Ashamed...

To all fellow correspondents,

I have to say I'm very proud of you. I have read some of your latest assignments and felt delighted that you made it! I, on the other hand, feel a strong sense of shame today. It's no mystery as to why that may be: I have not managed to post my last assignment and am hence immediately disqualified to be taken seriously.

That said, I have to share the following with you:
In the past few weeks, I have been preparing for a WITNESS VISIT at work; a target that got me so busy I almost got a nervous breakdown from all the work that was entailed. I was working for over 15 hours everyday for 2 weeks nonstop, and had to go to a meeting in Switzerland for another week; also averaging more than 15 hours everyday. Before that, I had not even been sleeping at home, so forget about having internet access. I do not have a laptop; perhaps I should also feel ashamed about that seeing that I am a voices of our future correspondent with a deadline to deliver!

Even though I feel a sense of shame today, I try to remind myself of the following:
- As I was in Switzerland preparing for a WORLD COUNCIL meeting that will take place in Zurich in 2011 with the theme ''Women creating a safe world''; a council meeting that will bring together more than 1200 women from all over the world, I made sure to show the Board (note: I am in the World YWCA board) the Voices of Our Future card. I promoted pulsewire; told them how much it has meant to me as a young woman in Palestine, and how similar the idea of pulsewire is to the World YWCA dream of creative a safe place for women. I asked them to please consider the idea of collaborating with pulsewire and encouraging young women to write their stories and share their experiences. I felt proud that they all opened up their ears and showed interest.

• The witness visit: The more I think about the country I live in, the more I see cruelty in the world today. Living here, we choose not to think about it constantly, but everytime I get the chance to travel abroad, or have people over, I see it again: the miserable state we are in! I live in a place where there's a big wall separating the civilized from the unimportant. I live in a place that has left me with no proper identity; no passport that I can carry around; no sense of being. When traveling abroad, I had to go through a security-check which forced the woman checking me to take my pants down "for my own safety.'' I live in a place where words like racism and ethnic cleansing are passed around. I live in a place that hurts me; a place that truly crushes my spirit, on a daily basis, while I try to resist. I try to keep my head up strong; a smile on my face, and a challenge I have pledged to keep: to not be bitter about it all.

On a day like this, I feel a sense of shame, for all the things I have not said. For all the things I have let pass by me. I feel ashamed for continuing life; for thinking about a potential normal family; with potentially normal children, when we all realize that no such thing is possible anymore.

But my sense of shame goes on long enough to realize that one day, it will stop hurting so much, and I will wake up feeling graceful again, one day.

Keep on writing, sisters.

Arda