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Joy or Above: The Happy Rebel

2012/01/06 by jbuchleitner

Rebel: (n) A person who resists or denies mainstream authority

 Zafira was always a unique girl who sidestepped common, restrictive traditions in her home country of Jordan. She never wore the hijab, according to Islamic custom. She never entered an arranged marriage. She never had a family. Now in her adult life, Zafira dares to live alone as a single unmarried woman- a lifestyle very uncommon with women in Jordan. After leaving her traditional job years ago she currently pursues an entrepreneurial endeavor in the form of an emerging branch of social science research that she believes women in Jordan desperately need: Positive Psychology.

“Happiness is not a very accepted concept in Jordan, especially for women. Here women tend to put everyone else before themselves. The family’s happiness is more important than hers. I want women in my country to learn about how Positive Psychology can work for them because they deserve to be happy. They deserve it for themselves”.

Positive Psychology is an emerging branch of Psychology that emphasizes using traditional practices of the scientific method in order to understand how certain mental processes such as changes in happiness levels function. In essence, it is the study of human thriving. Positive Psychologists currently in practice generally do not aim to treat mental illness rather aim to make normal life more fulfilling. It seeks to use the scientific method not to describe how things go wrong, rather how they can become right.

Zafira established Joy or Above, a coaching initiative aimed to teach the principles of Positive Psychology. It is much less of a taboo subject in the United States and is becoming a quickly accepted method of practice in life coaching and counseling professions.

However, in countries with excessive religious following such a notion is too foreign and threatening to the common belief system to be quickly and readily accepted.

After personally experiencing the changes Positive Psychology has made to her life, Zafira is dedicated to pushing its concepts to other Jordanians no matter the criticism she receives.

I more than identify with Zafira. It’s a difficult to be in the position of the forward thinker. In fact, all of history’s brilliant minds were in this position at one point or another: introducing foreign concepts only to have most object to such new and innovative ideas. The fact is- people are afraid of what they do not understand; especially when it challenges their traditional beliefs or their common notions of everyday life. When Albert Einstein introduced the Theory of relativity, many thought he was insane. When Sir Isaac Newton introduced the notion that light is made up of particles, the scientific community went up in flames of fury. Thomas Edison himself failed an alleged  200 times before successfully completing his invention of the light bulb. Just imagine how many people probably criticized him for continuing with his work? Thankfully he never listened to any of his critics because he forever changed humanity.

Growing up in southern American culture, my entire youth I felt like the odd woman out. Perhaps some would argue with me on this but it is not a common or valued personality trait for women in the southeastern United States to be intelligent or idealistic. It is more accepted for them to be “pretty” and “soft-spoken”. Since my early childhood, I was always well read and very outspoken about my beliefs and world views.

I wrote for various school publications and openly participated in debate clubs including Model United Nations. I also performed acting controversial roles in local theatres Controversy, I always believed, was the necessary earthquake in public perception; a phenomenon directly and forcefully challenging common traditions and beliefs held by society. My gravitation towards controversy, I believe, is what ultimately alienated me from many people. The concepts I wanted to discuss were too foreign and too far outside the common Christian belief system of the culture for most to accept. That was ok with me. I was proud to be the contender.

Zafira is a trailblazer and I want to honor her as that in “50 Women”. I admire her for her audacity and courage to take such an innovative step forward despite extensive criticism. It is people with her initiative that ultimately mold this world for future generations. Initially what interested me in Zafira’s story was not her business or even Positive Psychology (although it’s been a very worthwhile discovery) rather her revolutionary will to stand out; her dare to be different.

“My biggest wish is for everyone to learn how to be happy. I hope that anyone reading my story would see that it is the most practical and intelligent thing to do. They just need to open their hearts and minds to these concepts. I don’t care if people think that I am strange or different for the things that I advocate for. I believe in myself and my work and that is the ultimate strength. I think people will eventually catch on to what I advocate. It is a new idea and new ideas are always met with skepticism and criticism until people become acclimated to them. If it takes me to appear awkward for one day thousands of women to be happy, then so be it. It is a sacrifice I am willing to make because I believe in what I do so strongly”.

View Zafira’s initiative at: www.joyorabove.com

Posted in Reflections: Women of 50 Women | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

Death and Turbulence

2012/01/06 by jbuchleitner

Death. The inescapable, inevitable certainty of life.

It is a chance occurrence that can happen at any second of our lives, yet everyday we walk around seemingly unconscious of it lingering above our heads.

Nearly a week ago I boarded a plane bound for my home San Francisco. The flight was 5.5 hours and my entire body quaked with intense anxiety. Such intense fear was a suddenly arising mental barrier that I never had any issues with before until I became aware of my own vulnerability.

An avid science reader for years, I have carefully followed the developments in the investigation in the June 1, 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 as they were always published in several of my favorite science publications over the past few years. For me, this incident was an unsolved mystery slowly unraveling article by article. Reading the developments were always insightful and fascinating, yet certain troubling questions gripped me tightly: what did the passengers experience the moments before it was all over? Did they suffer? What did they see when the Airbus A330 hit the water and shattered? At what point did they cross from this life into the other and what did they experience in that process? I was angry for them because I felt that they were cheated. Most of them probably boarded that flight in Rio De Janeiro without a fear in mind. Most of them probably sat down in their seats and calmly opened a magazine, popped in their earphones and fell asleep. They probably never suspected boarding Flight 447 would be their ultimate demise.

The day before I flew out of San Francisco on December 18th 2011, I finally discovered (to my avail) an article in the magazine Popular Mechanics with the black box transcript of the final moments of Flight 447 and I was horrified to read it. Nevertheless, this transcript made me understand the importance and the impact of the human focus-driven approach of  the stories in “50 Women”. The reason for this is I have read so many articles on the mechanics of the crash yet none of them affected me like reading the actual words of confusion, terror and anguish of the three pilots on the flight deck that night. The transcript personalized the tragedy, especially when I read the chilling last phrase of pilot Roberts: “Damn it, we’re going to crash…this can’t be happening!”

In reading this I wondered what he was feeling and thinking in that moment- the instance he came to the shocking realization that he was going to die. Did he experience anger, fear… love?

With this in my mind I have since developed anxiety when flying. I used to love airplanes as a child and was always fascinated with them but for some reason in recent months this has reversed to the point where flying has become a nightmare for me. Perhaps its the jerky turbulence that sends my heart crashing out of my chest. Perhaps it’s the thought that my life is ultimately in the pilot’s hands and that I have no control over the situation should something go terribly wrong. Perhaps it’s also my more extensive knowledge of the mechanical function of planes and their different models and features that cause my anxiety. This new fear has risen in my life as a foe to vanquish as I will be flying again en route to the United Nations 56th Annual Commission on the Status of Women session in February 2012. I must find a way to process this before then.  The women of the world need me to be there, to be their voice.

When I was younger I never considered death. I never thought about it or even imagined the day, date and time my own last breath would be. I thought I was invincible.

I was wrong.

I had many difficult years that plagued my childhood and I used to behave as though my life did not matter. Yet after spending the last 2.5 years interviewing women who, in certain cases, had survived unimaginably adverse situations and experiencing personally what joy and contentment life really holds, I began to question the concept of death.

I realize after my adventure into various religious and spiritual beliefs that death has only become more and more confusing to me. It seemed that it was easier to conceive when the only view of an afterlife I possessed was the quintessential model of St. Matthew standing at the gates of heaven handed to me by the Catholic church. It was one explanation simple enough and comfortable enough for me to readily accept and understand.

Not anymore. I cannot accept this anymore because I have become inundated with so many other perspectives and beliefs. Now I am stuck with the existential question of which one is actually correct? Are any of them correct? Is there really a gate? Is there really a heaven and a hell? Are all the prophets really as great as we think they are? What is this thing called “God”?

“50 Women” is my search for God, for the Universe. It is my search for why we choose to hold on to this life and why we choose to fight so strongly when we feel it is threatened. What made these women hold on? How do they currently thrive after so much devastation in their lives and function normally?

After many late nights of deep thought, pondering and exploring different religions and their views I realized it only left me more confused about life and death. More importantly it left me with one stabbing, burning question in my heart and mind: Am I that strong? Can I be as strong as these women?

I have overcome some quite adverse situations in my past, but I feel they are minimal compared to the things many of the women in “50 Women” have experienced. Realizing this left me so weak compared to them all. But I need not forget- their strength is my strength.

In the process of exploring these concepts, I recently began to develop an irrational fear of death and dying. There was something so haunting about death, so permanent and unalterable that troubled me. I began to feel somewhat cheated concerning human existence. What are we doing here on this planet earth, swirling around a star in a sea of stars and planets known as the universe? What is the purpose of it all? By far, my most troubling question is: Where do we go after we die? What do we see? Are we simply reincarnated and born again or do we enter another universe or other dimension. It made me angry to think that we are here and we don’t have any definite answer or indication of what is beyond this life. Why don’t we know? My brain has never been satisfied with mysteries. I have to investigate them, to understand them and discover an explanation. Yet for death, no such explanation exists and I will have to come to terms with this fact.

I just spent a two week period managing anxiety attacks which suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I have never experienced anything like this before in terms of my health. At first I was so taken aback by their powerful bodily takeover that I could not think clearly enough to analyze them. I am a very active person and the presence of such intense, seemingly unmanifested anxiety was frightening and confidence shaking. Once I harnessed them, I realized that they came upon me because I became conscious of my own vulnerability to death when previously my own narcissism and vices blocked my acknowledgement. I was plagued with the thoughts that I could simply go to sleep one night and then never wake up. That it could all be over any second. It is very disconcerting to realize this and to become so consciously aware of this. It was this notion that turned my otherwise calm plane ride into a horrific experience. In healing, I began to search back through the stories of the women I interviewed for answers. Surely, these women would be able to tell me something to calm my anxiety over such matters.

Sure enough, in one of them, I found my peace concerning death. The answer came thorough the story of boona Cheema (India).

Here is an excerpt from her experience with death after her son’s suicide:

I have to say that one of the most eye-opening experiences in my life was my son’s death.

My son died in September which was the same month he was born. He came and went full circle.  My son died when he was 33. He committed suicide in 2004. He had lived his life to the fullest and then he just could not see a way out of his depression and his sadness. He really could not see a way through. He felt that life was never going to be different than it was at that point. He went through medications and counseling but none of it was working.  He was so heartbroken that he just really could not see anything else…

 …The next morning I found him. I remember this day very vividly: I called him around 12 o’clock and then I found him dead around 8:30 in the morning. It was intense. It was a very intense spiritual experience for me. I felt that I walked with his soul to whatever that other side was and is.  It was beautiful! We went through a dark blue door that opened into gold light and then we were just in the gold light and I was back. His breath was not in his body at that point. I think his soul was still there because he had just died around 6 o’clock in the morning. When I was thrown back from that light, I realized that hundreds and thousands of children had just died in that same moment and that my grief was a universal grief. I realized I could not possibly personalize my grief or his death; that in a way that would be too selfish. He was not like that, he would have wanted to be seen as part of a bigger pain where there was a bigger experience because he did not live small little experiences. In fact, being bi polar he lived grandiose ones. In that moment, he was very wonderful and protective. He was taking me into that moment and then sending me back. The next feeling that I got was that I was just one of the grieving mothers universally. There were all these perished children and I was just another one of their grieving mothers crying. We were having an individual experience but being able to see other souls that were experiencing the same thing in that moment. This was so spiritual and so uplifting. I got to see this truth and I thank him everyday for that. Individual relationships holding so much pain, sorrow, and grief are taken so personally. I believe this is selfish because we don’t think about other people. We don’t think about the hardship and all that stuff that is happening to everyone. So I am in a bigger place since then, especially when it comes to grieving. I found a real solidarity in grief.

 My son hung himself. He did it in a way that was not as threatening as he could have. I think his pain was bigger than the physical pain of death. Depression can be that painful. When you live with that depression and you know you’re dead when you are not, then I guess that’s a different relationship with death. For some people, that is the only answer and that is why I think life is overrated in a lot of ways. I think people just cling to it when they should just let go. For some people, they would be more at peace this way. You cannot fight against the flow of things and for some people they fight too hard in the end…

 …I feel that he has been at peace for a long time. He was not the type that hangs on. I feel him and dream about him often. I feel his essence but I dream more about him sitting next to my father. They were kindred spirit…

What does this tell me? That everything is really universal. That the truth I have uncovered through the process of this is real: suffering and grief are relative yet utterly intimate and oddly shared. That death is a beautiful transition, a chance for peace and not an occurrence to be feared. I will never have all the answers to this equation, but there is undoubtedly something out there for us to retreat to. Even the most advanced theoretical physicists would agree with me. The first law of thermodynamics dictates: “energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed”. Does this then apply to the energy we often refer to as the “soul”? When it comes to these issues, my brain is in constant battle between the realm of logic and the realm of spiritual faith and belief.

I have no way of knowing when I will leave this world or how. As long as it’s after “50 Women” is published, this is all that matters to me. As long as I have performed the responsibility or duty I am here to perform during my lifetime, then I can accept this. I pray I will have a long healthy life.

The turbulence will always be part of flying and death with always be a part of life. I just have to find the happy medium of adjustment to where I am ok with both of them.

Posted in Thoughts and Contemplations | Tagged | 2 Comments »

Delegacy: UN Commission on the Status of Women

2011/12/07 by jbuchleitner

This announcement is surely one of pride and the result of advocacy work over the last few years: I have been chosen as a delegate to attend the 56th annual session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The conference will take place in New York March 2012 and will include leaders from all over the world.

The UN Commission on the Status of Women is the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. Every year, representatives of UN Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide.

With the opportunity to be a delegate, I will be actively taking part in the development of these important policies concerning gender equality and other women’s issues I am concerned with that remain unresolved in the international community. Compiling “50 Women” over the last 2 years has taken me through stories of armed conflict, genocide, female genital mutilation, domestic violence and sexual abuse.  I am more ready than ever to take part in this commission session and be the voice of not only the women in this book but women all over the world.

This came at the right time, especially since the rough draft of “50 Women” is nearing completion and coming alive before my eyes. These are strenuously busy yet exciting times.

Posted in Thoughts and Contemplations | Leave a Comment »

From the embassy window

2011/11/26 by jbuchleitner

Dana Davies Coffin with father Rodger Davies, US Ambassador to Cyprus during the 1974 Coup d'etat

I have never met Rodger Paul Davies.

He left this world years before I was even a wrinkle of imagination. The shades over his window at the US Embassy in Cyprus were drawn that day, and the sunlight sparsely peeked through the cracks in them.

 In the refrigerator were small cocktail meatballs and other hors d’oeuvres left over from nearly a week earlier when he was sworn in as the US Ambassador to Cyprus. The embassy was two converted apartment buildings and across the street was a building called “the Skeleton” hollow and drafty; a looming shadow in the distance.

 Inside sat an EOKA B sniper, rifle in hand, aiming for a window in the corner of the building believed to be the ambassador’s office. Yes, the window with the shades drawn.

 Inside the embassy, Rodger Paul Davies was frustrated because bullets kept ricocheting off the walls. He was in the hallway, not in the bathroom or his bedroom which were safe areas. Even though he knew he should not go into his office, he went anyway to call the President of Cyprus for more protection.  He noticed the drawn window shades, as he picked up the phone. Moments later he exited this world as the sniper’s bullet entered his heart.

 His daughter Dana Davies enrolled at the American University in Beirut in order to prolong her stay in the Middle East. Afterall, her duties as a hostess to her father were interrupted by the Coup d’etat in Cyprus. She did not want to return to the United States without him. She never got the chance to tell him. He called her that morning to talk but she was not there. She went out in the Beirut market to buy her brother a birthday present. She liked the market and at last had the chance to explore it as a young woman in her 20s. It was liberating. God, was it liberating. Dana didn’t know that when her father called that morning while she was out, it would be her last chance to talk to him…

Today, Dana Davies Coffin is 57 years old and courageously battling stage 4 breast cancer. She is also writing a memoir of short stories from her fascinating childhood travels through the Middle East with her family and US Foreign Service officer father, Rodger Davies. Entitled “View from an Embassy Window”, the book chronicles her experiences living in Iraq, Lebanon and her stay in Cyprus which was ultimately interrupted by the 1974 Coup d’etat.

“I have always felt at home in Cyprus” she told me when we met for our interview. “Even though my father was killed there, it still feels like my land”.

Launched on July 20, 1974 the Turkish invasion of Cyprus occurred in response to a Greek military backed coup. The coup was organized by the military junta then ruling Greece, with the aim of overthrowing Makarios, then President of Cyprus, and setting up a government that would unite the island with Greece.

The coup was staged by the Cypriot National Guard and the EOKA B, a Greek Cypriot paramilitary organization that consisted of a right-wing nationalist ideology and the ultimate goal of a union between Cyprus and Greece. The coup removed the Cypriot president Archbishop Makarios III and installed Nikos Sampson in his place.

While Dana and her brother sat cooped up in the US Embassy that week, more than one quarter of the population of Cyprus was expelled from the occupied northern part of the island where Greek Cypriots made up about 80% of the population. The Turkish invasion ended with the partition of Cyprus along the UN-monitored Green Line which still divides Cyprus today. Dana was present for the entire conflict until her and her younger brother were evacuated and sent to Beirut, Lebanon. They left her father behind to attend to duty where he was ultimately assassinated on post.

I asked Dana to bring a picture of her father to our interview. It had vintage colors, like a worn photograph from decades ago. In it they stood next to each other smiling and glancing away from the camera as though an invisible intruder had slipped into their home and captured the moment unknown to them. The delicate girl in the image was fifteen year old Dana positioned in such a similar stance with such similar facial expressions it was unmistakable that the man next to her was her father.

We chatted for hours that afternoon about Middle Eastern culture. Her childhood experiences in the Middle East were captivating to me. At one point, I listened to her describe the natives living along the Tigris river she watched from the embassy window while living in Baghdad, Iraq. Dana has a similar connection to Middle Eastern culture that I possess. We both understand Islam on a personal level and through personal experiences. We both understand certain cultural customs because we have actually participated in them. Nothing in this world can facilitate understanding better than personal experience.

I listened deliberately to her narration of the week she spent in the US Embassy in Cyprus during the Coup d’etat as she described the events day by day up to their evacuation. She compared it to living in a war zone and described the solidarity and compassion she now possesses for those living in adverse conditions. The bombing and gunfire were heavy sounds and continued until the day she left.

“As our evacuation caravan carried us south to the British air force base of Dhekalia, you would see the streaks running up the grassy hills and around houses or through houses from shelling. The telephone poles were still on fire and were being eaten up from the bottom and were suspended by the wires on poles that had not been hit by the shrapnel. It was a real war. I experienced what it was like to live in a war-torn country. The coup divided that wonderful country and it’s still divided to this day”.

I wonder what Dana would have said to her father if she knew leaving Cyprus was the last time she would see him. If only there were prior indications that could inform us when people we are close to will exit our lives. Perhaps we would rather not know a certain visit or conversation would be our last; perhaps that would only make it more difficult.

“When we were evacuated from Cyprus I begged my dad not to make me leave because it was one-year to the day that I had last seen my mom before her death. After that I never saw my dad again. I saw both of my parents for the last time a year to the day apart. Some people have told me that I never got over my dad’s death. Honestly, you never really get over something like that”.

Since losing her father in Cyprus, Dana has developed a strong connection to the land and the culture.

She returned in 1995 and met with Rauf Denktash, President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and Glafcos Clerides, fourth President of Cyprus. A plaque was placed in honor or Rodger Paul Davies at the old embassy building, which has since been moved and adapted to the Eisner protection plan. Dana was told that the snipers who killed her father are now working locally in Nicosia. After returning to the United States from her last trip, she contemplated one day meeting with them.

I am very excited to see Dana’s memoir emerge. Her memories, I believe, are vital links to aiding other Americans in understanding Middle Eastern culture and teaching them about the unique customs and religion. Her experiences chronicle important historical events and allow readers to experience them from a very personal perspective. It is also an excellent form of therapy for her to chronicle her experiences. I have never written a memoir and do not ever intend to, but I can imagine that writing about one’s experiences would encourage the mind to hold onto only the most important and fascinating memories.

Dana was one of the last women I have interviewed for “50 Women”. Although my interviews are now finished, they never get old, never become boring and they never cease do anything less than captivate and change me. Through the course of compiling this book, I finally am starting to feel like the pieces missing from myself are now complete. As if all of these women were necessary parts of me, part of who I am.

I always believed that we see ourselves in the stories of others; that the human experience is a shared one regardless of what background from which one emerges. If I did not possess such strong faith in that belief, I would never have put my entire life on hold in the past months to complete “50 Women”.

Read Dana’s account of the Coup d’etat in the Rough Guides

Posted in News and Information, Reflections: Women of 50 Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Condor

2011/11/26 by jbuchleitner

One of my favorite activities is aimless wandering in the city of San Francisco. Walking through its eclectic neighborhoods and observing the different people mingling and rushing to get to places is an adventure. Everyone always seems to be in a hurry to get somewhere in the city- as thought the most important event in their lives will happen in five minutes and they are plagued with the intense fear that they will be late.

At night, the environment is more relaxed; everyone sits enjoying coffee at the sidewalk cafes dangerously bordering the edge of the street.

There is a famous expression that says: “Not all who wander are lost” and when I allow myself to float through these streets I am always reminded of that.

One of my favorite San Francisco neighborhoods to wander around is North Beach. Its  energy is addicting and soothing. Nested just behind the financial district and China Town, it is a blend of ethnicities, wares, street cafes and the famous Coit Tower. Being in North Beach feels like another time and place that you cannot identify; a sort of suspended reality where you are unconscious yet awake, where you cannot sense the passing time.

I stood one day, on the intersection corner of Broadway and Columbus waiting for the pedestrian sign to ignite when my eyes wandered on Condor, a gentleman’s club featuring exotic dancers. Suddenly the memories flooded my mind:

Growing up in South Carolina, I used to know an exotic dancer in my teen years. Her name was Laura. She was a statuesque blonde girl of about 17 years old. Her cigarettes were always neatly situated in the side pocket of her red purse next to her antibacterial hand gel.

Her father was in prison on a 30 year sentence- the result of some kind of a rape conviction. She called him “daddy” and kept a picture of him taped to the mirror in her bedroom. In it, he wore an orange jumpsuit and his hair was turning gray. Laura always told me that he was innocent. She would light a cigarette, glance down at her nails then in a thick, southern drawl would say “Daddy didn’t do anything wrong. He was wrongfully accused”. The wood on the balcony of her apartment had burnt black holes from where she put them out.

Seventeen year old me went one night to watch her perform as an exotic dancer. There was something hauntingly intriguing about going to the underground. On the surface, South Carolina is a white picket fence mecca of recreation league baseball fields and toddlers riding tricycles in the subdivision streets as young attractive mothers chase after them. Underneath the Baptist churches and young girls in lacy white dresses is a different culture; one tucked away from the mainstream yet ever-present. I believe all societies, no matter how clean they appear, possess an underbelly.

I walked into the club that night to a visual feat of flesh and sweat. Rowdy men whopping intoxicated and drooling at pole dancing women sparkling like fireflies in the black cigarette smoke laden dankness.

She took me to a backroom where other women were changing. One stared in the mirror layering foundation over a black eye. It was thick and pasty, like red clay and I sat in silence watching her balance a burning cigarette in one hand until she completely covered the abrasion. Her face was expressionless.

“How often do you work?” I asked her.

“Four nights a week”.

“Do you like your job?”

She paused and turned to face me, biting her lip. I could feel her mind rushing to formulate a response to my probing question. Had I pushed it too far?

She laughed. “I dunno honey”, her southern accent was thick, “would you like a bunch o drunk men grabbin’ at you all evening, telling you they’re in love with you and then fighting with each other? I do it for the money, that’s all. On good nights I make hundreds of dollars.”

“What about bad nights? Laura told me she only makes ten dollars on bad nights”.

“Well, she’s right. Right as sin!”

I did not continue the conversation, because it was time for Laura to perform. I watched her, remembering that she was only seventeen. The men grabbed at her legs while stuffing cash into her lacy lingerie. Something about that scene disgusted me and I believe the inner nausea came from the realization that Laura and I were the same age and that she worked there because she was trying to support herself after growing up with an absent mother and convicted rapist father.

Despite Laura’s socioeconomic status, she was quite intelligent which is why I liked talking to her. She would sit on her balcony every afternoon after she woke up reading the newspaper and smoking cigarettes one after another, only to punch them out on the banister of the balcony. It was riddled with holes, like black scars- memories of all the dead cigarettes that were once her fleeting thoughts.

I often wondered who this girl could have been if she was not subjected to all the darkness. Could she have worked for NASA? Could she be a math professor at some University in Turkey? Could she have cured cancer?

It was interesting to experience that sub sex culture. Sex cultures exist all over the world, cloaked in obscurity and hidden underground; their filthy exchanges hidden from clean eyes and hands as if their very existence were a crumb on the floor swept under a rug and forgotten. I remember listening to journalist Lydia Cacho at the 2011 Amnesty International general meeting describe an investigation she did into the sex trade in Mexico. I remember the responses the men gave her as to why they would be interested in buying Latina teenage prostitutes: “because they are more submissive”.

Many women suffer in this existence selling their bodies when they are virtually still children. In certain countries they are given into it willingly by their poverty stricken families. It is unreal to think these acts are their only options. What is a body really worth? Can you put a price on a person’s being, or their soul? How much should a woman’s vagina cost? How much her breasts?

My breasts are small and humble, does that mean that they would cost less than larger ones? Would the buyer of them receive a discount?

In a recent article about macroeconomics, I read that anything can become a commodity if a monetary value is assigned to it. In the case of Laura, I suppose this is correct.

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Author interview with Mara Williams

2011/11/13 by jbuchleitner

Mara Williams, RN, MSN, ANP-BC, has been a healthcare provider for 30 years and is the mother of a Chronic Lyme Disease (CLD) patient. She currently specializes in treating people with Tick borne diseases. Her new book, “Nature’s Dirty Needle” achieved bestseller status within the first few weeks of its release.

In her book, which serves as a guide for Lyme Disease patients, Mara featured the story of Mona Motwani, a woman I interviewed in April 2011 who is currently suffering from CLD and whose story will also be featured in “50 Women”.

I decided to chat with Mara about “Nature’s Dirty Needle” and her upcoming plans to build the Inanna House, a full treatment center for patients our healthcare system has failed to heal due to the conspiracy and corruption surrounding the diagnostic practices of treating CLD.

1. What motivated you to write “Nature’s Dirty Needle”? 

The idea came to me when I was sitting in the ER with Amanda, my daughter,  for the 7th out of 17 visits in the last year due to her struggle with CLD.  I realized the current system is so broken that it would never serve her or others like her. A friend encouraged me to write a book about my experiences helping my daughter through Chronic Lyme Disease and the book evolved from there. Since I have been told many times that the people who watch their loved ones suffer become motivated to do extraordinary things. It has certainly been a motivator for me! I am planning another book with more stories as I have been asked several times since it came out to do another with more stories in it by those who want their story told. Lyme patients are too overlooked and the current healthcare system is inefficient to help them.
2. You have a medical background treating CLD patients. What are common issues you observe in your profession for these patients as far as treatment obstacles?
Common Lyme Treatment obstacles I have observed are: Patients typically see between 10-30 providers before finding a lyme-literate practitioner. The western health care system does not recognize CLD as a legit disease, even though it is an illness caused by bacteria. For this reason, CLD is not a consideration for many of these physicians in their differential diagnosis when seeing someone. If they do think about it, then they run what is called an Elisa test which checks for antibodies in the blood. The issue with this test is that it tends to be negative as the bugs hide from the immune system and within fat cells. There is usually no further testing so the CLD patient is told that “nothing is wrong with them” or that its “all in their head”. Then the physician offers antidepressants because they then believe the illness is psychosomatic.
Once properly diagnosed, if they have been sick for greater than a year, which is too common, then treatment can be challenging as the bugs have had ample time to burrow into different tissues, disrupt the immune system, hormonal system, and nervous system. Also, detox pathways become disrupted and eliminating the die-off and toxins produced by the bugs complicates treatment. Other considerations are heavy metals, mold and chemicals which can increase symptoms and slow progress.
3. You mention the corruption in the medical community regarding Lyme Disease in “Nature’s Dirty Needle”. In what ways do you feel the system allows patients to fall by the wayside? What do you feel needs to change? 
The IDSA or Infectious Disease Society of America claims CLD doesn’t exist. This allows the western health care system to deny diagnosis and treatment. It allows insurance companies to refuse to pay for treatment and to go after providers who treat CLD and ruin them by threatening their license and livelihood. Insurance companies have sued some doctors for over prescribing antibiotics and won! When someone with CLD is forced to deal with this part of the system they are told it is all in their head and offered antidepressants. The way most providers practice allows them 5-10 minutes with a patient per visit. Someone with CLD requires much more intensive time and intervention. Most providers don’t want complex patients so frequently a patient will be given the Antibody test mentioned above for Lyme which is not reliable and usually is negative even when someone has Lyme.  If patients were correctly assessed initially they would be less sick and easier to treat and cure. If ER docs had better knowledge of Lyme they could treat more acute cases, prevent CLD and the years of suffering and years of money spent on care that wouldn’t be needed.
4. You included the story of Lyme Disease survivor, Mona Motwani, a woman also featured in “50 Women”. What made you decide to include her story in “Nature’s Dirty Needle”? What is your hope for Mona? 
Mona’s story is a classic Lyme story. Mona tells her story in a compelling way that grabs the reader. She is filled with passion for life despite her illness. Mona is getting better, getting her life back and it is my hope that she beats CLD fully.

5. Your eventual plan is to build a treatment center. Why is this necessary? Can you tell me about some of the programs and treatments you would like to include? 

Inanna House is necessary because the current system refuses to help with treatment. Just a few days ago Amanda (my daughter) and I went to see an infectious disease specialist at the local hospital and he repeatedly told us the hospital would be able to care for Amanda if  she needed support like IV fluids and meds to stabilize her but would not consider giving her IV antibiotics because of the liability of treating her for an infection she doesn’t have. He must have said at least five times that his group does not agree with the CLD diagnosis despite the fact that so many are sick with it. Thus the need for an inpatient facility to support patients and to start treatment in a safe and professional setting is crucial. As I mention in my book I had a vision for a healing center that I knew was a collective vision. This was in the early 1990′s. For a long time I had let it go and then when I was in the ER with Amanda for the 7th time I realized that the focus of the center needed to be for those with CLD and other biotoxin illnesses. Currently such a place does not exist. I plan to have 24 private rooms initially. Stays would range from a week to a few months depending on the needs of the person. Treatment could include several different options: detoxification, nutritional support both oral and IV, beginning Iv antibiotics in a setting with 24/7 nursing support and MD oversight, clean food and energetic healing modalities. It would be in a retreat like setting on land with open space and an organic garden would supply food to guests and the staff.  There will be a commercial restaurant that prepares clean organic food as well. This would allow 3 different income streams: patients, garden and restaurant. Someday we can include treatment for animals as
 well.
It is necessary to raise several million, about 25 million dollars , to support the center so those with no resources left can still come for help. It is common for someone who has been ill with CLD for several years to have lost their homes, and all their savings, owing over $100,000 or more in healthcare costs.
Additionally, we would not be able to take any insurance as that would limit the treatment protocols we could perform. We are creating a new paradigm to include the best of all health care worlds.
6. Can you tell me about some of the most revolutionary physicians you have worked with in helping Lyme Disease patients? 
The MD’s I work with at Gordon Medical have all practiced what I call ‘out of the box’ medicine, always looking for ways to help people get well. They are Neil Nathan, MD; Eric Gordon, MD; Wayne anderson, ND; and Azra MaEl, MD; who have traveled the world finding new ways to approach illness and help people. They are great investigators and researchers who refuse to give up and settle for the status quo or standard of care. They step up out of their comfort zone, are open-hearted, compassionate and willing to share their knowledge and expertise. They are not afraid to say ‘I don’t know”.
7. Question of the day, Mara: If you had the chance to give all women advice, what would you say to them? 
We all come into this life with gifts from God or our higher source, all of us. I would say-discover your gifts and find ways to use them passionately and for the highest good of all. The rewards are amazing! It is living a win-win life!
Order the book
Mara’s book “Nature’s Dirty Needle” is available for order by clicking here.
I recommended this book for anyone dealing with CLD down to those who think they may have CLD. The medical advice is sound and the real stories of Lyme survivors are uplifting and informative.

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The long way around

2011/10/31 by jbuchleitner

I waited to interview Oeum for months and I waited so patiently because I knew her story was a melange of tradegy, survival, reassurance and inspiration. Cambodian culture is quite unknown to me so I was naturally drawn to learn more.

We both agreed we would share a meal of Ethiopian food for our interview for one reason: the opportunity to eat with our hands.

There is a sense of fellowship and connection when two people share a meal and eat with the hands. Silverware was introduced thousands of year ago by the elite and over the centuries found its way into everyday table etiquette in the “western” world. It is now the socially accepted way to eat. Its clear eating with the hands, for an outsider of this custom, defies all proper mannerisms and overlooks common suspicions of cleanliness. We do not do this in the United States for two reasons:
1. Many believe touching the food contaminates it.
2. Many consider it to be “barbaric” and “impolite”.

Yet “barbaric” is why it appeals to me. When two people share a meal from the same plate and forgo the silverware there is a very raw connection. A fellowship, a kinship, an almost tribal interaction between them. When etiquette and the sense of being proper is set aside, its hard to unconsciously judge the mannerisms of the person you are eating with because both of your hands are dripping with juiciness from the meat and have food particles pasted to them. Classy.

Oeum is the first person I have met who survived the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s communist regime in power from 1975-1979. Their ultimate objective was a radical social reform process aimed at creating a purely agrarian-based Communist society. Agrarianism is a philosophy that values a rural society over an urban society and when combined with socialism generally welds farming and a primitive, rural way of life with socialist economic policies. In terms of the Khmer Rouge, such beliefs were pushed to the extreme. After taking power in 1975, they renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea and shipped all urban inhabitants away to forced labor camps where even the practice of modern medicine was forbidden. Any member of society believed to be educated were accused of conspiracy on unfounded charges and were murdered.

“They did not like educated people at all. I remember my mother telling me that she burned all of our documents because she did not want them to know my family was educated” Oeum explained when I asked her about the conditions in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge.

About 2 million Cambodians are estimated to have died  by murder, torture, starvation and easily preventable diseases. There was also a strong desire to eliminate anyone suspected of involvement in “free-market activities”. Suspected capitalists encompassed professionals and almost everyone with an education, many urban dwellers, and people with connections to foreign governments.

As a result of the societal devastation, thousands of Cambodians in this time period fled the country to neighboring Thailand to escape the clutches of the Khmer Rouge and ended up in refugee camps. Many have since returned to Cambodia in recent years.

As we scooped up the dripping food with our hands, Oeum described growing up in the Khao I Dang refugee camp in Thailand. She explained the horror of the timely raids by the Thai military and the young women that were taken from their families. “My mother was always afraid they would take my sister since she was about 15 years old at the time”.

Through her story I am seeing the experience of life as a refugee for a child, since Oeum spent her childhood living in the camps before arriving in the United States. It is a sad existence- one of constant hunger, scarcity and suffering. “I think the Thai government is overwhelmed with the amount of refugees in the country. Over the last one hundred years they have streamed in from all the neighboring countries and there are so many camps that they can’t feed everyone in each camp. When my family was there we were always hungry. Food was really scarce unless an aid organization brought it in to us”.

“50 Women” will include the stories of 3 women from 3 different neighboring Southeast Asian countries who were in refugee camps in Thailand and each because of the political and military issues in her native country. There is Va, a Hmong woman from Laos who lived in Ban Vinai after fleeing the Vietnam War. Naw Wa May Paw, an ethnic Karen women currently residing in the Umpiem Mai camp unable to return to Burma due to the discrimination of the Karen people by Burma’s military government. Finally Oeum, who’s family fled the Khmer Rouge forcing her to grow up in the Khao I Dang camp. Although these three stories cannot speak for every woman in Southeast Asia, I believe they speak for the thousands of women still trapped in the Thailand camps who survived similar military governments, ethnic conflicts and wield a similar daily existence with the same struggles.

I know many people do not believe that helping refugees is a worthwhile investment, but I have personally seen the amount of change one person having survived so much horror is capable of making and it’s quite a powerful phenomenon to witness. Oeum has made extensive efforts as a  social worker in terms of community outreach since arriving in the United States for a new life years ago. As she narrated this story, I realize in many instances, she was the glue holding her family together as they arrived in the United States. She was the translator, the counselor, the social worker, the sister and the daughter.

Oeum still returns to Cambodia frequently. On a previous trip, she returned to the village where she was born and for the first time, met long lost family members. On another trip, she took a group of 8 school-aged kids who also had refugee families from Southeast Asia. The group backpacked to the villages of each child’s family.

“Cambodia will always be my home in a sense. I feel that it was taken from me as a child, but now I have it back and being able to return there makes me connect to it more”.

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WEAVE

2011/10/03 by jbuchleitner

Scarves made by Karen Burmese artisan women www.weave-women.org

There are two scarves on my desk.

One is violet and the other is coral with detailed blue and white stitches. I picked them up yesterday morning and studied the patterns of thread in their design. They are tiny and asymmetrical; so specific that I find it astounding that they are hand-woven. It’s nearly unimaginable to think that human hands could make something so perfect and detailed.

The women who made them have years of practice. They have to be good at this because it’s their only means of income.

Last week I wore the coral scarf to an event with the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, and received so many compliments on its beauty. What saddens me is that I will never be able to share these good words with Naw Wa May Paw or any of the other women who make them in the Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp, situated on the Thai- Burma border of Thailand.

WEAVE scarves www.weave-women.org

I became introduced to Naw Wa May Paw’s story through the Thailand based women’s economic sustainability initiative WEAVE. With offices in Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai and Mae Sot, WEAVE’s projects attempt to address common problems faced by marginalized ethnic women and children from Burma in areas concerning education, health, economic empowerment and self-reliance. The women in refugee camps that WEAVE serves have no means of income because they cannot work legally outside the camps. WEAVE has established artisan crafts programs to help them learn trade skills and earn income. This decreases the dependency on NGO food handouts and other humanitarian aid given to the camps.

Through the story of Naw Wa May Paw that will appear in “50 Women”, I learned of the harsh realities the Karen Burmese face everyday. The military government regime in Burma (now known as Myanmar) is one of the most oppressive and abusive in the world.

The Karen are a minority group which make up about seven million of Burma’s 48 million population. They have fought for independent recognition as an ethnic group within Burma for decades. Though they are not the only group that suffers, they have been under attack in their villages by Burmese government forces since shortly after World War II when the Burmese demanded independence from their former British rulers. At this time, the Burmese army was sent to bring all regions of Burma under control of the newly declared state of Myanmar. The Karen wanted the military government to acknowledge them as an ethnic group, so the government started to attack Karen villages, burn homes and use civilians as human minesweepers.

As a result of the violence, many Karen fled through the hills and jungles of northeast Burma and across the border into Thailand. This pattern of refuge- seeking migration has continued for decades.

Recently, more than 10,000 refugees from eastern Burma have crossed into Thailand since fighting erupted between government troops and the opposition Democratic Karen Buddhist Army in November 2010 after the country’s first national elections in two decades. Thailand considers the refugees to be illegal migrants, so they are not allowed to work or venture outside the camps. Women who venture outside run the risk of being raped.

www.weave-women.org

In a refugee camp, one has few rights or freedoms. It is like being a human in a cage. The residents are stuck in a perpetual state of limbo as they cannot return to their home country and they cannot enter the new country because they lack citizenship papers.

Over the last 60 years, Thailand has been a major hub for refugees and asylum seekers. Bordered by Burma, Laos and Cambodia, it currently shelters some 1.3 million refugees. Current estimates put the Burmese population at approximately 160,000 refugees (100,000 registered and an estimated 53,000- 60,000 that are not) packed into nine camps on the Thai/Burma border.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, my place of residence, there is a sizable population of resettled Karen refugees. Many of them were taken from similar camps and dropped into urban life where they excessively struggle. They are among the neediest local immigrant communities as many of them have spent up to 20 years in the camps with no health services or urban type of job experience. In talking to volunteers working with this community, I have learned that the struggles faced by these individuals are much more difficult than what they previously faced living in the camps.

I explained this to Sarah, WEAVE’s Communication Coordinator, as we shared a Skype session one evening to discuss the story of Naw Wa May Paw, and its inclusion in “50 Women”. Naw Wa May Paw is one of WEAVE’s artisan refugee women. It was important to me to capture the life of one of these women from in the camps and I was fortunate that WEAVE was willing to work with me. As I spoke with Sarah, she explained the economic growth projects WEAVE manages. “Many of these women WEAVE’s programs serve have lived in the camps for decades and it’s hard for them to provide for their families. They can’t leave the camp to find work because it’s too dangerous and they are not citizens of Thailand. They can’t go home because of the political situation so it’s quite a sad reality. WEAVE gives them options and opportunities that strengthen their lives and make them self-sufficient”.

Perhaps I will never meet Naw Wa May Paw. Perhaps she will never realize that her story is being read by many people in “50 Women” nor will she ever hear of it. I will send WEAVE a book for her when it is published if I do not have the chance to travel there. I hope to partner with WEAVE in the future when 50 Women Foundation becomes active. The work they are doing with these women is vital.

The night I finished my Skype conversation with Sarah, I poured over photographs of Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp, wondering if any of the women I saw would happen to be Naw Wa May Paw. There were pictures of women weaving, school children with shabby papers strewn in front of them and one of three young women sitting on the side of a hill with barbed wire fencing in the foreground. From that image, I recalled a book gifted to me to me by Refugee Transitions in 2009 after I got them a grant. In it was the story of a young Burmese girl who saw a pink flower for the first time. It was outside the boundary of the barbed wire fence that outlined her camp. She described reaching for it, sliding her tiny arm under the spikes of barbed wire and being unable to touch it. So she sat there, day after day, staring at that flower and marveling at its beauty.

 

For more infromation about WEAVE programs and updates, please visit: www.weave-women.org

Posted in Local Organizations, News and Information, Reflections: Women of 50 Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The two houses

2011/10/03 by jbuchleitner

Photo taken during the Kentfield event. December 2010

In lieu of an upcoming Afghan wedding I will be attending this week, I started to remember other times I have attended Afghan gatherings. One in particular stood out in my mind for the irony of the situation:

I remember last December- the night I went with my Afghan sisters to a party in Marin County, California. It was their first American party and I wanted to introduce them to many of my friends and acquaintances. “50 Women” was featured in the evening activities and I was thrilled to receive the opportunity to share the progress I made with the book.

It was my mother’s birthday that day and I called to speak with her from thousands of miles away as I urged 50 Women Project brochures out of the dying printer I have had since college. I was running late. The women arrived at my house dressed beautifully, nervous and excited about attending the event. It was a large gathering of American women set to occur in a mansion then on the market for sale at a price of seven million dollars.

We arrived and the girls walked around the house, snapping pictures of every square inch of it. “Jaan, this is the most beautiful house I have ever seen!” one of them told me. We stayed late into the evening, milling around the room as I introduced them to the women present and they began to make new friends. I was happy to see them interacting with other American women. They were at the point in their lives where they needed a large community of support for the immigration and emotional obstacles ahead.

As we walked outside into the Marin evening, one of them asked me if I wanted to go to an Afghan party in another town. Of course I did!

Arriving at the small white house, we peeled off our high heels, dropping them nonchalantly on the porch and they joined the mass of others. “You can always tell an Afghan house when there are a lot of shoes outside” one of them told me laughing. Inside the house, the men were upstairs listening to Afghan music, clapping and singing. All of them wore long white unstained shirts. A woman with very precise English came from the kitchen to greet us.

She lead us down the stairs and into the basement, mumbling jokes to us and laughing.

Downstairs Persian rugs decorated the floor and the air smelled like Anise and Cumin. Bulky plates of rice lethargically rested along the edges of one red and black rug with intricate and mesmerizing designs. We pulled open another door and suddenly I was met by a group of 30 women all sitting in a circle in the small room; their heads draped in colorful scarves. They all ceased from speaking and stared back at me- uncovered, fancy white coat cloaked me. I followed the girls into the room as they went individually to each woman shaking hands with them and exclaiming “Salam Aleikum!”

I sat down next to a brown-eyed girl. Her flowered headscarf was wrapped tightly along her hairline and she was holding a baby. “Your English very good” she said to me in a heavily accented voice. “Thank you” I said laughing, “I was born here”.

“You are American?!” she asked, astonished. “You are lucky girl”. She was from Russia and had married a man from Afghanistan. The toddler in her arms spoke three languages fluently. We talked for about twenty minutes and I watched her body language change as she opened up to me. It was like watching a flower bloom as I her smiles spread larger and her laughs deeper.

I must have looked like a circus spectacle with the clothes I wore. Attempting to bring me into the circle, Bebejaan, my Afghan grandmother, told another woman in Dari about my recent prayer with the girls. “She prayed with them!” she exclaimed, “She said ‘la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah’ “.  From my left side, a woman with decorated acrylic fingernails threw her arms up in the air. “There is one God” she exclaimed, “and we are all his children! Beautiful!”

Suddenly everyone wanted to talk to me. The women approached me and touched my hair. They told me their life stories while pausing in brief intervals to scold the children to stop running and stealing food from the seeping rice trays. One told me about her father’s death in Kabul and the other how she got her nursing degree after coming here as a refugee. Their sentences were spiced with “Inshallah” (God willing) and “Mashallah” or (Thank God). In that moment I had 30 sisters surrounding me and it was beautiful. My heart started to flutter like it did when I was a teenager and falling in love for the first time. I realized that love is a transparent emotion. It is elusive and invisible enough to be anywhere at any time in any form. At that particular moment, it was sitting beside me without an utterance. That very evening  I came from a mansion in one of the wealthiest parts of the United States and as the clock ticked closer to midnight I sat in a damp, crowded basement surrounded by women talking a language I only understood a few words and phrases in.

A little after midnight it was time to go. We said our goodbyes and I scarcely made it out the door from all of the hugs and “God bless you” wishes I received.

If I wanted to fix Afghanistan where do I begin? Do I start with the corruption in the government? Do I start with the poverty? The infrastructure? Education or disease? The tribal conflict along the border areas?  Sometimes fixing one issue only uncovers hundreds more- as if taking one step ahead means you slide back down two more. How does one progress at this rate? Can there ever be success and what would “success”, as its called, look like?

Arriving home, one of my sisters turned to me as she exited the car. “Thank you, Jaan. I will never forget this night. I will remember it for the rest of my life”.

“Me too”, I said, winking at her. “Good night Jaan”.

Notes on terminology:

-         “Jaan” is a Persian term of endearment meaning “dear” or “sweetheart”.

-         “la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah” is part of the Islamic Adhan prayer.

Posted in Thoughts and Contemplations | 1 Comment »

Taste of Malaysia

2011/09/20 by jbuchleitner

My Malaysian food

The air in Azalina’s house was peppered with exotic spices and hints of sweet coconut. It was a warm, inviting smell, carrying me away to the spice fields of Penang, Malaysia. There are subtle hints of Malaysia all over her house, from the placements at the table to the food in the kitchen. It hardly has that “city feel”, which is comforting and different.

It was through the means of food that I first became introduced to Azalina and immediately upon meeting her I felt she was my kindred. There was a magnetic quality about her; a strong force buried deep within her petite body that revealed itself in her facial expressions and her bright eyes. She invited me to try Malaysian food that day and our conversation followed my tasting so readily and naturally that those surrounding us probably assumed we were friends for a lifetime.

Now I was promised a full Malaysian meal in her own residence for our interview.  Azalina is a tiny person, but impeccably strong and persevering. Once a mistreated, discarded young girl, she alone launched herself from a Penang village to the career of an acclaimed resident chef in five-star resorts in several Asian countries.

“Jessica, it’s wonderful to see you!” she exclaimed- taking my hands when I arrived and leading me into the kitchen. She showed me all of her food ingredients for the different Malaysian dishes she prepares. On the stove next to us, food simmered in large pots. I was beyond thrilled to eat with her and to try the food flirting shamelessly with my senses.

As we sat down, Azalina explained to me the Malaysian way to eat with my hands.  The warm rice felt like sunbeams as the sauce trickled and dripped from my fingers. The food was warm and spicy yet sweet; a collaboration of exotic spices dancing on my tongue and weaving through my sinuses. The spice fields from her Penang village are one of Azalina’s best memories from her youth, she told me as we ate. “I used to hide in the fields when certain people in my family were looking for me to hit me”.

If anyone knows about accomplishment and self advocacy it is Azalina. Over the course of several hours, Azalina and I exchanged our life experiences openly. There was so much energy surrounding us that it felt like the world was cracking. Her childhood was a collection of painful experiences and layers of every kind of abuse imaginable. I never would have known by the brightness of her personality she experienced such a horrific and inhumane actions.

“My only friends in childhood were a blind chicken and an orangutan. Nobody wanted me. I would sleep outside my grandmother’s house because in their eyes, I was not good enough to sleep inside. Nobody gave me anything. Not clothes, not even water to take a shower with”.

Every endured abuse she described to me was a blow. As though a large man struck me in the stomach with his fists. The details she recounted to me were unimaginable. To know this woman- this selfless, luminescent little soul and to imagine this was 1/3 of her life is quite difficult. It just proves that you can never really know what another person has witnessed or experienced.

“The kids in school used to call me ‘jungle girl’ because my clothes were so worn. I could not ask for new clothes. I could not ask for anything because to them- I was so worthless. If I asked- they hit me. Sometimes they hit me for nothing at all. In one of my ears, I only have twenty percent hearing because of all the times they beat me”.

We served more tea as she told me the intricate details of her rise from sleeping on the front porch of her grandmother’s house with her orangutan to becoming an accomplished chef living in five-star resorts.

“That opportunity came at a time in my life where I was so low I was close to killing myself” she explained. “I got a scholarship and left home at fifteen to pursue these studies. I got this because my grades in school were so good. I always made sure that I performed well in school because that was my only way out. I did everything on my own.  In the end, all you have is yourself”.

In the middle of our conversation, she clasped my forearm and looked directly into my eyes. “Jessica, I must tell you that the most important thing to know in life is if you don’t love yourself, no one else will. If you don’t respect yourself, who will? You are the only person that can give yourself that.”

Ah. How many times have I heard this and ignored it. Coming from Azalina, this expression purely resonated with me as I realized that all Azalina ever had was herself.

When the 15 year old “jungle girl” left home on a culinary scholarship, who was there to encourage her or give her confidence? None of her family members ever believed she would be successful.

How many times have I deemed myself unworthy of something that I wanted? How often was it that I lost opportunities because I believed I was not good enough for them. How can I expect anyone to respect me if I have no self respect? It’s quite simple, but for the first time I really understood it and deeply understood where my own faults were concerning this currently and in the past.

Not to sound vapid, but pondering her words made me realize that I chose to date certain men in the past because I believed I was not “good enough”, “pretty enough” or “smart enough” to date more successful and accomplished men. Its interesting to realize that your personal relationships are really mirrors of your self esteem.

I believe this is one of the most important things for women to know and understand. I know it is something women around the world struggle with. In different cultures women base their worth too often on external people and circumstances: how pretty they are, what their husband thinks of them, what their friends think, what the family thinks and how good of a mother they are. I will always be grateful to Azalina for really driving this point home. This is so important and I often forget it and don’t appreciate myself enough or give myself enough credit. In fact the “love yourself” issue is something I have really struggled with during the course of completing this book. I realized I have tried too hard to ignore and repress certain elements which require attention. It’s time for affirmation.

It is my personal belief that everyone should have a little dose of “Azalina” every day. I think the world would be so much better if her energy and ambition were bottled and gifted to every human on earth. That is how much I hold Azalina in high regard. Her interview made me confront myself in a way that I never have before. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to explain it better. In the meantime- Thank you, Azalina. Thank you.

Azalina's fritters

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