Abida Mohammadi

full interview

I start. Are you ready?
Yeah.

Ahh… Can you tell me about your current situation? How is the situation of your life and family?
Okay. Hmm… You know that we live in Turkey. I live here with my mother. My siblings are busy with their own lives. I take care of my mother. We live in a rental house. You know the situation is hard here for Afghans. I am a lady and renting a house is hard. I live in this rental house with my mother.

How do you spend your time? Do you have a job? 
Yes, I do. I have a job. If I don’t have a job, I will definitely have stress. I do online jobs. Usually I do my job during the day and rarely during the nights. I do graphic work. Most of the time my focus is on Afghan women. Because the paintings I draw are paintings that have a message of appeal. I want to express my voice through art.

Thank you. You said about litigation and painting, and you are painting to file a lawsuit for the rights of Afghan women. In addition, what are the other things that make you happy and comfortable?
I write stories for children. Because when we are with children, all the stress disappears. I talk to my nieces and write stories for them. I also read romance books from time to time. Most novels are based on the past and are about Legends.

Hm… hm… You said you were reading a book. How does reading, painting and story writing make you feel?
It makes me feel relaxed. When I’m stressed and frustrated and can’t focus on anything, I go to painting, colors, fairy tales, and the stories that aren’t real. Painting and reading stories give me peace.

Considering the first days you came here compared to these days. What were the good things and what were the bad things?
The first day I came to Turkey was very difficult. We came to Turkey with difficulty and did not know anyone here. We didn’t have many friends and if we had friends, they were in other provinces. We had a problem with the Turkish language, we had a problem with getting a house, and we had a problem with finding money. Wherever we went, their first condition was that I must know the Turkish language. As I know English, they said that it is not good to bet on the Turkish language. But after 2 years have passed, for now it is good. It has gotten better and we were able to do artistic works through art.

Excellent. You said you were stressed. How do you deal with stress? How do you remove stress from yourself?
Do we call it focusing? Is it called yoga?

It is called yoga. Meditation.
Yes, meditation (giggling). I do meditation. I attended a center on how we can get rid of stress. It was a workshop. I really liked the lesson. When we drink water, we should look around and feel its taste every time we drink water. When you swallow, feel it and feel its coldness and warmth. This would reduce my stress.

Great! You said that there was discrimination, you didn’t know the language and people said why you don’t know the language. You talked about these issues when you first came here. If you didn’t come here, would you have been able to deal with these problems? Let me ask you this. How did you deal with discrimination, language problems and not having friends? 
In the beginning, I was trying to go to an institute and learn Turkish. But I could not afford to pay the fee. Since I was in a situation that was completely different from where I used to be, with a lot of effort, online classes, talking to neighbors and the help of friends who told us to learn, I was able to learn at least the basics. Haha. I finally know the language, but I don’t know it very well at the moment. I went somewhere for about 10 days and did some sewing. To see how the situation here is different from Afghanistan. While I had never sewed in my life and my job is graphic work. I went to work in a tailor shop for about 10 days and felt that working in Turkey is really difficult for a  Mohammadi . Then I said to myself that I am not suitable for this job, I have to do my own work because I have the ability to do it. I continued my artistic and graphic works. I went to a center whose head was Afghan and my colleagues were Turkish. I worked with them for about 6 months. After 6 months, my Turkish language improved. I understood to some extent to ask what is this? I did my portfolio and went to some places and started ceramic works. Life was like a straight line that turned from a straight line into a triangle. My life is very good and I am satisfied.

Great, thank you. Considering your current problems, if these problems happened to you before, would you be able to deal with these problems? Or did you learn to deal with problems over time? From the beginning, I thought that I should be ready when problems come. In the beginning, when I went to sewing and saw the problems, my way of thinking completely changed and I told myself that I have to deal with the problems. The same way of thinking made me control my life today.

You said that you did not do physical work before in Afghanistan. Tell me more, what did you do in Afghanistan? And why did you leave your country?
It is a very good question. In Afghanistan, my work was difficult, I painted murals. And our topic was the soldiers who were assassinated by the Taliban. Like General Raziq. We used to paint photos of General Raziq on the walls of the city, and we also used to paint about some environmental crisis. In addition to these tasks, I used to do graphic work. The computer was in front of me and I worked with it easily. I used to illustrate children’s books.

Hm-hm. What made you leave your country? If it’s not a problem, talk about it. 
I left for a reason because the women who did social work in Afghanistan were not safe. There were problems for all women, whether they worked in the media or had a media face or other jobs. That is why I left Afghanistan. Because there were suicides, explosions and killings every day.

Did you seek asylum here?
Yes.

How did you feel when you decided to leave your country?
I felt bad because no one likes to leave their homeland. Homeland is the place where we were born and we are familiar with its environment and it is our language. Leaving the country is like leaving the mother’s arms. It was very difficult for me to leave my homeland.

Hm-hm. How was your trip? Was there any difficulty?
Of course, every business has its difficulties at the beginning. Because we didn’t know much about it and the rules were changing. Some of my friends came with the help of smugglers but I could not. because my mother was old. I was looking for a visa and we couldn’t get a tourist visa because we didn’t have the conditions. And it had a difficult situation and needed a lot of money to be in my account. We got a medical visa and my mother still needed treatment. I said to myself that my mother would be treated and also, we would be able to get out of Afghanistan and go to Turkey. We came through a medical visa. It had its own difficulties and we waited for about 2 months until they wrote our names on the list and prepared the documents. And we were still in trouble for almost a week. I have to go to different centers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for signatures and attestations. When we came here, it was quarantined. We could not even take a taxi Haha.

You said quarantine. Thank you. How did it make you feel when you decided to leave your country? 
I was very stressed because there was no man with us. I was a young lady and my mother was sick. She has a hearing and verbal problem. When I felt that, there was no one to help us there. No family and no friends. Meanwhile, I did not know the language, so how could I start a life? I had a lot of stress. The closer I got to getting a visa, the more stress I got. Coming and living in a foreign country is very difficult. This was my feeling.

Thank you. How do you feel when you talk about these issues now?
It gave me the same feeling that I wanted to leave the homeland. I felt like I was at the same time looking for my work. It means my mind gets confused.

What do you call your feelings?
Feeling of fear.

Okay. How do you deal with this fear? How do you confront, challenge and overcome fear?
As I said before, I deal with problems by using colors. I just play with colors.

Good! 
Since I said that colors help me to cope, there are two types of colors. One type is cool color and the other type is warm color. When I play with warm colors, I feel the warmth of the colors. And I play with cool colors to feel their coldness. Each color has its own special meaning. For example, red. One says that it means violence and some says that it means power. When you play with the tones, you feel energized and sometimes you get frustrated as to why this color is the way it is. And the colors help me to save myself from this impasse. For example, when I work with paint on a painting, I feel that I painted for all the women on the planet. A painting is a part, when someone looks at it, he knows the whole story of the painter in the painting. The pictures I work are conceptual pictures and full of color. You can find any type in my work. When you turn the board in any direction, you will see a face on the board. For example, as an Afghan woman, when I see the painting, I see my story in the painting. Especially when I understand the homeland, I see it in the painting. If someone is in a better place, when he looks at the painting, he sees better and relaxing things in the painting. I was able to heal myself with these colors. Adults are not like us young people who sit together and do not talk to anyone. They like to communicate. My mother was a little depressed, so I told her that you can paint. My mother got a notebook and a pencil and started drawing and said that black color does not give her much peace and she wants to play with colors. And today, my mother’s painting is better than mine. Everyone that my mother sees, she tells them that she wants to draw their face. These colors made my mother feel less stressed. Not only us but everyone who left their country has this problem.

Very good. So, we can say that this is a mechanism to deal with problems.
Yes.

Great. Thank you. I want to know about your dream. Before you left your country and the Afghan government collapsed, what was your dream?
Everyone has a dream in his/her life. Before the fall of the Afghan government to the hands of the Taliban, we had an institution and, in that institution, we did cultural and social work for children. I would like to work with young people who are unsuccessful in the Konkor exam (University entry exam) and draw with them. I continued to improve my painting. Especially in the north of Afghanistan, where they are far from the art of painting. And women are far from education and art works. I would like to go to different provinces and introduce painting to women and do cultural work together. In short, I decided to become the founder of a school. I wanted to establish a cultural institution. I did things like this.

Great. Have your dreams changed or are they the same as before? 
It’s the same dream, but now it’s a little different. Because before the collapse of the Afghan government, our thoughts were freer than now. But now, if I think about my dreams, a force prevents me. Afghanistan is currently in the hands of the Taliban and does not allow women to work. They are not allowed to go to school and work. Some women have no man to support them. Every time I think about it, something forces me and restricts me and does not allow me to reach my goals.

Thank you. What are your hopes and dreams for the future? How do you see your future? 
My goals for the future. Ah… I don’t know what to do and where to go. Our future is not clear here. We have stress about our residency and where to live and that’s why I don’t think about my future at all. I have no special thoughts about my future.

Thank you. Do you have anything else to share with us? 
No. I have talked enough. There are some stories that I can’t talk about. I am glad you invited me.

Thank you.