On February 14th, 2022, to celebrate the first anniversary of the WriteSPACE, I offered a free Zoom workshop called “Writing and Paper Collage.” Participants from around the world gleefully showed off the piles of materials that they had gathered for the event and piled next to their computers: scrap paper, wrapping paper, wallpaper, post-it notes, bus tickets, book jackets, stickers, doilies, old copies of the London Review of Books . . . .
And then there was Hussain, who logged in from a refugee detention centre in Indonesia. He brought along the few items he’d managed to forage: a sheet of white cardstock from the back of an old workbook; a red felt marker; a small piece of plastic-coated wire. While the other participants created gorgeous, complex collages from their assembled materials — you can see some examples here and here — Hussain drew a heart with the red marker, then pushed the wire through holes in the cardstock to create a woven outline.
“The wire has an interesting story,” he later told me:
Last year in March I got Covid then I was quarantined here. Because the room was hot, the accommodation management brought a new fan and the wire was wrapped around its cable. As boring as it is being locked inside a room, I took the wire and initially made a ring for myself. On the day of the Valentine workshop, the idea of a heart came to my mind.
Hussain had first contacted me out of the blue in April 2021, shortly after I launched the WriteSPACE. In imperfect but eloquent English — acquired mainly, I later learned, from free instructional videos on YouTube — he introduced himself and politely asked for help:
I'm Hussain Shah Rezaie from Afghanistan but currently living as a refugee temporary (for seven years) in Indonesia.
Writing has worked yet as a rescuer to the daunting difficulty of my life as a refugee. One of the thing that stand on my way to write is getting access to some high quality writing material, as well as, making connection with experienced and renowned writers for constructive feedback. . . . Internet is the only place I sneak around to have some sort of connection. I know that the mere practice of writing is being done solitary in the corner of empty space, but becoming better writer to some extent depend on connection with like minded people. . . . I would really appreciate if I get a chance to attend to your future writing program.
Intrigued, I organized a WriteSPACE scholarship (underwritten by a generous professor in Texas) and invited Hussain to start attending my weekly Live Writing Studio. From time to time I checked in with him to ask after his family, especially after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August 2021. But not until February 2022, a few days after he showed me his wire-woven heart at the collage workshop, did I finally ask him to meet with me one-on-one and tell me his life story.
I was born in 1998 in a gash of green between arid sharp mountains in Haidar, Jaghori. If you look through a satellite image, it all looks like deserted altitudes. Even for a wild reptile this region would be a rigorous place to live. But it’s home to uncounted numbers of Hazara. Our ancestors were pushed into the mountains as far as the elderly recall from their elderly. Since then, the mountains have protected us . . . . (From Walk with Me: A Refugee’s Journey to Freedom)
The eldest of three children, Hussain dropped out of school at age 14 to support his mother and younger siblings following the tragic disappearance of his father. At 16, he was captured and beaten by the Taliban and accused of a crime he did not commit. After making a harrowing escape, he was people-smuggled by his terrified family to Indonesia, where he spent the next nine and a half years in a series of refugee detention facilities, forbidden to access formal education or to seek paid employment.
Faced with crushing boredom and an uncertain future, Hussain refused to give in to despair. Instead, he embarked on an ambitious program of self-education, learning English and studying subjects such as psychology and creative writing via free videos, courses, and ebooks that he accessed via wifi on an old cellphone. As his writing became more fluent and assured, he found the words to describe the emotional impact of his situation:
My act of controlling the psychological gear of my distress has been a mere coping mechanism to the underlying issues that have been out of my control. It has been like walking in a lightless night toward a never coming dawn. Nine years and three months have passed since I began my life as a refugee in Indonesia. My helplessness toward the deteriorating situation of my family often darkened my walk. The basic rights I have been denied, the years of incarceration inside prison walls, have been the wild beasts in the walk. During my time in Indonesia, these beasts have claimed the lives of around 60 other refugees. (From Walk with Me: A Refugee’s Journey to Freedom)
A young man in limbo. A heart behind wire.
Around the time of our conversation in February 2022, I had developed an interest in Tarot cards — not for their divinatory power (which I don’t believe in) but for their richly poetic and symbolic qualities. That week I’d drawn the Three of Swords, depicted in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck as a heart pierced with wounds so ancient that they no longer bleed.
In Tarot, the suit of Swords — associated with the element of Air — signifies not physical violence so much as the power of language and thought to harm or to heal. After logging off from my call with Hussain, I stared at those two blood-red images: Hussain’s cardboard heart laced with wire; the Tarot heart pierced by Swords.
Then I walked into the kitchen and said to my husband, “We’ve got to get him out of there.”
Some 21 months later, on October 4, 2023, Hussain was granted permanent residency in Aotearoa New Zealand under a pilot Community Organization Refugee Sponsorship scheme.
He will arrive next month in Auckland — one of the most expensive cities in the world — with no money, no formal educational qualifications, and virtually no possessions, aside from the donated laptop on which he has composed an ever-growing collection of short stories, personal essays, and poems.
Some of these beautiful pieces have already been published in international journals such as the Cincinnati Review and the archipelago. Others will appear Hussain’s newly launched Substack newsletter, Walk With Me:
Through poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, I tell my story. My story of escaping war in Afghanistan and living nearly a decade long in limbo as a refugee in Indonesia.
The journey is sad as it sounds and difficult as it seems. Yet, through this journey I found myself. I have found hope when it was taken from me. I have found beauty when everything seemed ugly. I have found truth amidst lies. I have found psychological and spiritual freedom when I had my physical freedom hidden behind barbed wire. All through a pen and paper or the small screen of my cellphone.
Hussain could not have made it this far without the generous contributions of time and energy from a small but devoted group of WriteSPACE members and other mentors around the world — Anita, David, James, Janet, Joanna, Karim, Lynne, Nikie, Nina, Pat, Sophie, Vicky — with special thanks to my husband Richard for his unflagging support and to our business manager Victoria for her fierce commitment to human rights and her many hours of volunteer labor on Hussain’s behalf.
Now you, too, can become part of Hussain’s story.
By subscribing to Walk With Me — currently free — you can follow his extraordinary journey as it unfolds. Eventually, as soon as has opened his own bank account in New Zealand and can start accepting paid subscriptions, Hussain hopes to be able to earn enough from his newsletter to spend a day or two each week writing.
In the meantime, if you’re inspired by Hussain’s story and want to help, you can make a direct donation to a scholarship fund set up by his sponsoring organisation, WriteSpace Ltd. His long-term plan is to attend university and study psychology so he can help other refugees survive and thrive. Please be assured that every cent you contribute (minus bank and credit card fees) will go directly towards Hussain’s living costs and future educational expenses.
Thank you for travelling this path. Thank you for walking with Hussain.
This post was originally published on my free Substack newsletter, Helen’s Word. Subscribe here to access my full Substack archive and get weekly writing-related news and inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
WriteSPACE members enjoy a complimentary subscription to Helen’s Word as part of their membership, which costs just USD $12.50 per month on the annual plan. Not a member? Sign up now for a free 30-day trial!
