Dawn in Darfur

Thanks to Werner for his daily updates, pictures and insight in Darfur. Its so amazing to read what is really going on in places that we see so frequently on tv, but cannot really relate to.

So I read this poem on one of his postings last month and it was so touching. I will keep the authors name Anonymous, to respect his identity. But his poem carries the echoes of his soul, and those of millions of other Sudanese refugees, trying to make sense of the turmoil and devastation left around them.

Darfur is a Casualty

Worry nights about poor babies

whose life on the ground resources

Still waiting for the cloud raining

cleans starvation conflict boiling

The youth instead of standing by

They left Darfur to North Sky

Music of Darfur drums noising

not only for singing and dancing

neither for harvest nor collecting

only for chairs politicians are fighting

also for diet many people are suffering

The youth instead of standing by

They left Darfur for North Sky

Darfur is a great mother of men

she paid for now and then

but nature of life is often

loses hand of generous thieving smile

wonderful world beautiful people exile!

and the robust case which is alive

When do we build responsible life?

The youth instead of standing by

They left Darfur to North Sky

To end off on a more positive note, I have attached a picture that Werner took.

I don’t really have the appropriate words, but when I look at it I don’t just see a man and a boy standing looking out to the horizon. But I see what they must see; the sun rising and bringing with it a new dawn of hope. Surrounded by nothing, the still stand, side to side, in prayer and giving thanks to the sun. Giving thanks and praise to the life that still lives on in Darfur.

Peace, Love and Hope
Orangeblossom xxx

The Bookseller of Kabul

I picked up this book called “The Bookseller of Kabul” by Asne Seierstad, in the library a few weeks ago and finished it this week.

I began reading it and was so taken back by the stark reality and honesty of this story. A fire within me was ignited when reading about the way in which the majority of Afgan families live out their every day lives. In a country torn by war, this book focuses more on how their religion and politics dictate and still reign supreme. It’s the women that bear the brunt of the suffering. My heart bleeds for them and countless other women around the world, ones that we hear of, read of, but seldom stop to just think about what their lives are like in comparison to our own.

At times I had to stop myself from reading further, because I got so upset by the truth of these people and their existence. I felt like just shouting at them in the book! I found this review (from Publishers Weekly) of the book that gives a good overall summary and insight:

“After living for three months with the Kabul bookseller Sultan Khan in the spring of 2002, Norwegian journalist Seierstad penned this astounding portrait of a nation recovering from war, undergoing political flux and mired in misogyny and poverty. As a Westerner, she has the privilege of traveling between the worlds of men and women, and though the book is ostensibly a portrait of Khan, its real strength is the intimacy and brutal honesty with which it portrays the lives of Afghani living under fundamentalist Islam. Seierstad also expertly outlines Sultan's fight to preserve whatever he can of the literary life of the capital during its numerous decades of warfare (he stashed some 10,000 books in attics around town). Seierstad, though only 31, is a veteran war reporter and a skilled observer; as she hides behind her burqa, the men in the Sultan's family become so comfortable with her presence that she accompanies one of Sultan's sons on a religious pilgrimage and witnesses another buy sex from a beggar girl-then offer her to his brother. This is only one of many equally shocking stories Seierstad uncovers. In another, an adulteress is suffocated by her three brothers as ordered by their mother. Seierstad's visceral account is equally seductive and repulsive. An international bestseller, it will likely stand as one of the best books of reportage of Afghan life after the fall of the Taliban.”

“Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.” – Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta (founder of Buddism)