We are a Pashai family, originally from the Salaab Valley, and we have lived here for a long time. My father, who has passed away, was a miller here. I also worked as a miller for a long time. However, with this job I could not make much money as people only paid me 25 grams of flour in exchange for milling 7 kg of wheat. We also didn’t have land for cultivating, any animals or our own house to live in. We rented a room from other people. My wife did work as a handywoman and she cleaned the wheat before milling, but we still had to borrow a lot of money for our living.
One day I got the news that Serve Afghanistan was distributing heifers to vulnerable families through the Shura (village committee) in our village. We were selected as one of the vulnerable families and were provided a heifer. We got milk from our cow and after a period of time my cow gave birth. We make cheese from the milk and sell this in the bazaar. Little by little we paid back all the loans and I bought land in the village. My sons brought water in ghee tins and we built our home ourselves. My life has changed and now we are very happy—my dues are paid and I have my own home and a cow! People wanted to buy my cow for Rs. 60,000 (about 620 USD at time of writing), but I won’t sell it because it is my source of income. I am really very happy now. For all these things I am thankful to Allah and secondly to Serve Afghanistan, and I request that they should keep this programme continuing for always.
