Food for the Soul
“There is enough food for us to feed our stomach. I am worried about the food for the soul” said old Yaqoob.
On a clear sunny day in March during the Corona pandemic, we distributed food in the center of a residential colony that is home to hundreds of low-income hawkers and laborers. My team got surrounded by the crowd as soon as they saw bags of food in our mini truck.
While everyone was in the hustle to get the food we were distributing, I saw an old man, Yaqoob, sitting calmly on the sidewalk. He was wearing patched clothes, sitting with his heads down, staring at his trembling hands. He was sketching something with a broken pencil on the road, and it caught my attention.
I handed him a packet of food, with a smile. He smiled back but refused to take it. It made me curious. I decided to sit beside him and observe his drawing. It looked like a girl sitting on a pillow, and a person standing on the rocks near her. The girl had a stick in her hand.
I asked him the reason for refusing to take food. He didn’t respond. I had never seen a person like this. This old man had a power holding him tight. I felt like a tiny piece of iron attracted toward a giant magnet. I could have easily gone to other people to distribute food, but I felt chained to him.
Finally, Yaqoob broke his silence and told his story.
I moved here with my wife Shehla, and daughter Zainab. We moved here from Muzaffarabad after the 2005 earthquake. We suffered for a long time. I used to sell fruits and vegetables but merely earned enough to feed us. By sewing clothes, my wife Shehla first completed her BA then started teaching students at home. We were living hand to mouth but still managed to save money for Zainab’s marriage. As Zainab grew up, she decided her own fate and chose to study. Time went on, and we spent her dowry savings on higher education. It was a big decision for us. She got admission at National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and we had enough savings to support her for two years. Shehla started part-time teaching in an academy, to support us financially. Due to the Corona epidemic, she is no longer getting paid. Shehla had to close her academy, and I am not getting enough customers due to the lockdown. People are sympathetic to us in this miserable situation. I have observed that the labor colony gets the highest charity in terms of food.
“So why are you worried then?” I asked him.
I am not worried about food. ‘’There is enough food for us to feed our stomach. I am worried about food for the soul.” When I see my girl, I feel education as the means to a better life. With charity, and a little food, we can survive, but it terrifies me when I think of not being able to earn and save for the next two years of her fee. It kills my mind. His eyes were watering.
It had such a big impact on me, I went to my truck, took some money, and handed it over to him.. This old man had the power of courage. I concluded that the girl in his painting was Zainab and the old man standing on rocks was him. That majestic stick in Zainab’s hand was the power of her education. It was the force waking me up.
I had been serving humanity for long and never got that much inner peace which this old man’s smile filled me with. It might be due to the fact that I didn’t just end hunger for one family, I ended hunger for generations by supporting zainab’s education. I believe an educated mind of hers can find ways to end hunger for many in future.
NUSTIAN is also one such organization that supports education which is a hope for girls like zainab and fathers like Yaqoob so please support and donate generously to nustianusa.
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This article is contributed by Hamza Ahmed Raza, a Fulbrighter, PhD Scholar at Arizona State University.
