GIVE ME FIVE GOOD REASONS WHY YOU WILL KEEP ON WRITING

Oppholdet i Libanon er over. Jeg gir damene på skriveverkstedet en siste skriveoppgave: 

- Why I will keep on writing the next year. Give me at least five good reasons!

Vi møtes for siste gang i flyktningeleiren Bourj El-Barajneh og jeg vil vite hva de tenker om mine gjentatte anmodninger om å skrive, skrive, skrive. Gjerne 10-15 minutter hver dag det neste året.

Og de skriver - og deler tankene med hverandre. Min gode tolk, Kholoud, oversetter linje for linje:

- Writing can give me solutions to my problems.
- Writing makes me feel relaxed and on my own.
- Words are obstacles, but writing more and often makes it easier.

- Writing gives room to my feelings, it is a pleasure to have done it and to see what comes out in the end.
- Writing helps me express my thoughts and feelings, and it helps me to remember.

- I will write to make the hope bright and to expand my imagination.

- Writing is the mirror of a person - it renews your solutions, it feeds the spirit and the mind at the same time.
- Writing is the memory that will make you be remembered when you die.
- Writing helps me continue the message of my life: to show the suffering of my people, to remember my homeland and to save the memories from my life, my people and from Palestine.

Jeg kjenner at jeg får tårer i øynene når jeg leser disse linjene. Og minnes sterke møter med Mariam, Cerine, Zahra, Nadia, Hayat, Wissam, Zainab, Soha og Suad. Og ikke minst min fantastiske oversetter mellom engelsk og arabisk, Kholoud.

Thanks to Kholoud, my exellent language interpreter and to all the fantastic women taking part in the first Norwegian-Palestinian writing workshop in Bourj El-Barajneh. We have worked together and shared our thoughts about writing - and their reasons for keeping up the good work is stated in English in the article above. I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked with you all in peace and sisterhood. Take care.