I met Rashid on the island of Crete in July, 2006. He is a 20 year old Afghan refugee (Hezara) "living" on Crete and studying Greek in a communal setting with a group of other Afghan refugees in order to maintain good standing with the Greek authorities. He described to me a fascinating and tragic story about his life. At the age of eight, during the rule of the Taliban and without parents, he escaped on foot to Iran where he lived for several years as a child, and later to Turkey and finally Greece. The orthodox Christians that live on Crete are suspicious of foreigners, especially those from muslim countries, so Rashid's life there hasn't exactly been easy, but he keeps his spirits up by reading, writing and listening to Celine Dion.
Rashid was our translator for the Afghan Rebab class as part of Ross Daly's Summer 2006 Labyrinth Music Workshops in Houdetsi, Greece and we spent several afternoons and evenings together talking about philosophy, his life story and the poetry of the later Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad as well as others. Rashid does not speak English and his main task was translating from Afghan Farsi (Dari) to Greek and back for our class of eight students, five of which were from Greece.
Rashid is a fantastic poet and a wonderful human being. I wish we lived closer to each other. At the very least, I hope to visit him again in Greece soon. Insh'allah.
Rashid's sent me the poem "Cold Dark Night (Shab Tarik Va Sard)" in February 2007 and asked me to translate it. The government of Greece wants to send him back to Afghanistan where they claim it is now "safe" due to the democracy supported by the might of the US military. Rashid has nothing left in Afghanistan but bad memories and would rather go just about anywhere else where political refugees are accepted.