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HELLO AND WELCOME TO MOUNTAINMAMARU:

“When you have children, you’re reliving your life with different eyes. Whether you have a boy or a girl; it’s all YOU, just a feminine or masculine side of you. How do you begin to relive your life? How do you speak to YOU?” -Aruza Hasan

My name is Aruza Hasan, I was born in Kurdistan, raised in Nashville Tennessee and reside in Plano Texas. I know what you’re thinking, why in the world would you name your blog mountainmamaru. Well, grab your cup of tea/coffee and a date…

I don’t remember much of my childhood in Kurdistan but the little that I do know I’d like to share. The only memories that stick with me are not from my own memory but of others memories about me. However, there has been one memory that haunts me till this very day. One that I had never shared with anyone until recently, I called my parents up to see if they knew of what I was talking about, and they thought I was too young to have remembered that but that it is possible because it was subject to lasting shock as a result of an emotionally disturbing experience. I at the age of 2 1/2 or 3 experienced explosions. I vividly remember only a glimpse of that time, hearing a violent eruption, and I so terrified grabbed my brother to carry him to safety. Safety was a hole dug three meters deep and one meter in width; blocks of wood covered it along with something like a piece of metal sheet so that it holds up and on top of that dirt to cover it so that when bombs were thrown we would be protected. For three years my family along with five other families lived in an abandoned school. There were six classrooms and each family would live in one class room. In 1988, a lot of Kurdish soldiers and their families had to run away from a situation of danger, they never thought that they would depart from their motherland permanently. The Mountains have been a prominent natural feature and an emblem of Kurdish life, as ground for belief by the saying “Kurds have no friends but the mountains.” Mountains have been regarded as a thing revered by the Kurds. It was our getaway from reality and only for a short period of time were we going to stay.

From 1988 until 1991 my family and I along with other Kurdish refugees were put into camps in Turkey, where they had been consolidated into three camps. Two of them, consisted of concrete apartment houses and the third, was a tent camp. Freedom became fragile.

In 1991 Operation Provide Comfort began to bring humanitarian relief to the Kurds. About 5,000 Kurds resettled to Nashville. My family being some of them. I was six years old when I had arrived, I can’t easily grip my senses during that time period, I’m sure I felt fear though, easily embarrassed, quiet and self conscious.

I lived in Nashville for 15 years and moved to Texas in 2006. I think I’ll end it here for now and save my time in Texas for another post. I hope that you have enjoyed this read and that I have captured your attention and interest.

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