A Mobile Library Bringing Smiles To Children's Face In Kabul

"I'm really feeling happy. I'm studying the books I love again," says 11-year-old Arezo Azizi, whose favourite tome is a counting aid about a cat who gets more pieces of cheese the higher it can count.

A mobile library bus chugged to a Kabul orphanage Sunday and opened its doors for the first time since the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan, eliciting beaming smiles from children.

"I'm really feeling happy. I'm studying the books I love again," says 11-year-old Arezo Azizi, whose favourite tome is a counting aid about a cat who gets more pieces of cheese the higher it can count.

The library "didn't come for three months, until now," she explains, sitting on a converted public bus and her voice rising above the excited chatter of her peers.

The mobile library is one of five buses leased by a local organisation called Charmaghz, established by Freshta Karim, an Afghan graduate from Oxford University.