Marḥaban

Marḥaban! مرحبا Hello!

Kayfa ḥālak? كيف حالك How are you?


I am Egyptian. Real and true Egyptian. I have two nationalities (Egyptian and Dutch) and I possess (if they give them back that is) two passports.


My family is from Alexandria (Iskandariyya). My sister, seven years my senior, is born there too and lived there with my parents until she was five years old.


My parents are Copts and had to flee the country.


Egypt is in my blood. My favourite food is Egyptian street food (see the poetry blog, it has a link to a few recipes I put there). I love to cook and I am a good cook. I'll put some more healthy and not-so-healthy recipes up there, including jaw-breaker baclava!


My Arabic roots have mostly given me love for Arabic poetry, contemporary as well as ancient poetry. I translate it and sometimes I am sitting here singing in my chair while doing so.


Is it strange to feel homesick? I've not even been to Egypt! I've seen all of Europe, I've lived in France, Germany, England, Norway, and some countries in Eastern Europe. Not homesick there. But Egypt?


I am weird! Officially!


(to be continued)

Arms, legs, back and the rest

Over the past five years I have seen many hospitals, all sorts, styles and sizes. Hospitals and their staff are interesting. Every country, every hospital is different in so many ways.

In some the staff is very authoritarian, meaning you as patient better adjust, and be quiet, stay in bed, and do as the doctor says.
In others it is more self-service. The doctor plans outlines, nurses make sure your IV and other medication is regulated, and for the rest it is DIY. Unless you drop on the floor unconscious, you can do whatever you like.

And then there is the hospital I mostly go to here. It is specialised in major trauma of every sort, from burns to brain damage, war wounds to traffic catastrophes. When they met me, I was barely alive and was flown in from a country far away. They didn't think I would survive and they kept me in a coma for a long time while they did the basic jobs necessary, not expecting anything. But of course I am stubborn and stayed alive against all odds.

They did well!
It is not their fault I need so much hospital at all. They are slowly fixing me again, bit by bit, step by step. I partially lost vision and hearing but hey! I can see and hear so that's okay. I can live with it.
I wasn't able to lift an arm, which means that apart from typing on my keyboard, and luckily being able to ride my wheelchair, a whole lot of new tricks needed to be learned to stay independent. But now they managed to give me back my freedom by fixing my right arm, and my left arm will soon follow. This makes me happy :)

After this they will start working on my back most probably. I do not expect to walk for more than a few meters/yards but that is okay. As long as they manage to decently fixate my spinal cord within my wobbly vertebrae I am happy. I love my wheelchair, but I don't love the pain and the uncertainty!

And then the rest.
Maybe one day I will tell you the rest, for now this is enough, don't you think?
Thought so ;)
<3

TREES or SEA

Those who know me, are probably aware that I don't like trees. I don't like woods, I don't like forests. I would make a lousy Robin Hood, or Marian. They would have to drag me into Sherwood Forest yelling and screaming.

Forests are the epitome of everything that is wrong, embodiment of evil. To me.

Give me meadows with flowers, mountains and glaciers, beach and sea, and stars in an endless dark sky. Horizons vast and all encompassing. Roads broad and disappearing at the horizon.

I lived in the deep of the forest, the house was gorgeous, so were the lands surrounding it. Birds and little animals everywhere. The house was far away from roads and villages. The gardens beautifully kept, and no sound of highway, or human life to be heard, just the wind rustling in the trees, and singing of birds high up.

And nowhere to go.

Today I am living in a place where I can go to the sea every day if I want to. And I often want to.

But I also want me to like trees again, and to be in a forest, to gather chestnuts or little forest strawberries. It will take a long time, but I am determined.

LONGING

The link is temporarily disabled sincce the poem has been entered for a contest!!

LONGING

LONGING

The link is temporarily disabled sincce the poem has been entered for a contest!!

If ever there is anything I would like you to understand about me, it is included in this poem and this music.

When I was very, very small, I hardly remember what age, I was a happy child. That is what I am told. A child that liked to play, sing and dance. A child that liked to wear their mum's shoes and jewellery.

Then my granddad came along and my world changed. If it weren't for him, I would never have connected to our loving part of Facebook, never have found my marvellous friends. But do you mind if I tell you that I really wish the reason for meeting you all were a different one?

I can't remember anymore. What I do remember though is a body and mind memory. And a melancholic wish to be there again. A small child with a sister who made up all sorts of stories for her and me to play-act. She as the knight in shining armour, me as the damsel in distress, dressed in her dresses. I already lived with him, my granddad, but I wanted to be with my sister and my parents.

These snippets of memory colour my day with happiness, sadness and longing. It is that feeling that is captured in this poem with this music. THAT.

When I was still living in this mental facility near the beach, my psychiatrist had the habit of taking me to the beach in the shimmering almost evening light, to talk to me there. I am sure that is what he liked most, and so did I. It was easier for me to talk to him there, because of the soothing calm of the sea sounds, and the wind blowing my hair around my head. It distracted me and it made me more open.

This poem, it is me, it is everything I was and everything I am.

About Gilles de la Tourette

Definition: Tourette Syndrome

There it is. Something I most definitely do NOT want to have. Especially since I always related it to coprolalia, the use of inappropriate language.

Because I do NOT do that. I do NOT:

• Swear
• Curse
• Scream

What do I do?

• I have tics around my mouth 
• I have tics around my eyes 
• Throw my head to the back 
• My hands sort of 'flap'
• My arms flail, I am often black and blue

I do NOT want this, but they really think I do...

It has of course its fun sides. I look playful and dancing, always ready to jump from that wheelchair to run on stage and dance. This is true and I'd like to do that. I have my poems, and my slam poetry I composed for performers. It is a wish of mine to perform those myself.

Quite a number of my poems have a certain rhythm and cadence, and are created to be performed on stage, with or without music. And I know that when I am singing I do not stutter, isn't that something great? I also throw off my incredibly painful shyness on stage. Don't ask me why, it happens.

So, stuttering, Tourette (or not) and shyness: GO
I will one day stand there and perform
I will flap my hands and they think I will fly away
And that is what I will do. Sing, dance, and fly away, fly away
Far away from reality.

They think I have Tourette.
I sigh and say: IT'S ON! COME AND GET ME!
It's just one more label, there are many labels attached to me. I give them Pride-tags and places of honour.

It is not who I am, what they say I am is not WHO I am.

I am ME
I smile at you and challenge you to interject me
I will inject you with my borderless optimism
Come join me and feel good
I will create a poem for you
One you can dance on
Let's dance together

<3

Trafficking

From http://www.dictionary.com/browse/trafficking:

Noun

Illegal commercial trade in human beings for the purpose of exploiting them: the traffic in young children.

Verb (used with object), trafficked, trafficking.

To trade in (human beings) for the purpose of exploitation: He was convicted for trafficking illegal immigrants.

Origin  

Middle French trafique (noun), trafiquer (v.)                      

Italian traffico (noun), trafficare (v.), of disputed orig.     

From: Interpol:

Trafficking in human beings      

Crimes against children
Sex offenders
PDF - Victim Identification  

From: Humantraffickingsearch.net: Child sex tourism 

From: AAP Gateway (Pediatric Resources): Child Sex Trafficking and Health Issues

       

***

This is about me, but I cannot talk about me, it is far too hard, and too triggery. It is the reason for my nightmares and daily flashbacks, it is the reason my body and my mind are ruined and I ride a wheelchair. I cannot talk, I cannot talk....

And that is why I am asking you to read as much as you can about the subject yourself, and understand me and children like me a little better.

Thank you
With all my love
Darren

SCHOOL

When I was finally awake, and I mean literally FINALLY awake, I found myself in a hospital. In The Netherlands of all places. The last place I remembered being in, was a country far away.

Whole armies of concerned citizens gathered around me for several reasons. Some were there for my mental wellbeing, some were law enforcers, but most of them were there to try and keep me alive, which was no small feat, I can assure you.

There was one issue I disliked most, and that was the 'opening up' issue. A psychiatrist was there, he came every day and did his best to get me to talk. This alone was quite impossible. Not only was I unable to talk, I didn't WANT to talk. I wanted to be left alone. Only he didn't leave me alone, he was there every day and we held this competitive silence together for days, even weeks I think, not sure.

And then he presented me with something that suddenly interested me. He said: "What if we enroll you in school, so you can have a decent education. And in return you start talking to me?". So I wrote to him: "SCHOOL???"
"Yes, school. I am fairly certain that you haven't set foot in any school over the past five years."

He was right. Ever since the trafficking business had started, I had travelled all over the eastern parts of Europe and I had learned a lot, including a few languages, but I had not been to school since I was 10 years old.

I wrote: "I am NOT interested in sitting in class with children half my age". To which to my surprise he started snickering. "NO. I mean we can enroll you in online school, we assess your capabilities and where you lack knowledge and we take it from there."
I (suspiciously): "and what do you want in return?" He: "For you and I to start talking properly."

It took me only a few hours to think about that. I LOVE school, I love learning, I love languages, I said "YES".
From that moment on I spent every minute awake on my education. I sped through the topics I lacked to go to High School. And then I just ran through High School.

I kept my promise and started opening up to that psychiatrist. I don't see him anymore because I am now living someplace else. But I will never forget him because he was inventive, thinking out of the box, and because he offered me the opportunity to start living. Thanks to him I found in myself a spark of life.

Wheels

To us, wheelchair users, there is something strangely appealing to our chair.
At least to me there is.

I like my wheelchair a stylish one, much like myself. I like clothes that match my eye colour, my hair colour, they have to be loose-fitting and eye-catching.
The same goes for my wheelchair. Mine is very very fast, slim, lightweight and agile. Its colours range from blue to purple. It's an eye-catcher.

I am also very possessive and protective of my chair. Often I stay at a place where younger children live, somewhere between the age of 10 and 15. It's not so much a mental facility for children as an all-round care facility, with not only psychiatrists and social workers, but also physio-therapists, doctors and nurses.
I don't live there, but I go there for therapy in all its forms.

Nine times out of ten, my wheelchair is gone when I am finally done with therapy. There is always the same little group of vandals stealing it. And they race with it. And unfortunately they have seen me race down the stairs with it.
And of course they want to  try the same. I am not able to run after them, why would I need a wheelchair if I could? Truth be told, I CAN walk a very small distance, really I can, but that does not involve chasing a racing-wheelchair.

When the nursing staff finally manages to return my wheelchair to me, it's always with a disapproving look. As if it is my fault. IT IS, they say, YOU STARTED DOING THAT. And that is true. I am the one who invented wheelchair racing here, but that was a few years ago, when I was still living here. Apparently once a villain, always a villain.

You can roughly divide wheelchair thieves into two categories:
- the racing kind, the ones who love speed and competition
- the stylists, who sit in the chair, sighingly caressing it's beautifully coloured frame.

I am somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. I do both. And that's exactly what I am everywhere. I can't seem to choose ANYTHING.
Will I be a scholar, or a writer?
Will I be the linguïst, or in the end choose for the PhD in Arabic?
Will I be a real gay, or will I be fluid till I melt away?
Will I learn to speak properly and fluently, or just give in and finally do that course in sign-language?
Will I force myself to learn to walk again, or will I pledge myself to wheelchair-racing?

Will I? Will I?

I have no idea, the future is quite open and colourful, like I am, like my wheelchair is. We are quite the pair and we are fond of each other.

Speech

"That's right, stupid little voice, bash all my hopes and dreams. Shut up and tell me how to start a conversation with someone who doesn't speak."
- Cody Kennedy "Ómorphi"

***

To me, speech is this:

• Strange
• Frustrating
• Incomprehensible
• Problematic
• Amazing
• Annoying

Since my earliest years I have been stuttering to the extreme. And stuttering to me is only now and then hanging on a letter, or a syllable. No, it is more this: Starting a word, or a thought, and not being able to continue. Which means that the person I am talking to is presented with someone who is utterly silent, while at the same time looking at him/her intently and desperately.
And to accompany this, I have tics. Which means my face is contorted while I am trying to speak, and I involuntarily twitch my arms. (I have Tourette's Syndrome but that's a whole new observation and we'll leave that for now).

I grew up in an extremely violent and abusive environment, where failure was not allowed. And failure included failing to speak. Therefore I was punished beyond belief and I became silent, unable to speak. At school bullying for this reason, for the tics and more (me being gay) was extreme, and I withdrew even more.

I created my own fictive safe place and stayed there as long as I wanted/needed.

I have been speaking over the past years. I had speech therapy and learned to communicate. Especially with friends and while talking about safe subjects it has even been easy. Although never as easy as they may think.

The weirdest thing happened a while ago. Because of the abuse I suffered, my throat, and especially my larynx and vocal chords were damaged. My vocal chords were repaired and I, once again, am back at having speech therapy. This is one frustrating journey! Why?
To be able to speak properly, I have to think now. And while I think, I tend to OVERTHINK. As a result I am back to my childhood stuttering... almost. With strangers I cannot speak anymore and have started to write again, on a notepad, with a pencil.

To people I know I can speak face to face, as long as it is a safe and familiar subject, and as long as it is only one person at a time. Groups (two or more) are a no-no.
I have two friends with whom I Skype. Jody and Ahmad (my love :).
I think they can testify about the strange ways stuttering comes and goes.

Ahmad had the most funny and annoying observation here. Once I shared my Skype screen with him while I was playing my favorite MMORPG: SW:TOR. While he watched me play, I explained what I was doing. All the while I SPOKE, really SPOKE. Which means that when my mind is distracted, this whole issue is a non-issue.
Ahmad also observes that when I am talking to him about abuse, this stuttering becomes bad to the point that I go back to typing in Facebook Messenger or IRC.
And then HE is my closest and dearest friend.

Which makes me wonder: will there ever be a time where I speak freely, even about the most horrible subjects? I tend to think not. Will I be able to get used to it? I now think I will. I am slowly getting more confident. Not only about speech, but about everything that is me. Stuttering; twitching; gay; totally non-binary; effeminate; not-sure-what gender; wheelchair.

I am me!
I hope you all can accept me the way I am, while I do my best to accept myself and discover me.
Love you all!

Darren <3