It's been about a year since I last came to my blog to write.
Though so much has happened in between 08 and 09, right this minute so much is similar to last year around this time.
Afghanistan has remained a constant in my life.
And right now I am awaiting to return again for six more months.
There have been so many variables in between and so many constants.
The most intense time from 2007-08 for me was from October to December of 2008.
Foreigners shot and killed in the streets of Kabul, foreigners kidnapped over and over again, and having travelled to Kandahar to support artisan businesses to be evacuated the very next day because an explosion ocurred a house away from the NGO I was staying at.
My life, the life in Afghanistan I knew, it all went away. I was left bare. I was placed on the street to really face the reality of war, the reality Afghan people see day to day but which I only really heard about from the expat compounds I have lived in during my time in Kabul.
I was too guarded, I was too secure, I had put my guard down. I had begun to move about and feel too comfortable in Afghanistan. I was ignoring the gruelling truth that so many people in Afghanistan suffer day by day, because of the war that is going on.
Then Kandahar happened, and I was face to face with the pain, the destruction, the screaming, the broken homes, all around me.
Kandahar changed my heart, and my definition of what servicing others means.
Servicing others means that you are uncomfortable too. It means that you walk with people side by side, experiencing their circumstances. You cannot service your neighbor if you do it from far away. And this is physically, spiritually and emotionally.
I used to service others emotionally and spiritually. But I had begun to do it from a distance. I was no longer willing to walk physically next to my brothers and sisters. This has changed.
I am willing, and full of a deep desire to walk physically as well as spiritually side by side with the Afghan community I am able to work with.
This time around I want to be uncomfortable with them. I want to share in the suffering. I want to make sacrifices.
Right now a sacrifice for me is to go back knowing that my father might have cancer, is having biopsies done on tumors in his liver and prostate gland, and my beloved Costarrican grandmother has stomach cancer. I wish I could just go home for 3 months and be with my family during this time.
But somehow I continue to see that my time in Afghanistan is nowhere near over.
Somehow, I feel I must continue to return and continue to walk with Ghulam, Shaima, Baknazira, Nasima, Fahima, Hanifa, the Wahdat family, and so many others who are like family to me.
My heart is still there. Sometimes I feel I left it there, and need to return for it. Other times I feel I should let go even if I leave my heart there.
Right now, I am waiting to return. And I see myself there.
So I see it is meant to be and there is a lot of purpose in returning.
What I need to develop is faith, I need to be able to believe in that which I cannot see.
I need grace for the journey, grace when things do not go the way I think they should.
But at times like this I am keenly aware of my lack of enough faith and grace. At the same time I am aware of the fact that I am not alone in this walk...I am surrounded by others who share my heart's desire for Afghanistan: Freedom and with them I am able to learn more about faith and grace.
Faith to believe in a road we cannot see, grace for the journey on this road of freedom we will Inshallah get to walk on.
