Saturday, March 25, 2006

Pre-Home in Kabul

Dear Bloggie-di-blog,

This is my first post. I am your typical Afghan-American with fanciful ideas of going back home to the watan. I will attempt to be anonymous and for the blog to last longer than 3 days, which is my record with (now deleted) blogs. I'm not even going to make this available to others yet. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to spread the word.
Send it to a few, select friends or share anonymously on the internet?
I'm Afghan, too much openness is not a good thing. But what use is a blog that no one reads?

I haven't moved to Afg yet but am slowly preparing for the big move. I'm getting rid of my stuff, attempting not to harass my future supervisor for concrete details of my contract and am attempting to decrease the giddy happiness I feel at the thought of finally (!) getting to Afg (Inshallah). I've tried not to, but I've put parts of my life on hold for Afg. That's a lie. Hell, I actually have actively tried to put parts of my life on hold for Afghanistan. What's that 80's song?

Can't nobody hold me back. Oh no. I got to keep on moving...

Don't front like you don't know the words.

I wanted to go to Afghanistan before 9/11, if that helps my street creds out any. I was researching grants to go to an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan on September 11th. It was a bright, painfully blue sky and I cried all day. A plump, white lady in a badly fitting suit announced it and said, Yaser Arafat said he has nothing to do with it. A black lady in front of me harumphed and said, "Yeah right."

My heart clenched tight and I felt acid coming through my pores. I sputtered and didn't say anything. I called her a sell-out in my head and wondering why she was hating on a fellow minority.

Heh, oh, there was so much more to come.

I was in a bad time in my life then. I had lots of dreams but none of the gumption to follow them through so I was stuck in inertia. I felt suffocated and September 11th seemed to have toppled all my dreams for a return to my homeland. Allah opens doors where you least expect it. Paths open up through pain. I often cannot comprehend the juxtaposition of lights flaming brightly and extinguishing on that very date, that same hour and its aftermath. Hysteria and flames and pain and fear.

So here I am now, happy, finishing grad school and packing up to go to Afghanistan, Inshallah. I know, it's a big jump from 9/11/01 until 3/25/06 but I can't get into it now. I have homework!