Afghanistan: A Difficult Birth

Nouria, Kabul 2013

It was 2013 when I visited Afghanistan; Finn and Paddy were 3 and 2 respectively.  I still have the letters I wrote to them before I travelled – only to be opened in the event that I didn’t return.  I’ve never been brave enough to read them since.  Even as I write this, I can feel the emotion rising and swirling in my chest.  Why I went, what I saw there.  The fact that I bottled it all up in order to uncork and unpack another time when I felt more mature and more able.

I entered motherhood with my familiar baggage of crushingly low self-esteem.  It settled on my back like a dull sickness when I was about 6 years old and never left my side.  I don’t know how much of it came from our tempestuous family life troubled with alcoholism and violence, or the sullen atmosphere that enveloped our corner of the island steeped in conflict; most likely a tangled mess of both.  All I know is that I rejected every aspect of my life in Ireland and in doing so cut off facets of myself.

The journey to Afghanistan started the process of reclamation.  It was profoundly cathartic to meet women from all walks of life living, thriving and scraping by in a tumultuous mess of human misdeeds, conflict and tragedy.  Of course I was drawn to that ravaged place by my own scarred upbringing – the flinching fascination with war.  The one I will never forget is Nouria, a beautiful sad light shining out of her deep brown eyes, she had been raped by her father at a tender age and forced to bury the resulting stillborn baby in the back yard.  Utterly sobering.  A reminder that there are levels of suffering that make our own lives look like a picnic.  In a selfish sort of self-obsessed panic I came back to the UK and thought about adopting her, but wiser folk reminded me that this would be an impossible task.
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Flash forward to a few weeks ago, I was seated at an intimate talk in Hastings with Dr Hakim and Maya Evans, a local Labour MP who has visited Afghanistan approximately 15 times since 2010 and who was kind enough to take me on my life changing trip.  Hakim is the irrepressible supporter of the Afghan Peace Volunteers; an organisation that he lives and works with that promotes peace across Afghanistan.  He explained in touchingly simplicity how the planet is experiencing a relationship crisis; a breakdown in our understanding that all humanity is connected.  When one suffers we all suffer.  I was reminded of the thing I knew unshakeably before that dark ache settled on me at the age of 6 – that love is the most important emotion we can ever hope to feel.
You can read more about the Afghan Peace Volunteers here:
http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/
You can read more about Maya’s Voices for Creative Non Violence here:
http://vcnv.org.uk/
You can watch the film I made in Afghanistan here (containing interview with Nouria and others):
https://vimeo.com/106218760
​You can read the blog I kept during the making of the film here:
​https://afghanmums.tumblr.com/

Nouria's Hands, Kabul 2013