I am where I’ve dreamed from various movies I’ve seen, sitting in an outdoor café, cobblestone street across from the Academia di Bella Arte in Milano, Italy, surrounded by bohemian artists, smoking cigarettes, and the lilting, bouncing language that loves to end words with an “o” and pronounce “c” as if it were “ch”. I sip a cappuccino and wonder where my interest in travel dissipated. Certainly not from a sense of boredom, nor for lack of interest in architecture, history, sunshine or cuisine. I have sold my home away, so I cannot be pining for roots, either. I feel more alive and hopeful than perhaps I’ve ever felt, even as I approach that all-foreboding half-century mark. It must be love. But what is this love? Romance is about as alluring to me now as watching CNN in a hotel lobby. I search for a fissure in this temperament. There is some fear, trepidation, a tinge of adventurousness, but mostly I feel calm. Other than going down this road I am on, my only desire is to write. That is where I am, and where I must begin this new chapter in the story of a volunteer’s almost accidental journey into the hearts of a people and a place he knew nothing of nor cared about until a year ago this month.
The reason I am here in Italy is to visit two of the girls I taught last spring and summer in Kabul, Farzana and Mahbooba, as well as their Italian “parents”, Stefano, Elisa, Angela and Maurizio. Lagging from a red-eye flight from Washington to London to Milano, I arrived with a certain amount of misgiving. How would I be received by the parents, but more importantly how would the girls react to my sudden drop from the sky into this extraordinary renaissance of their young orphan lives?
I met Angela and Elisa first. They received me at the airport and settled my schedule for me. I’d stay with Elisa and her husband Stefano, where I’d spend some time with Mahbooba. After dinner I’d give a presentation on AFCECO orphanages to a group of community members. The two women made me feel immediately welcome. Aside from this kissing of the two cheeks business, I was enchanted by their seeming awareness of who I am in the eyes of the orphans. My fears assuaged, I thought perhaps the girls still remembered me as I remembered them.
The door to the flat opened and there was Mahbooba. She was smaller in stature than she had grown in my imagination. I certainly looked older and fatter. So much for memory. Then she ran into my arms, her ear to my heart, as if I had never left. We settled into the sharing of stories, both from the orphanage and from her time in Milano. Elisa was warm and generous with her spirit. I was soon to learn we, including her husband Stefano are all kindred. They too had been looking forward to seeing me, eager to discuss difficulties that had recently complicated their role as caregivers, mentors, protectors of this dynamic, independent and sometimes stubborn Afghan orphan.
Soon it was time to give my presentation. Still reeling from the celebration of Andeisha at the Kennedy Center in D.C. only two days before, having had only a few hours sleep and emotional after having reunited with the first of my Afghan students, I had to pull myself together for one last presentation. I’d given a hundred of them across America, to audiences of five or five hundred, from cafes to living rooms to lecture halls, but here I knew I must be in my utmost top form. That is why I decided to begin with a small speech I had written in Italian. Mahbooba helped me practice pronunciation of the words. What a wonderful reversal, this Afghan orphan teaching me Italian! A group of about forty people arrived, and then, finally Farzana. I heard her before I saw her. “Hello Ian-jan!” This was a happy girl, I saw it in her eyes right away. Happy in her life, with Maurizio and Angela, with her school. It cannot be stressed how miraculous this is. A girl who at the age of five in a poor Bamyan village witnessed the massacre of 300 men including her father, many by beheading, many skinned alive, noses lopped off, slow and painful deaths. Here she was in her stylish Italian clothes, smiling. Soon I would sense though she had begun to embrace all that is wonderful in western society, freedom to walk on a street, a wealth of education, jazz dancing and pizza and teddy bears tucked into her bed, she also retained her Afghanness if you will, something difficult to describe. She was somehow melding the two, balancing them into one life.
As usual, what I had planned was usurped by impromptu elements of the event. Eliza had asked me to bring my cittern, and had plotted to have me sing. So I began with the story of how it was I taught the orphans how to sing Dylan’s anthem, Blowin’ in the Wind. It was perhaps for the benefit of Mahbooba and Farzana who sat and giggled as I brought back memories of the orphanage and some of the other children. I explained how it is easy to teach English through song. We all remember Julie Andrews teaching music to the Von Trapp children. It is interesting to note that the children even get their pronunciation accurate while singing as compared to simply reciting sentences. The ice broken, I read my Italian speech. Though I fumbled, I knew the universal path to common ground is showing enough respect to at least attempt learning the host language. The rest of the evening went splendidly, including the great (and now predictable) response to the video I share about Mehan. I wonder what it was like for Mahbooba and Farzana to see themselves a year before in the orphanage, a light-year away from where they are now. Two hours later, after a lengthy question and answer period it was time to go. The people there donated an additional $360 worth in Euros to the education fund I raised while traveling the states, bringing the total to $16,850.
Only eight hours in Melano and I felt like I had been there a month. Ensuing days my hosts gave me a tour of sites in and around the city. Most enjoyable was, because Angela is a senior researcher in astro-physics, I was given the opportunity to hold in my hands an original edition of Galileo’s first treatise on our universe. Otherwise, though I found the various chapels and cathedrals, piazzas and wines inspiring and even poetic, the thrill of my visit was strolling about with the host families and the two orphans, bouncing between them, joking, remembering, teaching, and of paramount interest making an estimation of Mahboobo’s and Farzana’s progress, their moods and conflicts, as well as the attitudes of their Italian parents, their own struggles and expectations and approaches to the unique experiment of raising these particular children. I wanted to perform the role of emissary, counselor, cheerleader from the perspective of a westerner who also understands thoroughly the priorities of AFCECO. In the end I could not have been more hopeful and pleased. Raising children is such a personal journey. To share in that task with a spouse let alone an organization, an orphanage, a movement, surviving family member and in some ways an entire country is heroic. The two couples are as loving, responsible, sensitive, steadfast and flexible as any could be hoped for.
I gave to Mahbooba a book of photos. The subject was art in nature. She was the winner of my photography contest last year, and I wished to reinforce that strength. Farzanna received two collections of poetry by Mary Oliver. It was not long before we relaxed into the roles we had established in the orphanage. Laughter, teasing, and serious discussions wove through our days together. Always lurking was yet another departure. The two children in their individual ways struggle with missing their beloved orphanage. It had after all been their home from as far as they could remember. I too struggled with my own insecurities. “Is it possible,” I asked Farzana as I said goodbye to her, “I might in some small way still be one of your teachers?”
“How many teachers do you think I have?” she scolded. “I have only one teacher!”
No matter how you break it down, no matter how many shortcuts you take, getting to Afghanistan is a life-long journey.
