Do not ask me (1)

I knew it was going to be something new, something unbelievable; something that billion of people would give their all to have it just once in a life time. I knew it was going to be my so wanted occasion to give, to give truly, to give from my heart. I knew it was going to be the first time that I feel unable to answer questions addressed to myself. I knew it was not going to remain there forever. I knew it had an expiry date. I knew it would never be as I want it to be. I knew what I would have loved not to know. I knew it would make me miserable someday, break my world and build it again with a mediocre word or a feelingless look. I knew all of that, but I knew that I wanted it more than any precious thing in my life. And now, that I know it has to go away I know that I have given for the first time with every inch of me and said bullshits that no matter how silly or childish they seemed, they were just so true.

Home is where your heart is

Do you know how it feels when you challenge yourself with something in which you put all the remaining efforts that your body still have to achieve it then when you are about to give up, it comes true? That’s just how I found myself in the US. The hot and humid weather of DC combined to my loneliness in the first couple of days was a good argument for me to stick at one place and get back to one of my favorite activities that my office work was preventing me from doing it: monologue. Running everywhere in the conference next to spending some cool time with few friends over there were kind of break to my so confusing monologs. Yet, I could be taken away by my thinking from time to time on the table while taking diner or while crossing a long street. This tornado of mixed feelings maintains my mind far away from the realities of my world. A world that I am taking its days the way they come just like if tomorrow could be my last breath. Before my trip came to its end, I set already the lessons learnt from it. It is not my humble ordinary IQ which is getting higher, no, but just surprising myself by boosting my senses to see the important facts before it will be too late. In Algeria, freedom, the one that women from an Arab state would talk about is already affirmed in my case. That’s why I feel like fighting for a freedom that could be too much upgraded from what they are fighting for. Curiously, in DC I could have this talk with someone who just understood what I meant by this so repeated word: “home”. Yet, to meet what I am looking for, there was a real need to define it. I do admit that trips helped me a lot. Whenever I am far away, I know that I don’t want to go back, that having my two loved people who I left behind in Algeria will fix my mood no matter where I am. Then between the two extreme flagging feelings of the first couple of days that I spent alone desiring to get back to Algeria soon and the last ones that I wished if they could be slowed down was laying the answer to all my questions. Home is where your heart is and unfortunately I still can’t say much about mine. Nor it is here, neither it is there. It is such a confusing feeling when you know you shouldn’t be there, but you just can’t find this pencil to draw a way to your home. You realize at this point that the challenge is lunched again. This time to seek the freedom of empowerment, space, thinking and above all living peacefully a true feeling of your heart.

To whom it may concern

“I am a citizen of the world”. What a great sentence, but unfortunately buried with Socrates the same day. Few days ago, in a chat I was having with someone about the great Algeria and its diversity, an unexpected speech came in the middle to reverse the entire balance I was pretending to use to survive with strange people in this land. This sentence was: “ you are dam stupid, you are from the countryside”. At this moment, I felt like replying back. I wasn’t mad. I even smiled. There is a word I am using a lot these days –mercy-. Yes, I have mercy for all these people. I have for them some words that I really feel like sharing. ............. Dearest civilized................. "Yes, I came to this land from somewhere, that you consider as nowhere. I arrived at a very young age. I had no parents beside of me. I have very few memories about my childhood. All of them are bad. I had no one to brush my hair for me to go to school. I always went in a tragic style wearing purple with green. There are days in which I slept with the school blouse to wake up and go with it in the morning.If only you thank God for the tenderness you have from your family. For breaks, I used to eat half carrot. There was no one to get me from the bakery the sweet things that children eat. When the soap that mom sends me end, I used to shower with dishes powder. Crazy, right? But it is true. I had no one to take me or bring me from school and I studied alone. When the lights are switched off, I used to revise in silence under my cover and try to recapitulate my lessons for tomorrow’s class. I have never had friends. Well, nothing changed even now. I cried so much. I cried because my so beloved mom was away from me and I could see her very few. I cried because I never knew how it feels to call someone “dad”. I cried because when I was beat there was no one to save me and take me into his warming arms. My favorite game was building houses with clay. May be because somehow, this was and remains my most precious wish. I had always dirty hands. Many of my loved ones forgot me then died while I was away. Yes! this is how it feels when we come from this somewhere that you call nowhere. This is half of my reality because the other half is who I am by now. So while nothing was beside, I educated myself, I learnt a lot, acquired values, improved myself and reached the true feeling of empowerment and esteem. I knew how to have visions, dignity and principles and how to defend them. I learnt how to love truly without expecting anything in return. I learnt how to defeat the world with my shining eyes even if I feel alone. but curiously, no one of you can be compared to me by now?! I guess, you regret that you don't come from the same somewhere I come from, that you still call nowehre I came from a small poor land and I’m just thankful to God because this is just what made me strong enough to face today and tomorrow with determination and alone all what life is preparing for me. What lighten the sparks inside of me is surely something you would never know. That's why you are not. and that's why I am. Dearest civilized, remember: life is attitude, and this what you will never have :) by Z.B

The man behind my smile

I don’t know what does death look like to for dead people but for the remaining ones I know it is a piece of what most counts for you that goes forever. Once it happens, you will have to do the same things every day with someone missing inside of this imaginary frame that your mind sticks with and make you suffer. At the end, in best cases you forget with time or you keep crying inside for the remaining years of your life. I believe in love much more than what love itself represents. Love meant in my words isn’t what you see in movies or in the boring stories that most people ended up saying: “what a fake!” whenever they meet one. I mean this love of idealizing someone in your life and put it on the top of your examples just under your religion and values. In my life, I have always had a spring refreshing my winter heart with doses of inspiration and tenderness. This feeling that I kept meeting and loosing with death replaced at some point my dad’s absence which is not necessary something I think about but yet it is something that left inside of me the need to have set a “why “ for my smile. I am not sure of how men should be loved. However, the way I do it makes me even wonder if love isn’t actually under what I could feel when this spring comes and lighten my winter. How many of us know that the true relief lies in those moments where we realize how precious a person for us is. Then, it would definitely lie in each single beating of the heart whenever we know she’s so close or she smiled because we’ve done what made her smile. Love would be love if those we love could see it in the discretion of our smiles, deepness of our eyes but also the imperfection of our acts to remain their eternal servants. This is just how I love the man behind my smile…

My 2011

2011… was a year and again it wasn’t like any other year.
2011 taught me a lot and made of me a better human being.
It taught me how to defend my rights when they were raped. Then once I realized how precious my freedom was, I gave the double to defend people’s right around me.
2011 broke my loneliness. It offered me a decent job in the best fields ever. It valuated my potential and opened to me the doors to learn more and be a better person.
It also showed me how precious and few are people who truly love. That love doesn’t know geographical frontiers, rules or limits and means to put your loved ones happiness above yours. I deeply thank those who offered me this feeling, dedicated to me from their time and made of me more than an option in their world.
Right! 2011 reminded me at each step I undertook how hard things can be without my dad around but at the same time brightened my days with the presence of an incredible person who made me feel daily happiness, a person who made me smile in the middle of tears. This is how I realized that fathers aren’t just those who bring us to the world but those who support us and love us no matter who we are instead of running away.
This year took from me irreplaceable persons just like my grandfa who passed away and put on my way people for benefit, people who wanted to reach their goals for which I was a method to that, but I don’t regret it anyways, because what didn’t kill me, made me stronger and I am unfortunately for them still alive. I am alive and I know that it wasn’t the end, that many new ones will enter my life for the same reasons and target the same goals but this time I know how to deal with things by being who I am.
2011 involved people who I thought took what was mine not because they wanted it but just because it is part of their realization to acquire what others values. Looking back now, I know that they didn’t take it from me. Simply it wasn’t mine, and if I didn’t fight for it then it wasn’t as important as I thought it was. I learnt that sometimes it is better to let it go… with a smile.
This year gave me challenges and leadership roles in which I gave my best. And ready to double it next year.
In 2011, decisions became mine. I knew that sometimes, should matter only what we think of ourselves. That’s why I had short hair, became too slim then too fat, I ate vegetables, went to important meetings with jeans without giving any consideration to what each one wants to say about my personal choices that don’t affect anyone else except my person.
2011 showed me the difference between ego and self-esteem, strengthened my believes, my conscience and respect but made me understand that it was probably time for me to start to base my happiness on myself, care for it and do for it what will make it do more for others.

I am an activist and I am making it happen

I am one of the 7 billion hopes on earth. A drop in a huge diversity of men, women, children and youth who need us to smile at them, care for, defend, help, assist and simply accept them the way they are.

34 million of those people are living with HIV. If you look at them then look at yourself in the mirror you will notice that they are just like anyone of us; but unfortunately they miss this feeling, the feeling of belonging. They suffer from discrimination in some places. They don’t have access to services in others and feel unsafe because so numerous are those who marginalize them.

… But no worries, we are numerous too, to stand for People living with HIV… for a world of equality and human kind fulfillment.
I am one of those who responded yes to the fight against HIV/Aids. I am an activist and I am making it happen because I believe, I am one of the 7 billion who care for the world around them.

Since I took the step toward the Aids response, I started to feel positive too, not with a virus but with raised arms for this category that lives a daily fight to survive. I started firstly by joining the prevention field among youth where I could get familiar with peer education and proximity work.

Then I felt that those 7000 new infected daily need more efforts from me and in here, I gathered my courage and good willing to start the field work. Together with my peers, we leaded campaigns; we targeted all key populations in each corner of each city that we could have access to. We worked on education and information as well as behavior change, communication, advocacy, resources mobilization, involvement of more stakeholders and support to people living with HIV by defending their rights to have a decent life and by being present for them as much as we can.

In all what I have undertaken and what I gave, I have to entire conviction that I was given much more in return. I have been given determination and more desire to achieve all the goals and to see someday Zero new infections, zero deaths and zero discrimination becoming a reality with all the UNAIDS agencies in holidays and the red Ruben reversed because we would have all together defeated this epidemic.

Today, I strongly believe that being a humanitarian isn’t a service that we do. It is simply a must and a duty that highlight the best of what we have inside of us.
I feel alive and determined to continue and realize more because of those men and women who set to me challenges to achieve that I hope we stand for all together as real agents of change and make of this world of 7 billion people, a world of 7 billion responsible, sensitized activists who grow in an enlightened present and promising future.

The missing part of me

7H30 am. A lazy wake up. I was already late for work, but yet when I opened my eyes, I didn’t feel like going in a rush. I probably wanted to sit with the scenes of my last night dream.

In my dream, I had a brother and my daddy called me to remind me that I had to do something I still didn’t do. I thought for a second that it could be the sweetest thing happening to me in the middle of impurity and constant maliciousness that you can hardly prevent. Feeling the presence of someone I could truly love but more important: who would truly love me for who I am and place my happiness and good being before his ego.

I have grown differently from others. I have grown with my own vision about the world around me. I have done it with my own values, values that may not be always the right ones or the best, but values that I follow, no matter what the situation is. Probably because somehow it matters more to get the best of the smiles that our conscience make us draw on people’s faces.

I have grown weakly strong, and I knew how to balance it between the innocent smile and the determined look. Yeah! I am one of those who have to see a start in each step and to analyze, think, structure, act then assume bravely.... I have to do that alone because someday, someone who I wished could stay beside me, left and left forever.
At some extend, this is the best of all loses that I could actually imagine. Many people try to convince me that I will just move on and a better feeling will knock ma door. Honestly, it is not ma first concern as I like to remind myself about it whenever I feel like crying something superficial or stupid that happens to me.

Today, I realize that there is a missing part of me, a part that had gone, a part that I can’t replace but just deal with. However, in this deal I learnt how to reflect it positively in my relations with others and yes! I do not matter as long as those who are around will remember me with the best of the thoughts.