him my destination and he said that he must drop his daughter at school first; I thought it was okay and got in.

I couldn't see the girl's face, only her smooth brown hair worn down and the sleeve of her jeans jacket with a patch of fur on the cuff. She kept asking her father questions and he answered her with a smile. Her soft cheerful voice made everything she said seem like the cutest thing eve. At last, we reached the school. As the car pulled up, he kissed her on the cheek and she said "bye baba", then she turned to open the car's door, turned her head sideward so I could see her cute little face with all the tiny features, her soft brown hair pulled back and draped over her shoulders. She had that smile that made her sparkling eyes look as though they were laughing, the kind of smile that makes you smile no matter what. With that very face she looked at me and said: "bye auntie", then hopped out of the car briskly and wrapped her arm around her friend's shoulders as they walked away together…

Just what are the odds that you'll witness such mind-blowing cuteness in a taxi first thing in the morning? She utterly made my day!

"They" take 1 JD...

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:47:00 GMT

This weather loves hot chocolate with marshmallows!”That was the message I sent my friend as I sat in the car waiting for my father, cuddled up in the warmest clothes I have and yet feeling my feet freezing.

Continue Reading here...

Invisible Wounds: The Ball Maker

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:11:00 GMT

My eyes followed the ball closely, waiting for it to tear into the net. I didn't really care who was to score, as long as the ball would settle in. Everyone was cheering loudly, but I almost couldn't hear any of their cheering, as all my senses were focused on that white ball getting kicked back and forth between the two ends of the playfield. To see it smeared with dirt like that and treated so savagely made me think of how many hours it took to get it stitched together, and wondered if it was one of mine.

The small coffee shop where the village men gathered to watch football matches was a tiny room with yellow walls that smelled of sweat and cheap cigarettes. I called it the Den, although I don't know how or when I came up with that name. I used to sneak there after work, since my mother wouldn't let me go, saying I was too young to go there. That was a year or so ago, when I used to attend school. My mother used to brag about me to her neighbors, saying I would be a famous doctor one day, and that we will move out of this "desolate nondescript village" as she called it.

Many nights when we were sitting in silence, while my sick father lay in his bed in the next room, my mother sewing in her chair and me leaning over my notebook, earnestly doing my homework, she would raise her eyes to look at me, but I never felt like she was really seeing me; for her smile and the sudden glitter in her eyes made her seem to me as if she was looking out to the ocean while effectively daydreaming of something more beautiful than I could ever imagine. Once, she said to me after a long pause: "You know what, Maniram? You'll go to school, learn your lessons, and then you'll go to the best collage in India, where you'll study to be the best doctor in the country. You'll make lots of money, and once you do, we'll move out of this rotten cell and go live in Mumbai."

My mother has always had very high expectations of me that I was afraid there was no question I would let her down. Each time I remembered my mother's dreamy gaze I would become keener to rise up to those expectations. For all I remember, my mother wanted me to be a doctor more than anything in the world; that's why I found it hard to understand how she could get herself to tell me I was to leave school.

"Maniram" My mother said hesitantly, with her eyes drooping. "You know how much I want you to go to school and be a doctor." There was a long pause before she continued. "But, as you know, your father has grown very sick, and I can't afford the medicine anymore. My work is not paying even for the half of it. I need your help."

The very next morning my mother took me to see a man she called "the contractor". His office was located in an old building, and the office itself was a small gloomy room that reminded me of the coffee shop in some way. There, behind the desk, sat a man about my father's age, but much bulkier than he was, clinching a cigarette between his lips, under his heavy mustache. He took a look at me, studied my hands for a while, and then asked my mother a few questions I don't remember, mostly because I was busy trying to figure out the reason behind them. After that, he opened a notebook that was in front of him, took a pen in one hand and the cigarette from under his mustache in the other, then he let out a curt sigh and wrote something in the notebook.

"Okay" He said after a brief pause. "Bring him in tomorrow. I hope he's a fast learner; I'm having much trouble with dense kids these days. They work half as fast and cost us twice the effort to teach them!"

"Don't worry sir; my son is a very clever boy." My mom said, and then pressed her lips together as if to keep herself from saying any more. I imagine she had a pressing urge to tell him I was going to be a doctor someday, and that we'll move out of here forever, and that I won't have to work with him any more.

The next day my mother took me to the factory in Meerut, where I was to start working. I was very nervous at first, but my tension was eased a great deal when I saw that there was many children my age. My mother got to her knees so her eyes would level with mine, looked me square in the face, and told me in an assuring tone that I would be all right. I suspected from her tone that she herself wasn't feeling that way, and the trembling of her lips when she kissed me confirmed my suspicion.

In the factory, a man showed me what I was supposed to do. He then handed me pieces of rubber, leather and bundles of threads and needles. "The more balls you stitch together, the more money you make" He said as he bent down. "If you need to know anything, you can ask the other kids, but try not to bother them with too many questions as they also have work to do."

I settled in my place on the floor, it was dirty and nowhere near comfortable. I began stitching while stealing glances at the boy next to me. I was trying to pour all my concentration into the work, having my sick father in mind and my mother's dreamy gaze in front of my eyes. For a moment, I even thought she was observing me from her chair. Hours went by and I still didn't finish my first ball. My vision began to blur, and my back ached from bending over, trying to work as fast as I could. When I couldn't bear the haziness and pain anymore, I let go of the needle and leaned my back against the wall. My eyes welled up with tears as I thought of how slow I was. It was at that moment when the boy next to me decided to start a conversation that soothed me a little. "Tired already?" He said half-jokingly. "Don't worry; it's always hard at first. But you seem to be doing well so far. You know, none of us could finish more than 2 balls a day."

His words were somehow comforting; for I knew I wasn't a slow worker. But, for 3 rupees per football, I thought I was supposed to make 5 or 6 balls a day to say that the job was worth it.

I continued going to the factory and stitching balls day in day out, and within one week I was able to produce 2 balls a day. Often when I finished a ball I would hold it up to the bars of light coming through the small window at the top of the wall, and I would feel a great temptation to take it out on the street and kick it with all my might. I've always been fond of football; I used to play it with the neighborhood kids with balls made of worn out socks. but I knew then more than ever that there was no time for me to play with that ball, even though I made it myself. I often consoled myself by thinking that when I become a doctor I would buy one of these balls. I heard that they were being sold for what amounts to 100 rupees each.

At that thought, I found myself starting to pick up speed, which caused me to prick my thumb with the needle, but I didn't make such a big deal of it; I only put the needle aside and sucked the blood from the small wound. I have taken to that kind of accidents by now; it was bound to happen as I always tried to work as fast as I could. The first time I pricked a finger I panicked, fearing it would grow septic. But by then my hands were studded with punctures, and with some of those punctures growing septic, my hands looked like a rusty sifter.

The World Cup tournament started a few months after I'd started working in the factory. One evening after I was done for the day, I decided to sneak to the Den; for there's been much talking about the next game that seemed to be a very important one. To tell the truth, I didn't care to know who was playing, all I wanted to see was the ball rolling on the playfield; I could hardly believe the balls I was making would be juggled by the feet of world renowned players, and that all the eyes and cameras would be following it, waiting for it to rest in one of the nets. What I found most mind-boggling was that, after being kicked around and smeared with dirt, the ball was many times worth what it was when I first stitched it together and held it to the bars of light in pride. For some reason, this made me remember the needle pricks in my hands, and felt them starting to ache.

I stayed in the Den for an hour or so, watching closely as people around me went fanatically on ranting and calling names. I didn't know what they were so angry about, and didn't even try to find out; being too busy counting the balls thrown in the field. I was surprised at the number of balls used in one match. If one ball flies out of the field, they throw in another one immediately, like it was nothing. This made me think of how many people and children my age were making footballs out there. I tried to do the math in my head all the way home, but I still couldn't figure it out.

I went on my way thinking, unaware of the bustle around me; for it seemed the match had ended and the fans of both teams were celebrating and engaging in fights in the streets. As I reached home, I opened the door as quietly as I could. Everything was as I left it in the morning. My mother was sewing in her chair, my father groaning in the next room, and the same heavy silence filling the place. Who said silence has no sound? Maybe we've just grown too familiar with it that it became very hard to distinguish.

My mom didn't ask me anything, and just responded to my good night with a curt nod. I figured she didn't want to shatter the silence around, or she's just lost the desire to speak. I headed to my room with the same thought still spinning in my head. As I lay in my bed, I tried so hard to shut it out. In the past, I loved to stare at the ceiling and indulge in daydreams for a while before I finally gave in to sleep, but I stopped this habit ever since I started working in the factory. I was often too tired to think, but even when I had some energy left in me, I forced myself to sleep because all I could think of was worrying about what lay ahead of me the next day, and it never fell short of my expectations. But that night I couldn't block out that same pressing idea. I wondered what would become of me in the future, and how it would turn out to be.

I can't remember when or how I fell asleep that night, maybe my brain was too exhausted at last from all those thoughts. All I can remember is that I closed my eyes, wishing with all my heart I would never have to wake up.

15 year-old Jordanian girl dies as victim for child labor

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:44:00 GMT

Hospitals are probably the place where life and death most commonly intersect. Last week after my grandmother went to the hospital to check on a grandchild, who'd just given birth, she told us about a traumatized family she'd seen there. She said their daughter had fallen off the Tower building in Jabal Amman. Her family were crying and wailing hysterically in the hallways. People were helping her sisters to their feet as they fell to the ground from shock. She said they seemed like a poor family. As she told us, someone said that it's quite a strange thing for the girl to have fallen from there, and that she maybe killed herself. I can't deny it occurred to me, but in an effort to refrain from judgment I blurted out at once: Maybe she was cleaning the windows…

As it turned out, it was just the right thing to assume. This morning a certain report on Alarabiya caught my attention. It was the same accident we were talking about a week ago.15 year-old Zohoor had fallen from the fifth floor as she was cleaning the windows in a "building in Amman", but of course they didn't mention name. If you'd seen her family and the house they live in, you probably would've understood at once why a girl so young had been tangled in the net of child labor. The report then went on to talk about child laborers in Jordan and even interviewed some kids who left school to be prematurely integrated in the labor market.

The question that arises now is: How could a girl of 15 years be assigned the task of cleaning windows in the fifth floor? I could hardly think of this as a woman's job, how much less a child's! I wonder who's responsible for this and whether the impoverished family would afford to do anything to seek justice.

I can vaguely imagine her climbing up, grasping the window frame with one hand and a worn out rag with the other. Her grip tightens as she sets her foot on the outer edge of the window, while carefully mopping the glass. Maybe she was staring out to the beautiful view from that building, which is renowned to have the best view of Amman. I wonder what was going through her mind then, or if she even took notice of the view at all. I can't even imagine that she loved the city to see the beauty of it while she was up there mopping the windows at 15. Whatever she was thinking, what perplexes me more is what was going through that same mind as she was falling down. It might seem too short a time think, but it probably had seemed longer to her. I wonder whether she saw death coming or hoped she would survive.

Zohoor might have died, but hundreds of children are still facing the daily hazards of working at places some adults even refuse to set a foot in. Children must be kept at home, sent to school and taken well care of, if not by their parents then by any other official body, it's not their job to make a living. I really don't know on whom falls the blame here. On the government? The parents? The society? The employer? All of those share the responsibility to secure the children's need to shelter, care and education. What if the family is completely destitute so they send their child to work? What if the employer hired them out of sympathy? It's quite ironic what sympathy could come to in these times!

The world seem to have been a dangerous place for Zohoor, and it certainly is for many other children like her. Zohoor is probably now in a much better place, but it's our responsibility to make sure the world she left wouldn't stay as cruel for those who are staying.