Photo caption: this photo was taken at Vali Asr median right before the election.
I was reading Khar’s blog about working children in the streets of Tehran and the picture of the young boy he posted in his blog reminded me of working children I saw during my last visit.
It breaks your heart every time you see these children selling faal (Hafiz poems), gums, etc. We always buy their stuff. As far as I could tell people try to help these kids however they can but in many places some people’s hearts are or have become blind to their plight. I wouldn’t say most people, but the sight of children selling stuff on streets of Tehran is an every day happening everywhere.
In one occasion we were in a restaurant in Darband and saw a girl about 9 or 10 years old and a younger boy about 5, 6 or 7 smiling and talking to each other on the other side of Darband’s river that was connected with a bridge to the restaurant we were eating in.
I saw the boy come across the bridge, go over our neighboring table and after he wasn’t able to sell his faal went back to the girl (maybe his sister).
I motioned to the girl to send the little guy our way so I could buy his faals. The girl mentioned me or him? I mentioned back him. She sent him over and mentioned back slapping her face trying to tell me to watch out for the waiters because some of them play rough and don’t let kids sell faals and so forth. The little guy came over and I quickly bought couple of his faals and sent him back.
I have seen children charities around Tehran and I hope they are all doing well and helping these kids. You don’t have to be an Afghan refugee child or a drug addict’s child to be left out on your own. There are many reasons and innocent children are often caught in grownups lives.
In my heart of hearts I always think of these kids (wish for them) to grow up to be successful men and women because they had to work hard from an early age. They have become tough young men and women and I’ve seen them take care of themselves in face of grown up “competition”. Although you can see their pain I often see many of them with big smiles which I take it to be their hopes for a better future.
