In the war-ridden Afghanistan, thousands of street children flood the streets and alleys of Kabul. But there is something very powerful, somehow haunting, in the smile of this girl laying on the busy road of central Kabul. She seems like living in her own world. She plays with her ball, smiling, with an empty gaze, without being affected by thousands of people walking around her. And similarly to those thousands of pedestrians, she is almost invisible. I give her 2-afghani coin; she puts the coin in her mouth and chews it as if it’s a bubble gum. Sometimes she looks directly into me, sometimes she just ignores me, she never say any words to me. Somehow, she reminds me to the reality of Afghanistan itself: forgotten and neglected, only known for her suffering, but keeps a laughter in her own world.

Kabul, Afghanistan, 2007