I took this picture after my short talent show performance during December training, hair still stinking with sweat underneath the shawl recently given as a present, eyes blurry from the kohl liner caked onto my lower lids. I adore the high drama of the pose, as it is obviously late at night and I am still lit with the intensity of performance, a rare treat to engage in.
When I remarked that it was a cool -30 on New Year’s to a certain New York City resident over a long-distance phone call, he replied “I think +30 is too cold.”
“That is because your people are from the desert, and my people have been living in caves. We are used to the cold.”
And in some ways, while living in a tent icicle at the edge of Central Asia, I feel as if my half-ghani roots have truly come out to play. Whenever I wake up to everything frozen, in the dark, before the sun has even risen, I grit my teeth and whisper, “Come on, Hassan. Your ancestors went through worse.” And they had, so I believe in my abilities, to make a fire, to melt water; this winter, first of two, perhaps, in conditions thought primitive and ridiculous.
Your roots. Never deny them, attempt to unravel from their grasp. They may come in handy, sooner than you think, in ways you never imaged.
