To lose and find a child in Afghanistan …
Rawed’s father Gulzada brought him to Jalalabad city to be seen by a doctor.  Seven year old Rawed was showing symptoms of jaundice.  They drove into the city from a small village in the district of Sherzad.  As is common practice, dad temporarily left Rawed with a shopkeeper from the same village and went to park the car.  “I’ll be back in a few minutes, and then we’ll walk to the hospital.”  When he returned the child was gone.
Gulzada is our friend Haji Najib’s ma’ma’, which means maternal uncle. Â A paternal uncle is called ka’ka’.
The shopkeeper insisted, “he was just here.” When thirty minutes passed and the boy was still missing, dad called Najib.
Ma’ma: “What would you do if you lost a child in Jalalabad?”
Haji: “I’d make sure not to lose the child, and if I did …”
Ma’ma’: “I lost my son.”
Haji: “I’m on my way.”
Haji, which is how everyone calls Najib, always seems to be dealing with emergencies and he’s good at it.  We call him in like a storm trooper and he comes through. After he got this call, we lost him for two days.
So what do you do if you lose a child in Afghanistan?
Haji, Ma’ma’ and Ka’Ka’s son rented a loudspeaker, mounted it on the car, and started cruising an increasing perimeter around the site the boy was last seen.  They brought Ka’ka’s son along because he has a memorable cellphone number.  They figured this was important if you were going to be shouting it out in passing.
“Dear fellow Muslims, we have lost a 7 year old child around 9am. Â He was wearing grey clothing and white shoes. Â If you have any information, please call 077 77 20 900.”
They kept repeating this fruitlessly until 3pm.  And then a 15 year old boy who sells phone cards in a road side shack ran up to the car.
“I’ve seen your son.  He was with me until 11:30am.  He was crying and I tried to calm him.  I bought him an orange.  He refused.  I bought an apple.  He refused.  He kept saying my home is there and pointed at the horison.  ‘I want to go back home to Sherzad.’ ”
The 15 year old found a 10 year old who was from the same district.  As it later turned out, that was a fortuitous move.  The 10 year old was a relative.  But neither the 10 year old or Rawed knew their relation.
The 10 year old was instructed to bring Rawed home.  Surely, someone from Sherzad should take care of a missing child from Sherzad. Unfortunately, Rawed did not cooperate.  He kept crying and just minutes later refused to go any further.  “I want my dad.”
As it happens in fairy tales, three tweleve year old boys chanced upon Rawed and his 10 year old companion.  They inquired, deliberated, and decided that they should take Rawed.
They did the sensible thing.  They first took him to the nearest Mosque and having announced the case and consulted with the Mullah, they decided to start scanning their own perimiter, on foot, announcing:
“Dear Muslims, we have a lost child. Â Here he is. Â Look at him. He is from the village of Shirzad. Â Help us find his parents.”
And they walked like this for many hours.  Even Haji Najib heard about them from people who walked up to his car with the loudspeaker.  The twelve year old boys tried diligently.  After many hours, when the
sun was near to setting, at 5pm, they met a 25 year old man in a car. Â He was also from the same village and offered to help the boys out. Â He would take Rawed and help him find his father.
By this point, the loudspeaker broke twice and Haji Najib and crew had both times replaced it.  They also requested an announcement to be broadcast on three radio stations at 11 am.   They wore our their voices, taking turns, until 10pm.
At this point, activity stopped on the street, and Haji, Rawed’s dad, and all of the male members of the family present in Jalalabad gathered around the dinner table and made their plans for the following day.
They decided to break up into teams.  At this point, they heard about the 12 year old boys and the fact that they connected with a local Mosque.  They figured, one team will canvas the schools and one the Mosques.  Surely, they would find him.  A third team, lead by Haji, would contine enlaging the perimeter with the loudspeaker.  If neither party found the boy by 4pm, they would make an announcement on television.
After a sleepless night, they set out at 6am.  They had no success.  Haji started to get phone calls from a man claiming to have found the child.
“Consider as if he is with his mother and father.  If you pay money, you have nothing to worry about.”
The phone calls persisted.  The sums requested were small, maybe 10$ worth of phone credit, but the caller refused to allow contact with the child.
It is not uncommon (in Afghanistan as elsewhere) for people to opportunistically prey on other people’s vulnerabilities. Haji’s phone number had been announced on the radio, so the caller could just be a prank. Nevertheless, it was the one active lead, so Haji started taping his conversations, dragging them out and trying to extract as much information as possible.
At 4:30pm they delivered a photo from Gulzada’s phone camera to a local television station, RTA (Radio Television Afghanistan).  Then they resumed driving around with the loudspeaker.
Hameed joined the crew at 5pm and took over the announcements with a fresh voice.  At 7pm of the second day, the loudspeaker broke for the third and final time.  It was too late for repairs or a replacement.  And they were worn out.
They returned home for sustainance and an all hands meeting.  After dinner and tea, the search party, which by then had grown to 10 people, crashed out in Haji’s family’s living room.
At 9pm, the elder of the house (a law professor at Ariana University who had studied in Bulgaria) roused them with news that Rawed’s face had just been shown on RTA television.  And at 9:45pm Haji got a call from another number, saying that they had the kid.
It turns out, that the 25 year old brought Rawed home as promised. His father, a big merchent in town, handed the boy to one of his employees for care.  This way Rawed spent the second day in the village of Baze ik Malati (where Baze refers to its proximity to the American base at JAF, Jalalabad Airforce Base).
On the phone they agreed to meet at a public square called Chowk Muhbrat.  The merchant and his 25 year old son came alone. When they confirmed the identity of the child with a photo, they agreed to exchange Rawed at the police station.
The merchant drove with Haji, while his 25 year old son went to fetch Rawed.
At the station, Haji ran up to hug Rawed, but Rawed looked startled as if he hadn’t recognized his cousin, and started to cry for his father. I’m not sure why they didn’t bring his father in the first place, but at this point, they sent a car for him.
In his fathers arms, Rawed cried and laughed.  The identification was complete and the celebration started. One of Haji’s uncles gave 2000 Afs to the merchant as a finder’s fee and another 500 to his 25 year old son. Another uncle gave 2000 Pakistani Rupees to the 25 year old.  The police asked for some too, saying they also wanted to celebrate.  So they gave 500 Rupees to one officer and another 500 to the clerk who filled out the paperwork.
They also picked up oranges and apples and handed them out to everyone. The following day Rawed and Gulzada went back to their village carrying a load of fruits, tea and sugar from the big city, expecting to host lots of relatives in the village who were aware of the situation and understandably concerned. They did not stop to visit the doctor in Jalalabad.  Another one of Haji’s uncles is a Tajikistan educated doctor that lives in Sherzad and runs a pharmacy, so they decided to bring the boy to him.
In the final tally, Rawed had changed hands from his father, the shopkeeper, the 15 year old, the tweleve year olds, checked in at a local Mosque, the 25 year old, his merchant father, spent the night at the merchant’s employee’s house and was finally reunited with family at the police station.
The search party (which grew to ten people and involved many others) lasted for two days and spent a few hundred dollars on loudspeaker rental, repairs and replacements, gas, photo reproductions, food and fruits.
In the end, they found Rawed.
Najib called the original caller back another time.  He asked whether he still had the child.  The guy claimed he had.  How did you get him?  Najib asked.  “An Army commander gave him to me.”  Najib cursed him out.  Either this was all a ploy, or another child is still out there, kidnapped.