A feel-good story

Here are the girls with Asmaa, who has been a great help and babysitter to us. On this day, the girls decided to treat Asmaa to a 'feast' by dumping out many of the contents in the fridge and cupboards. I don't think Asmaa took one bite!

Asmaa was born with cataracts. Somewhere along the way, she got surgeries and sees much better, but her eyes were still constantly tearing up and painful. She was to have a surgery years ago, but her father was murdered in a robbery and their lives came to a standstill. Although she is not the oldest of the family she has become the breadwinner and is the one who holds her mother and four siblings together. She's an incredibly hard worker and is constantly helping others. But her siblings mostly just sit around, fail tests, and refuse work opportunities. The lack of initiate here sometimes is hard to understand - especially when the weight of all the work in the family lies on one small person's shoulders.

Last spring, Asmaa's eyes were getting worse and worse, but she was terrified to go see the doctor. Finally, after constant prodding from many people in her life, she went and Saturday had a minor operation clearing out her tear ducts. I saw her Monday when the operation had not yet taken effect. She cried saying, "I don't want to get married. I don't want to have kids. All I want is for my eyes to stop hurting all the time."

But today was a different story. She told me that she is, for the first time in a very long time, pain-free! No tears are streaking down her cheeks, she doesn't stop to rub her eyes constantly, and she has a smile on her face - yay!