facebook

We are just beginning to ignore the no-media-coverage fact when we get another email from the group and our faith in our power to change it all is once again, ok a little bit, blurred. This time Jawad, is suggesting that we join Facebook (I am not even sure whether I have the name right), to create profiles and to share pictures and to keep in touch, and I just have to sit and write a note on our blog, feeling inside the need to shout, to tell loud and clear to all our friends from around the world that if you do not see us joining the network, don’t question our friendships, don’t question our enthusiasm, and don’t think that the Iranians are just done with the whole experience and are gone living their own lives; I have to scribble this note to let others know that Facebook is just a very bad website, that the law is keeping us safe from accessing it, that we are off better with its being censored so that we can channel our energy into higher causes and virtual acts rather than spending all the time and energy for a website that is apparently unsuitable for our souls! It is not censorship; it’s just that we should be helped out in keeping safe the good souls we are inside! It is just a matter of point of view! For some of us it’s not as easy as “Let’s join Facebook.” Access is denied! Facebook is not good, and no matter how many Yallahs we say to ourselves, we won’t be having the page coming up on our computer screens. So here pops up another wall, and we wonder how many walls are there to conquer and whether it would be possible to conquer them all, questioning our strength to keep going and fighting to conquer them all? But then again, we remind ourselves that we are stronger, we adapt, we accept, we keep on building ourselves as people who believe in the good inside, who can, who will. So don’t pay attention to the nagging, just know that we are with you, with our cause and we will continue to work for it with our limitations, despite our limitations, with our strengths, our faith, and with that which is above all and is unquestionable, with the love for humanity and unity.

media coverage

Emails rush in, notes full of sentiments, friends trying to keep in touch, from lands faraway and near. Words reveal their writers’ enthusiasm to keep the bikes riding and riding, to keep the journey going and going, to keep as alive as it gets the memory of those shared days and nights, joys and hardships, laughters and tears. Emails with ideas and suggestion particularly remind us of the responsibility we now have no escape from, even if we try to, even if the daily life asks of us, the responsibility we will continue to feel as long as the hope and faith lives in us. But how long would that be? How long? The question comes to mind when I read of Farres’ email asking to share the reflections of our cause in each of our nations’ media and papers. How can I overcome the sadness of not having one clip to send to the group? How can I make them understand the restrictions our team has to put on its feelings, of limiting it all to that couple of days on the trip? Of not having the proper means inside the country that would be a window of the experience for the other women who were not there with us? There is sadness, of not being able to write of it, to let others know of it, to let them envy us, to let them want to join, to try, to become part of it all, of not being able to feel proud of being the source of it, of turning that energy we are keeping inside into some feasible plan? This is a cause somehow shared by the power, by the authority, and still we have not had any media coverage, and the strange thing is that we somehow prefer it this way than the other, that we feel safer not having it. That’s just our wall, a wall they build for us and we build for ourselves, another wall we wish to topple over like so many others. The sadness is there, inside, making us question from time to time how long can we keep the faith and the power, but then again we remind ourselves of the faith in ourselves, in our power, in our love of life, and we know that the human flesh and soul is stronger than all walls around. During the trip we all shared the same paths; today, each of us rides along different ones, but all of us focus on one destination, that of keeping alive the love and energy that will make peace and freedom a reality and not just a dream.

still overwhelmed

We are back, to the real world, to the daily life, to everyday rituals, but our feelings are not the same as before the time we left, not at all, not a bit; we are still so overwhelmed that it is hard to put on the page what we went through, but we will for sure, once we calm down, so that others can read what unique days we shared with unique women; till the moment I am writing this down, it’s as if we have this energy stream inside us that we don’t know where it springs from, we have this elevated consciousness making us sad and sometimes even angry of what is going on around outside that circle of ours, and meanwhile we have this memories we want to recount, to everyone, not caring if they want to listen or not; we want them to know of the women, of the friends, of the places, of the cause, of the feelings, of the ride; we talk and they listen and they sometimes look at us as if we are talking nonsense, not getting why we are feeling as such; we are sharing pictures with them, telling the story behind each one, and they sometimes look at us as if we are exaggerating, perhaps thinking to themselves that this looks like any group trip, and we look back at them, suddenly listening to what we are saying and looking at what we are showing, and we realize that no matter how good story tellers we are, no matter how colorful the pictures are, they can not feel what we are feeling inside, yet we know deep inside that they are of no fault, as the experience needs to be lived through to become the lively creature it is for us, it needs to be lived to fill the life that comes afterwards, it needs to be lived through and breathed through to become the zest that fills the breaths taken in afterwards. There is so much that they have not shared with us, those who have not been on the ride, but even so, the pictures and the talks give them a glimpse of what we went through, tickling them to think of the next ride, of maybe coming along, and we look at them and think to ourselves, they don’t know what they are getting themselves into, and we smile knowing that even if only one of them is drawn into the circle, our sharing the experience is worth the sharing. One by one we will join to make a wall of female love whose bricks would replace the concrete ones around the occupied lands, whose bricks would replace the invisible walls around people all over the world.

از سراسر دنیا ، از بیش از سی کشور زنان گرد هم جمع می شوند تا برای صلح و پایان خشونت در خاورمیانه رکاب بزنند. زنان فلسطینی ، لبنانی ، امریکایی ، عراقی ، فرانسوی ، انگلیسی ، ایرانی ، آلمانی ، اردنی ، سوری ، ایتالیایی ، دانمارکی ، قبرسی ، اطریشی ، الجزایری،کانادایی آرژانتینی،استرالیایی،مصری،فنلاندی،یونانی،ایسلندی،نروژی، هلندی، آفریقای جنوبی ، اسپانیا یی، پرتغالی،ترک ، تونسی و اماراتی با باور بر این نکته که جنگ و خشونت زندگی کودکان و زنان را بیش از همه تهدید می کند و با این اعتقاد که زنان به عنوان مادران جامعه می توانند بر رفع باورهای جنگ افروزانه و خشونت طلبانه مؤثر باشند می روند تا در حرکتی نمادین ، با مردم منطقه وارد گفتگو شوند و دست در دست زنان دیگر سرود صلح را زمزمه کنند
در روزهایی که کوبیدن بر طبل جنگ سمفونی هر روزه دولت مردان شده است ، زنان ایرانی همراه دیگر خواهران خود از سراسر دنیا در این حرکت بین المللی که از هفتم آوریل ، هجدهم فروردین از کشور سوریه آغاز خواهد شد شرکت خواهند کرد.امید روزی بیاید که جهان صدای هیچ خمپاره و موشکی را نشوند، روزی که کمترین سرود بوسه باشد