During our last visit to Halabje with Estrangement Project, I saw a young boy holding a Styrofoam box fully covered with stickers from European football leagues he collected from the ice creams that he was selling. It reminded me of the time I was eight years old and already had to work. I asked my mother to give me one dinar to buy a Styrofoam box and another one to buy cheap ice cream directly from the factory and resell them on the streets.

Instead of carrying my box full of ice-creams around the city like all sellers do, I thought it would be easier to sell it at the football field where the players would be really thirsty after the first half. I thought it was the best way to earn money in a short time. After the first half ended, all the players came toward my box and started taking ice creams from it until it was empty. I was shouting: “number 5, you owe me for 4 ice creams. Number 8, you owe me for 3. Number 6…" and so on. Too bad that I didn’t realize that after the last whistle they would take their T-shirts off or exchange them between the teams. I was so upset when i went home with nothing. My mother said" next time you will memorize numbers with faces."