March 4, 2012

“What the hell??”
Place: Kabul, Afghanistan


I think my last “happy” birthday was 5 years ago. Around that time, I was still in APU and was surrounded by my best friends who were celebrating my birthday. Because my birthday is before a new semester starts, normally some of them were out of the town and we could not gather on April 7^th, but at least they tried to make some time for me around that day. I was happy.

Some time in late April or May in the same year, I was informed that I was accepted by a university in Holland. Since it was one of my dreams to live and study in Europe, I was so excited and somehow thought things would continue to go well in my life in contrary to my misery before APU. And I was absolutely wrong.

My beloved grandpa passed away exactly 1 month before my departure to Holland. It was a day in July when one of the biggest typhoons in that year was approaching Fukuoka. He was released from horrible pain from cancer. One week before his loss, I experienced a biggest heartbroken. So, in July, I lost two important people around the same time. Shortly after this, things started to fall apart. Family issues, financial issues, my future issues, etc. I have been under tremendous stress and have not been able to successfully manage it since then. Moreover, it became some sort of ritual that around my birthday, meaning every March and April, some unexpected incidents happen and these incidents can make me completely out of control for some kind of reason. That is why my last “happy” birthday was 5 years ago.

So, I kinda knew that “something” would happen this month or next month. I was hoping that my assumption was wrong this year, but just like other years, it happened. This morning, I was told by my boss that I should not go on leave around my birthday because other people, including herself, would be out of the office for their own holidays. My reaction in my mind was “what the hell?? I understand that you lucky people have a leave on a regular basis (every 6 weeks!). But never consider other people’s leaves? Can’t one of you just shorten your leave for a few days so that I could make it to outside Afghanistan to celebrate my birthday?”. Of course, I did not say so in front of my boss but her request was equal to a death sentence for me and I started to feel huge anger coming up from my mind especially for one particular cheeky bitch that was planning to take 2-3 weeks leave and was creating shitty situation for my leave. I was so pissed.

My rescuer is usually my boyfriend. I immediately made a phone call to him to ask for some rational advice to calm myself down. I was so freaking upset at that time. But he did not push me away and rather he listened to me patiently until I completely ran out of my breath in my lungs (almost!). After talking to him, I started to feel calm. He somehow convinced me to be patient and we decided to postpone our trip. I don’t know how but he knows exactly how to handle this difficult woman, but he has been very successful. J

But postponing my leave for nothing still irritates me. If I have to wait for another two months, I should use this chance for something. So, I decided to go on mission TWICE or at least ONCE before I go on leave in late April or early May by taking a 9-day leave. I want to feel that the reason of postponement is not for those assh**es but for my job. Doesn’t it sound slightly better?

I was looking at a map of Afghanistan after the “death sentence”. I still don’t know where I can really go, but I will go somewhere for sure! I am now involved in basic literacy program and skills development program for neo-literates. I will talk about the programs that I am involved in another time, but here is a photo from the literacy classes for illeterate women.
 

Women in a village, learnig how to write and read under trees!


My objective for the coming 2 months is to go on mission and take some beautiful photos!