The Waiting Place...

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Eva was finally able to get through to me on her satellite 'call through' phone at about 2:30pm today! I was thrilled to hear from her at last. She was calling from Meran's uncle's home in Dohuk, the city Meran is now stationed in. They were having a send-off gettogether for Eva and the boys...

She's leaving tomorrow at 8:30am local time. Due to what seems like rather arbitrary travel restrictions/guidelines, she won't have as streamlined a way home as she did on her way in-country. This time, she'll head to Komishlu, catch a connecting flight to Damascus, Syria. She'll have to stay there for two days, and while there contact the local PKK (or whatever the Kurdish political party is called now) office for assistance on some details in her departure. On Monday, fly to Amman, Jordan, staying another two days (required again, for whatever reason!), then leave on Wednesday, December 17th to Chicago, catching a connecting flight there to Nashville arriving home at around 10:30pm. It will be one very long day...

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The poem below was written by a human rights activist that befriended Meran in the Turkish refugee camps. It is all true, based on recollections and memories shared with her by Meran. It was published in a book called "Kurdistan Times," a bi-annual publication of the Kurdish Human Rights Watch, Copyright 1997...

MY HOME IN KURDISTAN
By Margareta Hanson

My home, so
my father told me
was in a valley
in the mountains,
with a river
clear and cold,
its water running
from the snowfields.

In the garden
fruit trees grew.
We had cucumbers,
grapes and melons.
In the barn
there were, of course,
cows and sheep and
my father's horse.

In our home,
heated by
the baking oven
were handmade carpets
of all colors.
It was my home
until 1980 when
I was two years old.
Then came Saddam's soldiers.
Iraqi troops
bulldozed our house
and the barn,
destroyed the garden
and drove us out
from our valley
in the mountains.

Hunted, homeless,
frightened,
we had to flee.
My father's horse
carrying some
blankets, pots and pans
and my older brother
carrying me.

For years we walked
at night
lighted by the stars.
We were hungry,
cold and ill,
sleeping in a tent
as from place
to place we went.

Like that
we lived
until 1988
when I was
ten years old.
Then planes flew by
and chemical bombs
exploded in the sky.

I had run, was
hiding in the mountains.
When I returned I found
that my mother,
my father, and my brother
were laying dead.
Peshmergas helped me
bury them, and then I fled.

Four years went by.
I stayed with
thousands of other Kurds
in a Turkish camp.
We lived in tents.
For heat the sun,
for light at night
the shining stars.

Now I am in another world
of neon lights and cars.
Here in the United States
I go to school and work at night.
I call myself a man and say
"Forgotten is the pain,
I am on my way."

But when I sleep
I am a child at home
in the valley
in the mountains
with the river
cold and clear,
it's water running
from the snowfields.

In the garden
fruit trees grow.
We have cucmbers,
grapes and melons.
In the barn
there are, of course,
cows and sheep
and my father's horse.

In my dream
I clearly see them,
my father, my mother
and my older brother,
in our home
in the valley
in the mountains
in my country, Kurdistan.

I am asking you, my friend,
is there a Kurdistan,
a land that is mine,
that will welcome me?
Is there a land
of peace and democracy
where all people are free
and living in harmony?

Where hate and murder
does not exist
and every man and
woman is a friend?
If so, Kurdistan, I am
your long-lost son
who wants to go home
and never leave again!