VIRUS DIARY: `Father, why don't they stay home like we do?'

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Judas trees must be blooming these days out at the Gulghendi Hills, their purple flowers bursting gloriously all over the green slopes. They hold a festival there every year, where musicians play and families fly kites.

Normally, my family would take a weekend trip there to escape Kabul. There, or to the Salang Pass, where the snow melt from the mountains streams down through the cliffs; or to the rivers and gardens of Kapisa province. Spring is when Afghanistan shows its beauty, and we like many families take any opportunity to see it.

We cannot. Instead, we are trapped in a city that seems so strange to me now.

Bored with having to be indoors all day, my three kids sometimes go up to the roof of our apartment building and look out at the streets of Kabul below. They’re surprised to see people out, despite the coronavirus lockdown. “Father, why don’t they stay home like we do?”

I explain that these are people who have nothing to feed their children. What I don’t tell them is that I’ve never seen so many people out begging in our city.

The streets, once busy with shops and traffic, are shut down. The ranks of beggars have swelled. It makes me worry for the future in a way I haven’t despite years of war.

As a journalist, I am exempt from lockdown rules. I work from my office — often late, late because Afghanistan’s continuous violence has not stopped. In the evening, on the way home, I usually stop to buy a few things at one of the few places open.

The moment I stop, men, women, children knock on my car windows asking for help, When I leave my car, they trail me to the bakery. When I step out of the bakery again, dozens of them surround me, pleading for money or bread.

It melts my heart. I can’t help them all and...