Guns and roses

During the civil war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, Mr and Mrs Roami, a science professor and a nurse, sent their children away from Kabul to Europe for safety. Tragically, they lost the phone number of where the children had moved to and had no way of contacting them. The couple found solace in gardening. Despite the constant explosions of rockets and shells, they were unwilling to leave their home. They named flowers after their children, and tended and spoke to them. It gave them the hope that one day the family would be reunited.

At one point, battle raged on all four sides and it was too dangerous to cross the road to fetch water from the stream. The garden was starting to die. The couple decided to build a well, and after five hours of digging, they could pull enough water from the ground. ‘Neither the rockets nor the fighting could stop us.