Letter to the Editor - The Lakeville Journal - 9-9-21

In the distant past: A family’s escape from Afghanistan

I was living in Alexandria, Egypt in the 1980s as my husband worked at that time at the regional offices of the World Health Organization. At a dinner party, an older man sitting next to me  told me a story about his childhood. He was a Pashtun, an ethnic tribe  living in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His grandfather was the chief of the village. In the middle of the night, he remembers as a child being lifted onto the saddle in front of his grandfather. He was told to be silent. The whole family quietly rode out into the night. They had to escape because the villagers were angry and  they knew the grandfather supported the British. The family was fleeing for their lives.

That young child grew up to be a doctor at WHO. It was he who told me this story. I thought of him when I watched the people who supported Americans  in Afghanistan try to flee. Centuries ago, after we won the American Revolutionary War the Loyalists, people who supported the British Crown, fled  from the Colonies to Canada and Great Britain.

Liz Piel

Sharon

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