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"A healing bond"

When the sisters washed her scalp, Arefa wailed so loudly they worried someone in their apartment building might call the police. Almost every night, the little girl  woke up screaming from nightmares. She had no skin on the top of her head for 3 years. Over time, her skin graft began to heal and Arefa no longer felt pain when she washed her scalp. However. there was the future. The sisters worried constantly about how Arefa would be treated once she went home, growing into womanhood in Afghanistan with such obvious scars. Everywhere Arefa went, people stared at her, but she usually ignored them.