After one year

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.

The 1st Afghan Women's Contemporary Art Exhibition

Yes, you read the title correctly. The 1st Afghan Women's Contemporary Art Exhibition just took place last week in Kabul.
I was honored to have three of my designer mentoring program students exhibiting at this show.
To be honest, I thought it would be interesting but nothing prepared me for what I was to encounter.
I have taught a group from the Fine Arts department female students from Kabul University through the Design Center's DMP program.
I had seen some of their art work, at the time I had only seen regular art expected of art students, nothing exceptional.
Then...I arrived at this exhibit.
Modern paintings abstractly reporting on women's lives convered canvas after canvas. Each expression so unique but all sharing a common theme: Afghan women's pain.
I was taken aback by the theme. I had assumed these young women artists would focus on modern art which followed western aesthetics as well as themes. I never expected them to focus so much on their realities. I assumed they would want to escape if only for a moment through brushstrokes which granted their imaginations to paint dreams and far away imagery. No such thing.
They all wanted to take their canvas as an opportunity to reveal their thoughts, their fears and the stories which haunt most women who are born on this land.
Here are a few notes I took while observing some paintings:
Painting 13- A woman wearing a colorful dress looks at her reflection in the river, only to discover her reflection is a tree, strong, full of green leaves: she wants to show the viewer her power, strength, youth, courage...
Installation piece: A person is trying to help a woman break free from seclusion, from her small dark room, the person is able to open a small space for the woman trapped inside to look out and break free if she wants. The wall is symbolically a black cloth. The person wishing to aid her cuts a small rectangular opening for her to see through first. The woman instead of dedicating time to look outside, at the new world, spends her time embroidering the cloth wall, she makes a beautiful Afghan design, with flowers in portaduzi stitch. Th person who has revealed this new world to her returns, this time with a pair of scissors which he/she hands to the woman so she can cut her way out, the woman never accepts the scissors but keeps throwing them out of her secluded space. She refuses to break free. She is afraid. She would rather stay where she is, than ever venture out in the unknown.
Painting 25- A beautiful bride is dressed for her wedding and covered in gold. Except that the golden hair piece is so big it covers her sight completely. She is blind as she enters into marriage.
Painting 35- A young girl is reaching out with hope, grabbing a window that is high, looking out eagerly, to find a small hint of a rainbow amidst gray clouds.
Painting 37-A figure as though praying, an abstract figure which seems hopeless and full of sadness. A dark color scheme, harsh textures sorround the figure
Painting 85 A gathering of women, all sitting down around in a circle, in the center there is a stump of a tree, old, but with a small branch which is still alive.
Painting 15- Women covered by identities they did not choose.
Painting 68- An elongated woman in a dark place holding on to a large white tablet, a testament of her life?
Painting 16- Women covered by different identities
Painting 82 A woman contemplates at her appareance in front of the mirror while wearing her burka: she is hidden, her identity cannot be seen. Does she know who she really is?
Painting 44- A photo/painting, the photograph of a woman who has her eyes taped and her mouth taped, over her tapped mouth is a painted on mouth, the same for her eyes. Interpretation: a woman who is not allowed to see or speak through her own eyes and mouth, but a woman who has to see and speak what others see and say.
And on and on and on.
Dozens of paintings as such. All of them in one way or another telling you a story of Afghan women full of hope, loosing hope, feeling lost, having to live hiding their true selves but most of all, very aware that what they go through cannot be right.
To you my Afghan sisters I take off my hat, I give a standing ovation, for your courage, for your strength in living each day as best as you can, yet knowing that life has to get better than this and INSHALLAH it will.

Has everything been said?

I haven't blogged in about three months.
And I thought of just letting it go. But I know how good it feels to let it all out in the open sometimes and just share where one is, what's one's mood and all that jazz.
Did I say all that jazz? I hate that expression.
Lots of new in my life.
The Design Center closed, the three months promised did not come. I was in limbo for two weeks in the US while the fate of the DC was decided along with mine. I moved my whole life from Hanoi to Kabul. Never did I think we'd have such ups and downs with funding.
After 2 weeks we came to the conclusion that it was in everyone's best interest that i flew back to Kabul to help the associations with purchase orders from the US fill those orders. I flew back on January 25th. I arrived to find an empty design center. Like a ghost town. Asif and Palwasha remained but a day or so after I arrived Asif annouced he was leaving, had a new job. Palwasha followed over two weeks later.
I was left on my own to deal with the whole thing. And this whole thing was not just professional work but also emotional states of mind, facing all our women who had so enjoyed receiving training in design, construction of goods, quality, costing and pricing and marketing. We were abandoning them. And I had to face them and be the one to explain the circumstances though most don't care about the ghorry details and just focused on the fact that we were closed and once again they, they were left to fend for themselves.
As hard as being the one to face them has been, I knew I had to come back and say goodbye, say it face to face. You see, we became sisters. Time can never erase our pact.
My first month has passed by, yesterday marked one month of my time left here.
The first month feels like a real, heavy year. Long and full of detail. Stretched out with a million details. If I recount what I did each day I am overwhelmed. Only my camera is left to testify on the days events.
My heart, well, I wish it would stop hurting over all of this. I have had a great time with my associations, I have so enjoyed each day, each task, but knowing it ends, knowing I can do so much more with them, well it is just draining. To know you have the capacity to lend a hand, and teach others to walk side by side with you but know that you are not allowed is something no one should have to face.
Life is life. Life is this, walking hand in hand. Why are so many people so blind to this fact?
Why does money govern life's activities, choices. After this experience I want out. I want out. I do not want to be conducted around life by monetary power. I want freedom, I want out.
By March 31st this chapter will be over with I suppose.
New chapter in my book? Yes. Bolivia. Artisan groups. Like-minded colleagues.
Details to follow.
For tonight just let me say Afghanistan is tatooed on me with heavy black ink. It's design is intricate, it's lines defined a new way of life for me.
Above any other lesson learned, I know I learned to love.
This lovely desert place, full of dried fruits and tea cups has captured my inspiration. I have smiled on this land. This land has smiled on me. It has touched me, it has blessed me. And regrets? None at all. Just certainty. Certainty that I was meant to have walked through it's winding roads.
That's all.

Has everything been said?

Being granted hope

Today was THE day, THE day of annoucing to the local staff we stop operating as a Design Center on the 13th of December.
Last evening we all had a bit of a crying breakdown, well the girls at least.
Nabid's thirteen year old son wanted pictures with me and Palwasha and suddendly when he was taking these pictures we both broke down a bit.
Then I went to Ryan's office-turned-living-room, Nasreen came in and I just broke down bawling like a 5 year old.
She then followed, and then Lima, and Palwasha and then we were all crying like mocosas.
So today came, we'd already cried our tears and over breakfast at Kabul Coffeehouse Ryan broke down the 2-week's notice, and no one was surprised, no one acted too upset, we all just ate, cracked a joke or two...
All along I've felt my time in Afghanistan was not over.
And today I got a spark of hope.
Wendy Summers, a lovely lady I met throught eh BP's organization emailed me, I had already told her what was happening with our design center and how it looked Iike I would cease to work in Kabul.
So she emails me today asking me to give her a rough idea of what the cost would be for us to have an office and continue the work we have been doing so far.
I am soooo excited.
We'll see how it all continues to develop but for today I have been granted hope.

Living with Heartbreak

I've been craving watching the movie, "Something's Gotta Give". If you haven't seen it, watch it.
I keep going to the scene where Erica Berry(Diane Keaton) tells Harry Sanborn(Jack Nickolson, "Can you feel this? Can you feel this? This is what a heartbreak feels like."
This scene just keeps replaying in my head over and over and over agin.
My time in Kabul is almost up.
And this is what a heartache feels like.
This is what real ache of the heart feels like.
And I have never felt this way.
Leaving Vietnam I knew I would go back. I knew it was my home and that it would always have open doors to me. It did not feel like closure and I left at a good time.
Kabul doesn't feel the same.
I fear for Afghanistan.
There are no promises, no assurances, everything is uncertain.
And me coming me back, it all feels very distant.
Can you feel me? This is what a heartbreak feels like.
I am living it.
We are a week away from telling the local staff they have two week's notice. And I leave in ten days.
And the people I love, I don't know how I will tell them I am not coming back.
And me, my heart, I don't know how to tell it it is not coming back, it is not going to beat physically next to the hearts of the people I love so much in this place...

Amidst Chaos

Today was a major moving around day. This is the week to set up everything for our famous Holiday Market.
I barely slept last night, can't figure out why exactly but today being the first crazy day I couldn't feel more tired with no sleep
and running around like a crazy chicken with no head.
I also have this heaviness in me knowing that after the Hols market I have 10 days in Kabul and it could be the end of my life here.
So far I can't seem to grasp what that means. How will I cope? How will we tell the amazing women I work with that we must leave and that our design center will have a major shift?
Maybe that's exactly why I couldn't sleep.
Guess that's what blogging does to you, clears things up for you.
The generator is about to go off so I better head out the door.
More blogging coming up...