While I Was Away ...

How are you all?

I missed being in World Pulse. I was away and have not posted for over a year, and I want to convince myself that I  have good reasons why. 

When I returned to WP in 2014, I was out of work by choice. I finished a four-year development work overseas and decided I will not take another assignment until I am rested and maybe try to do something different. I returned to writing and revived my WP affiliation and was very active. 

Then I got called to help. I was sent to Nepal to help with the emergency response team of the organization that recruited me (www.hi.org) and found myself responding to people that were affected by the devastating earthquake and stationed in the middle of the country with very difficult internet connectivity. I still managed to connect when in Kathmandu. I posted few posts and even got to meet one member from there, but she has to leave because he scholarship grant was approved.  Eventually, I moved to another emergency mission in Gaza, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I tried hard, very hard to continue getting involved listening and encouraging other women online. I even took a challenge, but in the end because of my location and the complexity of my situation - security wise and more, I faltered in attending meetings and updating my profile. In short, I become less and less active.

I made two posts in January of 2017, and that was it. I cannot even look at my personal blog sites when I moved to Turkey. I immediately got thrown into work because they had been waiting for me for over three months. The day after I arrived, I boarded a plane to the south of the country and got the feel of the situation. It was a hard situation, all of the foreigners working for the Syrian refugees were monitored and unlucky organizations were closed and expatriates were deported. I cannot talk about what I do, let alone talk about people I work for, can't even say exactly where I am working in my public page. But we are doing good work, very important for the most vulnerable people. I had seen and heard many stories, they remain in my head. At the end of each day, I didn't have the energy to put them in writing. 

Because of increasing tension in the country, my organization moved out and decided to work remotely. I moved to Tunisia and barely a month there in January this year I had an accident. I broke my left leg and I have to be medically evacuated after I was cleared and stable to travel for 24 hours to the Philippines. Now I am home for 4-months, recovering. I wrote about my experience being disabled on my blog and believe me working in the sector for over two decades did not prepare me for the challenges I met being one myself. It was unreal. 

I will tell you all about my disability journey, later on, it was like a roller coaster ride. For the meantime, now that I found the motivation again to write, I want to slowly reinsert myself in your life. Reading the stories, your adventures, made me miss reading stories of my friends. I hope to catch up and see what I can do again now that I found my voice back after a little set back in my life.