A Journey and Eid Mohammad

Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullah

My Dear Cherie, Norafiza
Min Lilla Gumman, Nabeeha Safiyya
Min Sweetiepie Hjartan, Nazneen Izyana
Min Lilla Gubben, Yusuf Nasr

Today had been quite a busy day at work. My group leader, James is going to Turkey next tuesday for a meeting with our research collaborator from the USA, so we have to complete some analysis in preparation for the meeting. Ayah arrived at work quite early, and immediately started my works on my computer. As soon as he arrived, James asked me to come to his office for discussion about some strategies on how the analysis should be done. Immediately after we've figured out the strategy, Ayah rushed to my computer and start to work. Ayah promised James to complete my part of analysis latest by 3 p.m. , so Ayah had only few minutes break during the lunchtime to buy some sandwiches from nearby grocery store (the name of the store is Casino!) and some apricots from fresh market at Lumiere Square not too far from the IARC building. Soon afterwards Ayah was back again in front of my computer.

At around 1 pm Lyon time, Ayah made Facetime call to Ibu but there was some trouble to get connected at the beginning. Internet lines had not been very good this few days. Alhamdulillah after a few attempts Ayah managed to get connected with Ibu. Seeing your faces and talking with my beloved ones is such a relief from my demanding works. I'm always thankful to the Almighty that even though He has assign me with this test, to be far away from my beloved wife and children, we can at least see each other through technology.  I can't imagine being far from all of you and not being able to communicate at regular basis. This reminds me of a good friend whom Ayah called him "brother".

Ayah first met this man in 2001, during the time when I was doing my M.Sc studies at USM Kubang Kerian, Kelantan. One afternoon,  as I was chit-chatting with my other postgraduade fellows Dr. Zulkarnain, Iskandar and Cikgu Cheng, someone came to our office at the department of Chemical Pathology. It was Dr. Faridah, an associate professor at the department, and next to her was this strange-looking fellow. He was a tall and thin man. Half of his face was covered by thick black beard. He was wearing an un-ironed shirt and trousers. His shirt was buttoned till the very top one! Every now and then he will grab and brushed his thick beard gently. Dr. Faridah introduce to us that his name was Dr Eid from Afghanistan and he was to be her new Masters student. We welcomed the new fellow and showed him to an empty carrel that he can use as his working place in the office. Dr. Eid sat there on the chair at the carrel quietely. No words from him. Maybe he was too overwhelmed with all the new faces and new places, or maybe he was just too tired from the long journey from Afghanistan to Kubang Kerian. After some while, Dr. Zulkarnain, Iskandar and Cheng one by one excused themselves to do their works. I stayed in the office because usually that was my sleeping time, after lunchtime and Zuhr prayer! During that period of time, I worked a lot during nighttime since the lab that I was working in the department of Microbiology was too crowded at daytime. So I became like a bat, work at night and sleep during the day (I know now that it is very unhealthy to do that, so Ayah hope Nabeeha, Nazneen and Yusuf will never work or stay up too late at night). But with this strange looking man in the office, I can't get myself to sleep. I felt a bit creepy that he was just sitting there without any word, just his right hand touching and brushing his beard every now and then with his fingers, just like the ancient Chinese war hero character, General Kuan.

After a while, giving up on trying to sleep, Ayah started to make simple conversation with this guy. I asked him some question about himself and he answered me with an answer befitted to a primary school english lesson in standard one. Things like:

Ayah: So what's your name again?
Eid: My name is Eid Mohammad Akhtar Mohammad
Ayah: When did you arrive in Malaysia?
Eid: I arrived in Malaysia one week ago, on Friday
etc, etc..

So after a while, the conversation turned to be like an interrogation between a CIA agent and an Afghani captive! But from the conversation, Ayah learned that he came from a very rural impoverished village in Paktika Province in Afghanistan, a place I never heard before. He was funded by the Islamic Developmental Bank for his masters study and he was a medical doctor, graduated from Kabul University. He knew very little about Malaysia and even less so about Kelantan. After a while, he started to relaxed and I remembered his first question: Can you teach me how to use a computer?

I noticed a sparkle of eagerness in his eyes when he asked the request. The Afghani man then told me that he had seen a computer before, but he never had the opportunity to even touch one. So I took him to the computer lab and once we found a free computer, I had him seated in front of it. He looked like a little child who was just been given an ice-cream that he had been wanting for so long. But he had no clue how to use a computer. So I thought him about the keyboard and the mouse. To get him familiar with moving the cursor using a mouse, I thought him to play Solitaire. Then I left him to play with the computer and I went back to my postgraduate office. Since now no one else is in the office, I can now sleep in peace :D!...

A week later, I met Eid at the computer lab and masya-Allah, how I was surprised by what he had done. In just one week, learning on his own with the computer, he was now much better than me in working with computer. He had found all the information he needed for his research from many websites and even printed many journal arcticles related to his research! He had even made a nice powerpoint presentation slide on his work plan.

Eid was among the most brilliant man I ever met in my life. Many things I learnt from the simple looking Afghani man. The more I knew him and the longer I befriended him, the more I saw the wisdom hidden behind that half-beard-covered face. Ayah will write more about Eid and his journeys, struggles and hardships he faced in his pursuits of knowledge. To me he represented the character of a simple, humble, wise, brilliant and peaceful-hearted man from a war-torn country. He was also a very strong-willed man.

But no matter how strong a man is, he must have a weak point. To Eid, it was his family and his children. At the time he arrived in Malaysia, Eid had to leave his Mother, his wife and two children back in Paktika. His first child, a five year-old daughter (I forgot her name) and his one and a half year-old son, Abdul Waqi'.

Unlike we are today, Eid had not much chance to communicate with his family in Afghanistan. They had no ipads or computers. There was not even electricity or proper road in his village. To make it even more difficult, Eid was the only person in his entire village who can read or write. His wife had never been to school so she can't read. The only way he can communicate with them was by recording his voice using tape recorder (it is not a popular thing anymore now, so most probably Nabeeha, Nazneen & Yusuf had never seen a tape recorder). He would then sent the tape by postal mail and waited and waited for any reply from his family. It usually took six months for him to get a mail from Afghanistan, which contains a cassette tape where he can listen to the voices of his mother, his wife and especially his daughter and son. I once saw him opening a newly arrived package from Afghanistan, and I saw tears running down to his cheek, and wetting his beards as he hold a cassete tape and pressed it to his left chest, as if it was the most precious thing in his whole world.

I often wondered how he went on with daily life while his heart stricken by the sadness of being away from his beloved ones. I often wondered how he can be so smart when he was missing his family so much. I wondered how he can even work, while he was waiting to hear any news from his family on that long six-month waits. To me, he was a very strong man.

I did saw sometimes, when we were walking to pasar malam in from of USM in Kubang Kerian, Eid would wipe his eyes when he saw a five-year old girl playing or walking with her parent. Sometimes I saw his eyes watered when he saw a two year-old boy. Sometimes he pretended to yawn to make an excuse when his eyes became red and filled with tears. He always had some sweets in his pocket, so that he can give them to any little child he met along the way. I knew that time that he was sad, that he was missing his daughter, his son and his family so much. But at that time I didn't fully understood how he really felt...

I know now how he felt. I understand now why he wiped his eyes every time he watched little children  about the ages of his kids playing. I know now because I'm feeling the same everyday. Or perhaps my feeling is much harder to handle, even with all the technology and blessings we have today, because I am not as strong as Brother Eid Mohammad. But I am thankful that al least, I can see your faces and talk to you everyday even when we are separated thousands miles away.