A moment of consideration

Often we compare our lives to those of others, and think how unfortunate is our life compared to someone who might be a complete stranger to us: artlessly, because we are deceived by the way we see them and believe them to be. We habitually forget to value and grasp the beauty of our lives compared to those we see and pass by every day.

A while back, a few friends and I were having a discussion about those kids who sell gums and flowers on the streets and wash car windows. My friends’ idea was to stop paying the kids because, by doing so, we actually encourage them to stay on the streets.

I find that idea entirely sensible. Yet my outlook and sentiment on the matter is somewhat different.
On that day I was encouraged to promise that I would no longer pay the kids on the street, so that they might give up staying there and begging in the unbearable heat of summer and the cold days of winter, and instead go to school and work for a promising future.

But it didn’t take long for me to break my promise.

Some days ago, early in the morning while heading to work through the traffic, my eyes alighted on the book I was reading when a young boy knocked on my car window.

His eyes were filled with untold stories, the palms of his hands were all dusty and he didn’t say anything or do much. He just stood there by the window, waiting to be paid a thousand or two. He didn’t even beg.
I tried to ignore him as promised. I tried to pretend that I didn’t see him, and that he was just a normal boy passing by the car. I tried to teach him a lesson by overlooking him. But I couldn’t.

I stand by the fact that paying him will only encourage him to keep coming back to the streets and beg. But, when I looked into his eyes, I imagined myself right in his place, doing exactly his task. How would I feel then?

Assume that he was a rich boy, but only used to the streets. Assume that his parents forced him to come to the streets to sell gums and flowers and wash car windows. Or assume that he was just a poor boy who wants to support his family. Whatever your assumption is, it doesn’t really matter.

Imagine if you were him. Put yourself in his shoes. If fate brought you to his place, if someday you had to knock on someone’s window and ask for a thousand dinars or two, but you found them completely ignoring you. How would you feel? Take a moment to imagine yourself there.

Hundreds of people pass by in those traffic jams every day. People pass by as if they don’t see those kids. They carry on driving to get to their destination; they rush to make a living, or just to meet beloved ones. Among those hundreds, only one or two notice.

I decided to be one of those few.

For Kurdistan Tribune

We will add new colors to our sunset sky

A dreadful moment could bring you to the face of reality. 

There is so much to think about that sometimes I spend more time thinking than acting.

Day after day I become wiser, I understand my life better and try to connect my past to the present and the future.

A lot is happeing in life, and I do my best to keep up with them. I try to race with life and at times I attempt to stop to grasp the beauty of understanding it. I try to unlock the mysteries, to look and interpret the problmes from different angles.It gives a different flavor.

They often say to understand life, is to trick yourself. But I don't think it's true. I think we all need to spend more time with ourselves and think of the moments of joy and instants of sadness that come and pass so swiftly. Because those moments happen once in life, and I try to feel them to the fullest. 

One thing I know, life has plenty to offer.  

We may pass by people we have known for years, people we believed in, and they believed in us untill one day we see them again, we pass by them and pretend we never knew them. People we thought we couldn't live without, until reality slaped us on the face and taught us how to be able to say goodbye, how to hide tears and draw a smile on the face instead. 

Time passes and we pass by them again, except this time we no longer fake a smile or hide a tear. We smile because we have learnt the way of life.

We learn to forget, because forgetting is a gift. We learn to forgive because forgiveness is liberation. And we learn to dream because dreaming is the way of our existence.

We learn to grow, yet remain young. We learn to deal with problems because life has already skilled and trained us how to deal with them. At the same time there comes moments when we wrap ourselves in the arms of the loved ones like a child rolled up in her mothers' embrace because no matter how old we grow, we remain small in their eyes.

And so we keep going, we continue the walk. We continue to smile and dream because life doesn’t stop at one point. 

Who knows, may be someday we will say goodbye again to someone else and walk past them. But, we have learnt the art of forgetting. We will continue to walk, because all the way, we will meet new people. We will help the helpless. We will hear new stories and fill the pages of our diaries with new memories. We will add new colors to our sunset sky. We will continue to walk, because what we have experienced and seen are only few chapters of our lives, and there are more chapters to come. 

The power of words

Writing is my listener when there is no ear to hear me, my companion who doesn't complain when I am down. 

We may close our eyes and hearts to many things in this world if we want to, but one thing we can't flee from is pain. We have all been to the point where facing it was inevitable. 

What we might suffer from comes in different shapes and sizes; like the death on a loved one, a dream we have but can't achieve, or we might simply suffer from lonesomeness in this big world when the care of family and friends isn't around.

Even though we are inclined to live a happy life, happiness often comes after hard work, and pain. A fact we are all conscious of, but some of us pretend not to be.

It's not possible to avoid being hurt, but it's definitely possible to find ways to conquer the feeling without resorting to wrongdoing. In my life I have realized that writing is one of the most powerful ways to defeat sorrow and grief. 

When I was a kid of about seven my dad was sent into exile, after he had been arrested so many times. and so I and my family had to leave Hawler to join him. When we first left Hawler, we had nothing. We didn't have a home to live in, we didn't have money to live on, and we didn't even have clothes except for those we wore when we left. 

It was very painful to accept the idea of my family suffering even though I was a child. I had no one to talk with because everyone was too busy working and earning some money so that we could rent a house and have a better living standard. Life was too expensive and unfair. 

Spending my childhood in isolation made me think of so many questions that I didn't have any answers to. Why was all this happening to me and my family? I couldn't understand. Everything was happening fast and inexplicably. 

By the time I was twelve, I decided to buy a diary and write down everything about my life. My writing wasn't so organized or proper, but I didn't care. I just wanted to release myself from all the pain that I had carried in my heart for the past five years of my childhood. I wrote down everything that crosses my mind.Whatever I felt and all the questions I had and knew no one would answer for me. 

It was healing. Writing helped me to find the friend I didn't have, someone to talk to about whatever I wanted. I didn't need to go and cry whenever I was sad and alone. I didn't have to break anything or do something mistaken whenever I was angry. I just had to take a piece of paper and transfer everything on my mind and in my heart onto the paper. It didn't occur to me whether the piece I was writing was good or not, nor did it matter whether people would read it or not. All that mattered was freeing myself from grief and depression. 

Writing did liberate me and helped me triumph over hardship. Writing has made me a better person, a hopeful person. 

For Kurdistan Tribune

A Strange Conversation with a Stranger

I am still thinking of the odd chat I had this morning with a Taxi Driver on the way to Shorsh Street to see some friends. Like Paulo Coelho says, "there are signs everywhere, you just need to open your eyes to see them" I have always believed in this, today's conversation with the driver was one of those signs.

The Taxi Driver was an old man, perhaps in his 80s. His features were as strange as the conversation we had. He was bald, but had a white beard, well-built and had a strange look on his face.

Here is how our strange conversation started:

Driver: welcome daughter, where do you want me to take you?
Me: Shorsh Street.
Driver: I am sure you are not from Hawler, or perhaps you haven't lived your entire life in this city, am I right?
Puzzled I seem, I stop for a moment, then I reply "I am from this city, but I have lived my childhood in Suly"
Driver: See, I knew it.
I don't say anything because I am surprised.

Then he starts talking about Politics as if he knows I am interested in the topic. He brings  various of matters about Kurdistan, and its relations with Baghdad, and I listen tentatively to his wise words. Sometimes he stops and asks questions, like a teacher testing his student and I try to choose the right words to answer them because I am afraid that all this might be just part of a game to kidnap me (for some reason I don't trust Taxi drivers).

Then he tells me that life is a very strange place, I ask him how strange, and he tells me it's all about a game. He tells me about his life, and how much he has suffered, but never gave up, and never will. He says he is as old as the city. He tells me if I want to live, I need to know how to fight for life.

We stop in the traffic  and then he looks back and he asks me to look to the car beside us, and I do. I see a white BMW with four young men inside the car. They look at us and they start throwing comments. I frown at them  and then I turn my head because I am irritated by their comments. He tells me what I think of them, and I say they are only group of amateurs who are willing to take actions without complete thoughts. He laughs and he says that I am wrong and I ask him what he means. He says they are precisely the people who aren't what they appear to be and that things are not always what they seem. He tells me if he steps out of the car and goes to talk to them, they will probably end up kissing his hand and apologizing for their inappropriate manners.

He asks about what I do and I tell him that I work and study. He surprises me by saying how much he likes to be my driver to take me to work every morning. And I am now even more terrified of him because I am still afraid that his intentions are not good despite his white beard.

We reach Shorsh Street, I pay him money and I step out of the car,  "I will pray God to always protect you my daughter" he says.
 I close the door, and he drives away.

I stand on the street and gaze as  he disappears in the distance, and I realize he meant everything he said to me.

Today, 6. 12. 2012. A day to remember.

Hope?

Only when I believe, I can achieve.

As I take myself back a year and a half, to when I was walking on the streets of this city with no hope of the world in my heart, a glimpse of sad days passes in front of my eyes like a movie.

A year and a half ago, on a day like this, I was walking the streets from university to home. That day wasn’t a normal day or a normal walk.

While walking, I felt I was carrying troubles of the whole world on my shoulders. My steps were too weak, my hands shivering and I was stumbling.

Looking at the road of my life ahead, it appeared empty. Nothing was clear, even the future was vague and frightening. I was helpless.

I walked a mile and that’s when I saw an old man seated on the side of the road, gardening the streets like an artist sketching his own future with a joyful smile on his face. I wished I was in his place doing exactly what he was doing; perhaps living my life among flowers would make it a bit exciting, I thought.

I wished to be anywhere and anyone that day, other than where and who I was.

I carried in my heart broken dreams and unfulfilled wishes.

However, I kept walking.

I arrived home, safe and secure. After hours of thinking, I decided to make a choice.

I wrote two of my dreams on a piece of paper and buried them under a rock close to my home, promising that I would not go back to them until the day I turned them into reality.

And I walked away from them that day, with a heart that truly believed, with a slither of hope inside.

Time passed quickly, day after day waiting for something, for a sign that something good was going to happen and possibly I would make one of the dreams come true. But still there was nothing.

There were days I felt down, and moments when I gave up on trying. But there was still something within me, something was still igniting and lightening my heart like a small candle burning.

It was hope.

Days ago, I finally received the news. My dream has finally come true.

Perchance the dream I had is so important to me that I am unable to share it with the rest of the world. Yet that is not the end of it.

After all the hard times, all the curves and turns, and after the dream turned into reality, my conclusions about this journey have changed. I have learnt a lesson that for me is a lot more significant than the dream itself.

I have learnt that, when a heart truly believes and doesn’t know defeat, hope and merely hope can sometimes help one through the complicated and unfair journey called life.

I went back to the paper, I took it from under the rock and brought it home to where it belongs among my possessions.

Today I can walk again, on the same street, the same person, with my head up and my shoulders back in the confidence. I can look at the old man still there gardening my city; but this time it’s just going to be me, walking with a hopeful heart and with my second dream.

For Kurdistan Tribune

Welcome to Kurdistan Nature

If you are a Kurd or you have ever came across Kurdistan as a sightseers, then you must be familiarized with the fact that there is nothing more beautiful than the nature of Kurdistan.

The mountains standing firm with pride, the green lands, and the blue rivers take your breath away.

I have always believed that nature is the best cure for almost everything. If you are sad, bored from everyday life, and tired, go to a village, spend time with nature. Eat fresh baked bread, yogurt and tea in the morning. Go and climb the mountains, stand on the peaks and shout as loud as you can, say whatever you want the world to hear you saying. Watch the women as they manage to clean the house, cook, and farm side by side with their husbands. Listen to the stories old men tell every evening after dinner as they gather in circles to talk about interesting anecdotes of the old times. Stay late at night and stare at the sky as the moon shines upon you, surrounded by little stars as bright as they could ever be.

In the heart of nature, you realize the true meaning of a genuine life; far from the noise of the city, a simple peaceful life. Nature teaches you a lot more than you can ever imagine. It teaches you patience, it teaches you how to stay well connected with your spirit. It gives you strength, it prepares you for hardships and just like seasons,  it teaches you adaption.

And so I had the honor of experiencing little of all this with my Ruwayda and Nawroz, and kak Yad yesterday on a trip to different villages near by Hawler, capital of Kurdistan.

We didn't stay over for the night, neither did we stay in one particular village for long. What we did was spending a few hours in each village, introducing ourselves as a small organization. The purpose of the trip was to talk to locals, to get them sign up for the Child Benefit Campaign.

If you haven't heard of this campaign, then you need to know that the aim of the campaign is to propose to the government the idea of providing an amount of money (Salary) to each and every Kurdish child (under age 18) regardless to social classes. Ruwayda came up with this magnificent project.

Luckily, we were welcomed warmly in every house we knocked on the door. We had the pleasure of not only enjoying the spectacular view of the country-side, but also to get to know the locals and listen to their stories.

Going inside one of the villages.

Nature is leading here..

Cattle! hehe :)

You will just love the hospitality of majority in the villages.

He was guiding us to his house

In one of the house, explaining the purpose of the campaign.

I guess most of the pictures speak for themselves.

I loved the view from here.

Kak Yad, filming the kids. He was asking them to say their name and age out loud.

Look at her eyes,she is too beautiful.

This little girl was too funny.
Her name is Xanda, we were asking her to say her full name for some reason she kept saying her fathers name instead. We laughed so much about this. 

I like this one.

Photos taken by Nawroz. 

The little me :)

Have you been to one of those moments when you wanted so bad to remember yourself when you were little?

Perhaps many of us have been there, and I am not exceptional.

I have always been keen to the stories of my own childhood, I still listen to my sisters and parents passionately when they sit and talk about the little me, and I try hard to picture myself in accordance with the stories I hear. 

Since we have moved countless times, from one city to another because of political reasons, we have lost all the individual and family pictures. The only photos we have now, are the ones taken after 2004 when we moved back to Hawler.

It wouldn't be a lie if I said I would feel tremendously jealous when I would see a childhood picture of someone; wishing I had it too.

There were times, when I would sit and close my eyes trying to remember what I was like, and the things I liked most back then. But, that never was an easy task to me, as my life has always been very adventurous and things have always been changing rapidly that keeping count of the things wasn't easy at all.  A typical Kurdish life. 

Until a few days ago.

Last week, my sister  asked me & my siblings to help her with moving. And so at her place, I found the treasure of my childhood, something I have been wishing to have very long ago.  

While I was looking at the photos of my sister with my niece during the times when she was a college student (that's like some 20 years ago) and laughing out loud at her and how funny she looked, I found two of my photos in one of her old photo albums.

Me, who always have been wishing secretly in my heart to have a photo of my childhood, have finally found it! 

May be to many people, a picture doesn't mean much, but to me it certainly means everything. I believe this is why they are called picture, because they picture the memories, and what if the memory was a Kurdish one with so many hidden stories?

Like they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words" , to me the two childhood pictures I have found now are worth the whole world. 

Thanks to my lovely sister, now my childhood memories are complete. I can't wait to show them to my children in the future. :)

You might now wonder why is it my sister still have her old photos with her, but the rest of the family don't. Because my sister got married long ago and so she didn't have to go through countless journeys with the rest of the family. She was left with her husband at her home safe & secure, unlike so many Kurdish families.  

P.S. The two pictures carry within them so many precious stories, perhaps political ones as well, about love, Kurdish struggle and hope; that I hope someday I will speak for them with the amount of love and care they deserve to have. 

Me when I'm five years old
The woman behind me is my sister, she used to be like a mother to me.

Me & my brother Shallaw.
I think I am seven in this picture.