Memoir and Novelist

More Deployment reading
Of course a memoir

NPR interview
Blue Plate Special by Kate Christensen

How can you pass up an amazing memoir that has family, travels, cooking, details of  growing up and love. I recommend it

remember

I hope that I remember these stories for the days to come to remind of what I should be doing and who I should be doing them for. Of course it is always complicated but now I atleast can understand more. Which is why we need to educate and encourage one another. I say always. But I know I do not have always follow this - but I am trying...

I hope this email finds you well and my apologize for writing you late.

I want to inform you that the cash was paid to the following women:

 

*     1500 Afns to Zobaida, the young women who has a very low economy status. she lost her parents and  has one sister that has a serious sickness of kidney and is under treatment. her only brother has nervous problem. Zobaida has no one to feed her and her sister and brother but some financial aid or food of her villagers and sometimes she sells eggs of her chicken. one month ago she  had a serious sickness of (ladies) but she had not her operation expenses. finally we collected some money for her and she was operated.  

*     1500 Afns to Saeeda the mother of 7 children. her husband is drug infected and he is old, he is jobless. Saeeda is cleaner at DOWA and her salary is about 4000 afns/month. she is the only member of family who earns 4000 afns each month and purchases some basic food materials. (When I heard that she has the only two pairs of cloths and in hot weather has no fan,her children slept with no dinner, my eyes were filled with tears and soon I prepared some cloths for her and her children and gave her some other items)

*     500 Afns to and old women who was walking all the road under the sunny hot weather to collect some pieces of bread. when she knocked the door I couldnt ignore .

     

*     $ 20 was paid to Aqela, the young widow women who has 4 children. Aqela recently got job which is cleaner in one of private schools that earns 3000 afns/month. she lives with aid of some people who usually sends her extra cooked food.

 

I passed them your wishes and regards and they were very grateful

Looking for Palestine

Just finished reading Najla Said’s newly released memoir, “Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family,”
Of course Lebannon is on the list to travel... And her story is beautifully complicated like all of our stories.
 

12th

I guess I should update.
Here I am immersed in life changing events at least I think they are life changing.
I have been reading, writing, viewing and talking about what I think are things that really matter.
I guess the core of why we do the things we do.
I have enjoyed the deep meaningful sometimes quick conversations with people whom I may never see again.
I even appreciate what one might see as the awkward pause but really it is more like the power of being
comfortable in a conversation in which no one is physically speaking.
This afternoon was one of those days.
After having a near perfect morning.
Very hard to explain what that looks like but I guess I would use the word simplicity.
espresso, listening to Italian conversations, laughing, silence
In some conversations I am just the mute the smiles literally only grabbing a few words.
Sometimes when they feel absolutley necessary do they lean over and translate.
Fresh bread with nutella and stronger that normal coffee with warm milk in very flimsy white plaster cups
Pasta with grilled yellow and red peppers (almost orange), a hunk of salty white cheese, balsalmic vinegar.
More conversation about the news and espresso. You have drink espresso about an hour or so before the lunch   and immediately after. This for now has replaced the comfort of the sweet Iraqi Chai from years before.
Then an afternoon nap. Not intentional but in this situation you go back to your own room to rest.
The natural pace during these types of days just takes you there.
I am reading an amazing book Looking for Palestine by Najila Said. I am absorbed by the complexity of Najila's life.
And really just how much I do not know about this world.
I fall asleep and dream that I am actually asleep in a diffrent room, two doors on the other side of the hallway
napping next to a friend. The true essence of the word napping. deep comforting sleep.
Tomorrow will be completely different but I am completely thankful for today.

I did not continually analyze the future, what I should be doing, what I need to be doing.