The world is blind! - 8 April 2018

 I open my eyes every morning wishing I did not. We are in the 21st century, April 2018, winter is almost over and the spring is on the door while humans are killing humans for power and money. First and foremost I am locked out of music and arts with visas then away from the community of it in London so there is nothing that can make a smile on my face. Wishing my mere existence would just vanish with no effort from my side or others. Consuming water, energy, food, even times of naggings and who needs that?!

I’m not that funny woman full of humor that I used to be. I have bad stories, of wounds, of refugees, of visas, of dead people, of drowned people at the sea, of orphan kids that I never wrote or never shared with anyone. I used to be full of hope and shared stories of hope thinking that we could make a world a better place. I was wrong. I am 40 this year. I should admit that… I give up. I was very wrong. I’m losing hope of understanding humanity and them understating me too.  

I had hope of creating music & arts, of making stories with poems on theatres. I traveled as much as I could of the world with pennies. Took pictures of every detail… of stones, trees, animals, bugs, people's, history, daily life, food… Read about their daily lives and news. Visited people houses. Learned a bit of daily languages. Respected religions, the believer, the atheist's, the politicians, the greenest and so on but never belong to any… I cannot understand why people need all these multiple definitions beside their existence and name; given by force since none is asked their name before being born to describe you as you. Nationality, race, gender and now more online signature, finger stamp, picture etc. Eventually I’m going to die like everyone did and will; thankfully- or this planet to be honestly unbearable very crowded and boring, so why I’m getting so busy during my entire life from the age of 10 until now filling all these forms while I could been a world star or at least should have wrote a few books!   

The world is blind! A short vision has occupied the world. One living in a secure place for eternity delusion cannot imagine what might happen after a ‘good night’ to everyone at home and going to bed?! One late night while everyone is sleeping suddenly the house would shake and collapse with the family inside it. You open your eyes to find the livings, the wounded and the killed. When the smoke raise into the skies a show of realities around appear. Distance crying and shouting fill the emptiness. The smokes lighten the collapsed houses around while the still burning trees leads to the… once been the street. It doesn’t finish that night it goes on. Over and over… for 70 more years. To watch… On TVs. On newspapers. Stories told by your grandfather and mother. A new exiled generation appears from the dead and the living from multiple countries, languages, passports, wounds, stories, dance, music... 

Epilepsi - 11.07.2019

Bazen evde alakasız zamanda bazı şeyler arıza yapar. Bir ampül batlar, bilgisayar pet olu, tost makinası çalışmaz, çamaşır makinesin düğmesinin ışığı yanmaz, buz dolabında her şeyin buzu erir bazlıları bozulur, değişik aletlerin kablolar patlar bu gibi durumlarda bilimsel adı ‘Elektrik ağında ariza’

Beyin dediğimiz şey bedenin iki kolun üstünde yuvarlak iki gözü, burnu ve iki kulak bir alet. Ama gel görki beyin bedenin patronu. Beyin bedenin her noktasında elektrik sinyallar gönderir ve emirler verir.

Bazı sinyalleri farkında oluyoruz ama onun dışında binlerce sinyal var hissetmediğimiz. Misal hapşırmak. Beyin beden ağında tehlikeyi algılayarak saniyeler içinde burundan atılmasına uygun görür ve hapşırmadan saniyeler önce nefes, kalp atışı ve kaslara sinyal gönderir. 

Kaza, kalp krizi yada doğumsal olarak bu elektrik santrali ariza yapar ve bazen reset eder. Şayet beyinin iletişim elektrik ağı sinyalları ya yanlış yere gönderir yada tamamen çalışmaz hale gelir. Bilimsel olarak buna kriz (Epilespy) denir halk arasında ise sara denir, yada deli, kafayı yemiş, uyuşturucu almış gibi lakap ve tepkiler olabiliyor.

Borders of Love 1.- October 2017

Borders of Love 1.

Imagine love

Imagine music

Imagine peace

'Imagine all the people... 

sharing the world...' 

It was 14 February 2010 night that Lobna and Robert (to be called lob&rob later on) met for the first time at Lonely Beach at Thailand. It was the Chinese New Year and accidentally Valentine Day too. Robert was travelling with his sister Sarah and both were saying at Lonely Beach for quite a bit. Robert was called between his friends Rock Star Rob. He wasn't a professional musician but he has a huge lover of Syd Barret, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Pink Floyd, The Door and a lot more of interesting information about the 60s & 70s music history and stories. Rob had a brand new black yamaha classic guitar that I would learn later that he was playing and signing with lyrics from nowhere once he was happy or drunk or angry or sad or tried or laying on a laylo… he basically play in each status he is in as if his word would come out from his guitar translated into his fingers and into his lyrics, as a way of expressing himself into the world instead of spending his time talking, other than than he would usually be silent and shy. 

Lobna; myself, called Lob between my friends. I just arrived at Thailand one week before it. I was working at International Road Transport Union based in Switzerland for almost 4 years and I needed to take a long break. I left my job after my last project where I managed to organise a meeting between Arab Union and European Union to collaborate. I took a Lonely Planet with me decided to go to Thailand. I aways had Lonely Planet whenever I traveled and since I’m a 3rd world citizen I never tried to bother myself applying for visas for vacations. The world was big enough to explore and I was traveling to 1st and 2nd world since I had to because of my multiple jobs and my meeting I did so far.

Bangkonk was too crazy, too noisy, too crowd, for much of everything for my taste. I checked at Lonely Planet and found there is a great party at Lonely Beach! I backed First a bus for 2 hours then a fast -but absolutely not fast- 9 hours train followed by 5 hours by a car, 45 minutes at freeboot and finally 30 minutes by Tuk Tuk (a little seating thing can carry 4 people and their stuff with a tiny motorcycle) lastly arrived! I found a bungalow, took a shower and head to the party!

Robert and Sarah were already at the the party at Lonely Beach that night. The Beach was full of people from around the globe and everyone was dancing. It was probably the biggest party I have ever saw in my life. It was full with tattoos makers, glow in the darks painters, papers lights floating around in all colours, dragons made of colourful papers, Thai massage masters, fantastic food and fruit everywhere, drinks served in coconuts and buckets full of Thai whisky with eventually made the entire beach completely drunk!

Between all the crowd Sarah and me at some point started to dance on the stage were the musicians are. I do remember we did share our drink with her and her bother, rob, just before climbing of the stage, that rob was handsome and cool. We were trying to buy a drink with rob and Thai people got confused about out names lob and rob. The day in 2010 we stared to call us lob&rob until today.

At some point Sarah just pushed out of the stage and I fell down about 2 meters to the sand and rob has to come and help me to goto the hospital first to check if I had broken my ankle but lucky it wasn’t. We were then send to a Thai massage for a couple of days and not to be able to walk on that leg. It was late and rob has to help me walking to me bungalow back. We had a long night until early morning talking about music. After that lob&rob traveled for 6 months about Thailand and Cambodia. Sarah traveled with us for a while but later she left and we continued. We tried to go to Vietnam so we applied for a visa but my visa was rejected were rob visa was alright but Rob didn't go without me.

We continued to travel back into Thailand again. When we met in 2010 both of us were hurt bout making a family. Each of us had its our story. Rob has lost his mother just a few years ago and I never trusted a man referring to my alive but for me dead father. We never really talked about it until we get really completely drunk or if Sarah had told me before she had left us. So we had a simple plan that we agreed on without mentioning it. lob&rob had a plan, lob would plan next destination, both travel, find a bungalow, go swim, have sex and shower, lob take pictures, yoga, read and write while rob play and sing.

Bureaucracy & Love

Pandora's Box - memories - May 2017

A gas bullet did not but bureaucracy might kill me. 

I guess everyone got the public news that Robert & me are finally after 7 years decided to settle & to get married. But everyone is asking us 'when' is the wedding? 

We are still waiting for the 'municipality' to give us an ok to get married. After that we need to get an appointment for a wedding. Once we are married our file will be send to the 'department of foreign affairs' then I have to go back to the country that I come from and apply to change my UK tourist visa to a residence visa. That might take sometime and I have to stay out of UK until I get a residence visa. The funny thing is that I didn't go to Turkey for almost 3 years since the accident and I'm not sure I will be safe right now considering me being an icon, my case being never opened plus my interviews internationally and my Gezi theatre might bother the boss. 

I'm getting married in UK with my Turkish passport as I'm travelling with it for years so far. My Jordanian passport was expired in 2008 but of course it does inform on my 'birth certificate' that I'm Jordanian. So I will ask once we are married if I can go and get the UK residence visa in Jordan and inform my worries about my security in Turkey. Meanwhile I can renew my passport inside Jordan as I was informed that it would take forever in the Jordanian embassy in UK plus a penal for being outside the country with an expired passport. I can go to Jordan with my Turkish passport, as there is no visa between two countries. 

The UK 'municipality' will answer our marriage between 28-70 days starting 26 April (In fact we did apply on 28 March but for almost an absurd reason the translation of my divorce was not accepted so we had to do it again) My EU working visa will end at 31 July. UK tourist visa will end at 31 August. It is all very tight and if the UK municipality waits until the last day I might end up with no insurance in EU at all! My medicine cannot be sold at the pharmacy without a prescription from a neurology doctor. Usually I must see a neurologist every month for a general check since I did have a few epilepsies after Gezi Park and I take 3000 mg everyday plus endless painkillers as my headache didn't stop for a single moment since I woke up. My doctor is in Berlin and I'm advised not to leave the country before I get the reply from the municipality. I do have enough medicine for 2 more months. But after it I need to see a neurologist to write my medicine or I will end up in multi focal sympathetic epilepsies. 

To be honest it is all tragically funny; it should have been romantic with Robert and me, being in love and meeting after 7 years again, building a new life together and finally deciding to settle and get old together. I found wedding dress from the 1950s but now I will be thinking during the party we need to leave the country after this and to get me a residence sticker on my passport! This bureaucracy is just playing language-games! Frankly a gas bullet did not but bureaucracy might kill me. I'm tried of these documents & visas and being also healthily sick. I asked my mother the other day; 'when does this exile finish mother?! She smiled; trying to give me some power over Skype. She said 'Soon Lulu, soon'. She send me her Israel'i 'birth certificate' in 'Hebrew & Arabic' in 1945 in Jerusalem and the picture of my grandfather with him as a traffic police in his English uniform as Palestine was mandated by England until 1948. 

After Gezi I moved to Denmark then to Germany and now a new country with new bureaucracy while all I need is to 'heal': my brain, my pain, my body, my languages, to write, to sing, to play, how to live with epilepsy... but those are the times when I don't write a lot. When I want to write during these times I either end up complaining or swearing at the world. I'm still angry; in fact I'm furious, but still again I cannot stop thinking about Stephen Hawking is still hoping to go to space! The world is in hell, it was always like it but there are good people around me and I'm blessed to find them. So I do remember to take a breath and enjoy living & loving “

Selected texts from my travel diary- Part 1

“The lunatic is in my head...you lock the door and throw away the key...there is someone in my head and it’s not me” Pink Floyd

Who wouldn’t have questioned his life in a place like this?! I can’t help thinking how many sun sets and rises I’ve missed. I recall crying silently as I smoked my first fag in front of the office in Istanbul under the shadow of the Plaza palms.

They were standing there staring at me, reminding me of the fakeness of the life I had, just as fake as their existence in the road sides of the plaza entrance was!

Yet once again I’m identifying my existence with another palm tree as I look out of the window of this bamboo shack on the seaside of this heaven I am at.

This palm hasn’t been carried here by a truck; it wasn’t produced in a green house, has real coconuts and hosts a million ants.

There is no dark side of the moon...it's all dark!

Pandora's Box: Cairo

Midan Al Tahrir - Wast El Balad: Burası herşeyin merkezi sayılır, çarşılar turlu turlu, tam hengame burasi ve gormeye kesin deger. Kahire Müzesi de burda ona en az birkaç saat ayırın çok şey var. Mumya bölümüne girmek için ayrı bilet lazım bence orayı da görün ilginç çok. Sana beleş yada ucuz bilet girişler; Arab oldugun icin ilk defa bir ise yaradı Arab olmak :} Kaan full bilet öder. 

Müzeden çıkınca sırtınızı Meydan Al Tahrire dönüp yürüyün Talat Harb Caddesinin başını bulun ve caddeden Wast El Balad'a doğru yürüyün. Taksiye binmek o trafikte dev anlamsız! 

Talat Harb Caddesinden aşağı yürüyün Kushary El Tahrir'ı bulun Kushary yiyin tabi!

Kushary'dan sonra devam edin yine ayni cadde; Talat Harb, Australian Hostel'i bulun. Amr, Ehab, Ahmad, Peter, Mustafa hepsi tanır beni. Çay için onlarla her biri mizah ustası. Size çok ucuza piramit turu ayarlarlar. Piramitlere ertesi gün gidersiniz zaten. 

Ordan çıkınca Meydan Talat Harbı görün yine yürüyerek. Sonra Taksiye binin Khan Al Khaleely'ye gidin. Azhar Universitesi ve Dar El Ulum orda; Annemin okulu :).

Aynı yerde Camii El Huseyny var. Orda bir sürü çarşı pazar kahve vs var. Najeeb Mahfouz Cafe'de takılın yemek nargile naneli çay :)  Burada İslamic Cairo ilerde Fatemilerden yenini kalma yeni restore edilmiş camiler medreseler vs var sonra eskicileri da git. Ortalık çirkinleşmeye başlayınca geri dönün. Sakat olabilir. 

Akaşm yemeği için Taksiy'le Wast El Balad'te Felfelah'yı bulun şahane yemekleri var:) 

Eve gidin artık. Ya da gece dışarı çıkcaksanız yine Taksi ile Zamale'ke gidin. dolanın orda. Lonely Planette Le Bourjin diye bi yer var bi de süper Mulokhye ve güvercin dolması yapan yer var onu da bulabilirsin artık yaw: ) 

*** Kahire'yi 2008'de bir kaç kere ziyaret ettim.

29 Eylül 2010'de Kız kardeşimle seyahat notlarımı paylaşmıştım..,  

Pandora's Box:Darwin'in Tanrısı

İstanbul’a tatil için geldiğimiz zaman annem tömer’e gitti birkaç hafta, yavaşça Türkçe öğrenmek için. Anneannem Türk olmasına rağmen çocuklarına hiç Türkçe öğretmemişti. Kardeşim ve ben cocuk olduğumuz için henüz derse kayıt etmediler ama annemin yanında derse girmemiz için izin verdiler. Türkçe’de bir sürü Arapça kelimeler vardı, onu fark ettim, derste bazen Türkçe bilmiyor olmama rağmen Arapça kelimeler bazen işime yariyordu. Bir gün tömer’de susadım annem beni kantine gönderdi, gittim ve ‘şarap’ istedim, gündüz vakti, 10 yaşında bir çocuk, tabiki kantindekiler epey güldüler, ben de ağlayarak gittim neden benimle dalga geçiyorlar diye. Şarap Arapça bir kelime ve içecek anlamına geliyor halbuki Türkçede şarap üzümden yapılan alkollü bir içecek, Arapçada şarap 'nabidh' demek. Neyse ki Türkçe öğretmen açıkladı ve o sırada kantindekiler ‘ağlama tamam biz de bilmiyorduk’ diye gelipte bana bedava üzüm suyu verdiler.

Ortaokulda devlet okula gittik. Kızlar İle erkekler ayrı okullara veriliyordu. Dolayısıyla sadece kız arkadaşlarım oldu. Annem kütüphaneci olduğu için ayrıca evde de kütüphane vardı; hoş annemim evinde hala kocaman kütüphanesi var. Tabi çocuklar olarak sürekli okuyorduk. İki kere devlette ödül almıştık okuma yarışmasından. Sevdiğim kitapları senaryo yapardım sonra okulda hem yönetir hem de başrol aldırdım. Bir gün Cinderella oyunu yaptım ama erkek olmadığı için bazı kızları erkek gibi giydirip öyle oynadık. 

O okulda bir sürü kız başörtülüydü. Annem hiç bir zaman başörtü ile alakası olmadı. Ama ben okulda olan kız arkadaşlarıma uydum ve başörtü taktım. Tabi o zamanlar hala tanrıya inanırdım. Anneme bile kızmıştım neden takmıyorsun diye. Annem ‘sen ne istiyorsan yap bana da karışma’ dedi. Birkaç gün yaptım. Okulda sadece kızlar olduğu için okulda takmak gerekmiyordu sadece okuldan çıkınca. Takarken örtüyü kapatmak için iğne ile birleştiriyorsun, örtüyü önce düzenliyorsun sonra iğneyi takıyorsun. İğneyi dudaklarımın arasında duruyordu bir anda iğneyi yuttum! Panik olduk, kızlar İle beraber cümbür cemaat beni eve götürdüler. Annem çok güldü; “Tamam boğazından geçmiş, sorun değil ama bir doktora gidelim’ dedi. Doktora gittik. O da sorun değil ama ‘apandisite ulaşırsa iyi olmaz’ dedi. ‘Boka bakmak gerekiyor bir süre’ dedi. Bir hafta sürekli dışkının içinde bakıp ve çıkıp çıkmadığı bakmak zorunda kaldım! Bir daha da örtü mörtü tövbe ettim. Sonra da Darwin ve felsefe okumaya başlayınca tanrı İle aramız bozuldu.