Month: August 2015

Last week I decided to join Facebook. I have spent many years resisting this but realised that if I wanted to keep up with news from Afghanistan this was the only way. Afghan friends and our group, Voices For Creative Nonviolence UK, use Facebook rather than email so I threw in the towel and joined up.

So far it has been a rewarding move. There are almost daily reports from Afghanistan and VCNCUK. I feel more connected and up to date. I also receive items from other groups with which I am involved, for example Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network and Friends’ House Moscow (Russian Quakers). News about resistance to war and other justice issues reach me through a small but carefully chosen group of friends who are local and who happen to be on Facebook.

There have been other advantages. First, family members are now in touch and I can be in touch with them. I’ve shed a few tears over some ofthe photos they share and love to see how my three great nieces and three great nephews are growing up.

Another lovely result is the number of people from my past who have been in touch. This has happened because I contacted a small number of people from different stages of my life and through them others got on touch. Some of these are people I knew since they were eleven! They are grown up now with their own families.

Because of my visual impairment I only work on the site on my desktop computer. I can’t imagine what it’s like using a ‘phone! A friend came round recently and explained the finer points of managing the site and also explained the rather strange vocabulary.

This morning I said good bye to a friend who is leaving Oxford. I’m really happy that we’ll be able to keep in touch on that giddy, garish, busy and brightly coloured screen which tests my powers of discernment.

I am really excited about returning to Perm this September. Oxford’s Russian twin city is really welcoming, it’s a bit like being in the north of England.

I enjoyed our visit last year but wanted to return as I felt that last year I had to spend a great deal of time coping with being visually impaired in new surroundings. I’ve written in an earlier piece about what it was like being a V.I.P. in Perm and I was certainly looked after.

This year I have offered to give conversation lessons with students at Perm State University, at whose invitation we are visiting. I’m preparing short texts for reading and discussion on The Street Kids’ School in Kabul, run by our friends the Afghan Peace Volunteers; the crisis in Calais and the wider question of asylum seekers, and something about the Arms Fair in London and the various groups opposing it. I could tell them something about Jeremy Corbyn as the election will take place while we’re there.
This year I’ve been learning Russian. It’s fascinating and also difficult. It will be fun trying it out in Russia! I’ve signed up to continue the course in September.

The most important thing about journeys and visits like this is that we, ordinary citizens, get a chance to talk to ordinary Russians. So much of the world’s ills are caused by physical borders and cultural barriers. We can break through both if we are willing.