Things I've Learned and people who inspire me

Sabeen Mahmud, a Pakistani human rights and free speech activist.

Illustration by From Karachi with Love

I find myself leaving tabs open on my computer relatively often, looking for an outlet for the thought provoking, the painful, the inspiring. And eventually I shut down my computer, and I forget about them. But that's not necessarily what I want to be doing with these things that I come across. I want to share them, or at least keep note of them somewhere. And since I have an office job, with very little to report on work-wise, I'll occasionally be sharing these things here, if only because I now have so many tabs open that I can't read what they are.

Check in

Just wanted to give a quick update in case people are watching the news and worrying. A car bomb went off in Erbil today, but we (and all of our staff) are okay. We'll be staying in the house for the rest of today and tomorrow and then will reassess movements after that, though it's quite calm in the city now.

Fun interaction of the day

Buying bananas this afternoon:

Shop proprietor (in Arabic): That will be 2,000 dinar (about $1.60)
Me: Okay, great, hang on just a second (rummage in my bag for cash)
Me: You speak Arabic, not Kurdish. Where are you from?
Shop guy: Syria (names region). What about you, Syrian as well?
Me: No, I'm American actually
Shop guy: ..... Iraqi?
Me: Nope, American, I just learned Arabic.
Shop guy: Are you Iraqi-American?
Me: No, American-American.
Shop guy: But you speak Arabic.
Me: Yeah, I studied in school and lived in Palestine and Tunisia too, and here now, obviously.
Shop guy: You... live here? Where is your family from?
Me: America.
Shop guy: Huh.. America...

Learn a foreign language... It confuses people.

Why I do this

Photo by Osman Sagirli

According to this article, this little girl is a 4 year old Syrian refugee child. Upon seeing a photojournalist with a telephoto lens on her camera, she tightened her lips into a frown and raised both hands over her head in surrender-- at four years old, well versed in what to do when a weapon is being pointed at you.

Nobody can fix everything, and I certainly can't make things better for this kiddo, but the world has the capacity for incredible pain and depth of despair, and equal capacity for hope and peace. And kids like this, who have experienced nothing but war in their lifetimes, like the displaced I saw earlier this week participating in soccer and tug of war with their Kurdish neighbors for World Day of Sport for Peace and Development activities, who have been forced from their homes and have experienced more dark than anyone could even hope to imagine, deserve a shot at some hope for a better future. So I'll do what I can, whatever small part that might be.

A class of Arab students from the local IDP (internally displaced people) school came to
participate in World Day of Sport for Peace and Development.