On how surviving checkpoints along the Syrian border taught me to wield my voice | | also: newsletter-ish news
My heart fucking broke in a way it never had before when the elders asked (begged) me for help and I had to explain that while American, I was no one particularly special; I had nothing much to offer.
Pre-newsletter note: I’m so sorry for the multiple accidental publications this week! I am just accidentally clicking buttons on unfinished work, which is only a little embarrassing!
Trigger warning: war, genocide, rape, trauma, threats of violence
A few months back it was recommended I write an introduction about myself. Since then, shockingly, people have wanted to know more about me. I’m not fantastic at helping with that.
Instead of figuring out what a proper introduction would look like this week (I’ll try again), I’m going to share a glimpse of the time I lived in Iraqi Kurdistan. Because volunteering there made me realize that even though my lifelong fantasies of being a superhero were all for naught, there were places I could work where I help people who truly needed it. And, though it took a while, I also learned that I have a way of helping that’s just mine: my writing. And if I don’t continue writing, it’s not like anyone is going to do it for me.
In my 20s, I traveled to ISIS-occupied Iraq to volunteer with victims of genocide. In the Yazidi community I worked with, from Sinjar, no one was unscathed.
Those who escaped, and by escaped I do mean barely escaped, by hours and minutes, were then trapped on a mountain for days without food or water, young and old dying from exposure and starvation, until a path was opened on the Syrian side of the mountain that led them back into another part of Iraq to spend the next years of their lives in overcrowded IDP camps.1 Many still live there.
The men who didn’t escape were killed. Boys who were young enough were taken to be trained as child soldiers. The women and girls, and when I say girls I mean young girls, were sold as sex slaves. I am in awe of those I met who escaped this slavery; those who I met refusing to let their lives be defined by that experience, either, but focused on moving forward.
Early on in my time there, a new friend,
, invited me to his village to stay in his family home. We drove along the Syrian border, because it was safer to be near their civil war than it was on the other, shorter route, closer to Mosul, where ISIS was still in control. We were joined by a member of the peshmerga neither of us knew, just giving him a ride from an IDP camp to Sinjar. We passed through maybe a dozen checkpoints on those drives. They were armed by men with guns slung too casually over a single shoulder, masks covering everything but their eyes. And those men tried time and again to pull me into a small, windowless building that was somehow at each one; to take my passport somewhere else; draw very, very close to me. And every time Fras and this complete stranger pulled me away, retrieved my passport, placed themselves in front of me, between me and the threat. They waved away my gratitude each time we drove away. I never even saw the peshmerga again after that day.Fras’ family welcomed me into their home without question or hesitation, treating me like another relative. Everyone I met there made me feel welcomed and comfortable— and that’s not an easy thing for me2— especially when I was most often the only woman in a given room thanks to the respect given to my unofficial title of “ambassador” (merely because I was American; and even in the larger city where I lived I appeared to be the only one). I was completely unprepared for and, frankly, completely oblivious to my status until my meetings began. They were always with a group of older men, men who helped protect the village, some forced to become peshmerga themselves in exchange for weapons, and I began hearing their stories on my first night there.
Because I’m American, the village elders wanted to meet with me. At our last meeting, they asked me directly to bring the attention of the international community to their plight: a group of middle-aged to elderly men, all with bushy mustaches, with all the pride and dignity they possessed even after—I won’t make you read that story as well, not now—hoping the only girl in the room, decades younger, never been in a fight, with nothing particularly special about her other than her cleverness, could effect change for an entire people. Because she was American. My heart fucking broke in a way it never had before when I had to tell them the only thing I could provide was my voice, and not many people were listening.
I promised I would keep telling their story and keep trying to help and keep doing whatever I could. And I doubted that it would ever amount to anything. I promised to use my voice. And, convinced I would make no difference, I kept my promise nonetheless.
They had already saved me, and would (and did) again. The fighters promised to protect me. Every person there had gone through an unimagible hell, and were forgotten by the world, and yet they weren’t bitter or hateful. They were looking forward. They were focused on fixing and rebuilding for the future. They were (are) fighters, and kind and gentle and protective, and all they asked was for the international community to remember them again, after this, the 74th genocide the Yazidi had suffered.3
Of course I promised to try, without pause or reserve. Wouldn’t you?
For some time, I didn’t think anyone would pay attention. I didn’t realize I had any power whatsoever. I didn’t believe I ever would
Slowly though, I found that my stubbornness, on this rare occasion, might be a virtue. That my unwillingness to be quiet when I think something is unjust isn’t nothing.
No matter how few are listening, I’ve learned how to be louder. I know I have made some small difference and I am nowhere near satisfied.
Because ultimately all I want to do is make the world a better place. However I can. I’m fairly certain that’s with my voice. So while sometimes I publish in the hopes of connecting with others, or because I’m pleased with how I’ve played with language and want to share it, sometimes it’s because I feel the tug of an obligation, depending on what I was writing about.
Recovering from trauma and abuse? Someone else might need to read those words; the stigma around experiencing it and moving on with your life won’t get better if none of us say a word. The unconscious belief so many women, so many people, myself included, have that we have to keep ourselves small? We need to interrogate and dismantle it. The Yazidi people, slaughtered and enslaved and remembered by no one? Will not get help without westerners (particularly Americans) shouting about their ongoing struggle.
I don’t have a good ending for this. I suppose that’s because none of it is over yet. Not for me. Not fucking yet.
The news part of the newsletter
(including a few things that I think I let slip by)
This is the second episode (?) of the newsletter I’m starting
on subjects likely as varied as my poetry along with updates. If you have thoughts on this, let me know! If you want, you can also fill out the survey and you can let me know anonymously!(gasp) The occasional piece of
short fiction
is also coming, so get ready for that.And likely
the next thing I post
will be a poem from my collection I wrote about this experience.There was also interest in an
AMA or something
(I’m actually not on reddit and don’t know what I’d be doing). Would that be of interest?Restating: I
will
respond
to everyone who sends me messages. It may take me literally a month, but it will fucking happen. I’m not ignoring you if I’m responding to comments and not messages; it just takes way fewer spoons.The above also applies to me reading and providing comments on someone’s poetry.
Would it be helpful/of interest to have some sort of sign up for writing critiques?
Oh, and
yes,
I really did have a therapist say to me“You’ve always carried death close”
and kind of blow my mind.Lastly,
September 28-29 I was accepted to sell my chapbook at the Baltimore Book Festival. I will most likely only be there on the 28th, and back in Philadelphia to do a reading on the 29th.
Anyone who lives nearby either place, or by some fortuitous chance is in town, stop by and say hi or enjoy the reading!
Reminder
Entry to the chapbook giveaway
’s review is here and compares me to Audre Lorde, so…)ends October 1st
(
Photos by me; text from me
Please make sure I tell you about what
did, starting during that escape on August 3, 2014. You’ll understand why I’m honored to call him a friend.Especially when a fair number of the residents spoke no English, yet it felt easy trading a few words and phrases back and forth in a pidgin language made up largely of charades when Fras was not there to act as translator. I didn’t feel like an imposition who had only taught herself the slightest bit of Kurdish in the weeks before leaving. I felt invited.
There is a reason I talk about about this so much. I made a promise. But even if I hadn’t, I think I would try and do what I could anyway.
Thank you so much for using your voice here to draw attention and awareness to this genocide! I don’t read the news much to protect my mental health, but news about the wider world always still manages to filter in. I am grateful to have read this incredibly powerful post and been reminded of the impact and importance of raising our voices! I will happily read anything you choose to share, and will write my federal government to advocate for these oppressed and suffering peoples! Endless applause to you for your incredible courage!!! 👏👏👏✍️✍️✍️❤️❤️❤️