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March 15, 2020

Love

So I have been absent for a long time again....

This is a card I made for my cousin who got married resently.




In 2018 I told you a story about an afghan boy that I tried to save.
It has been 2 years now, two years of beeing afraid, of sleepless nights, of feeling helpless and hopeless.
It is truly the hardest thing I have ever done. If I failed, he would be sent back to Afghanistan and I would never see him again. I have watched him grow these two years, I have slowly seen his trust in me grow. In the beginning his "trust" in me was just desperation. He was desperate for help, desperate for someone to see him, to care for him. Beeing there for him has been a fulltime job, but I have been rewarded with his smiles and watching him grow into this fantastic young man.



I am very proud, and extremely happy to now tell you that all our hard work has paid of, and he has now been granted asylum in Norway πŸ’“

Thanks for stopping by!
Gunn

Pennys Challenge 466 - Anything Goes
Word Art Wednsday - #430 -#431 Anything Goes
Crafty Creations Challenge - #407 Anything Goes
Lemon Shortbread Challenge - #115 Anything Goes

November 21, 2018

Blue Symphony

Hi

I have been playing around with my new art alchemy paints. Needless to say I am in looove 😍😍






I think this will look good on my wall :)

Challenges:

Pennys Challenge 407 - Anything Goes
Little red wagon #473 - No Cards allowed

Thanks for stopping by!

Gunn

November 18, 2018

Stay Strong

Hi again
I was just getting back into crafting and blogging again and then my house got flooded.....
So I had to pack up all my stuff and have been staying on a friends sofa for 6 weeks.... The stresslevesl has been through the roof.... 

But now I am finally home again, I have made myself a new craftingspace and this is where I have spent my intire weekend πŸ˜„

I have not done any art journaling for years - so these to pages actually took me all weekend to make.... but it did calm my head down, so it was worth it.








It sure has been some hard weeks - so I need this as a reminder for 

Challenges:

Pennys challenge 406 - Anything goes



Thanks for stopping by!

Gunn

September 26, 2018

Minialbum

Hi

I have another minialbum to show. I love making these. 
This one also comes with a story.


I have made this album for another afghan boy who calls me mom. 
He is a great boy, he is always joking and can always make everybody smile. He has just got a great spirit and personality. He is a colorful boy - always up for some fun. πŸ’“His tears is always there, right below the surface, but he hides them behind his big smile. 


When he was 15 years old, the Taliban came and took him. They wanted him to become a suicidebomber. They held him capture for about a week, treathening him to chop his head off he did not do what they told him. Great options......

He managed to escape, and his father sent him out of the country.

 The tag says: To my son. Never forget that I love you. Life is filled with hard times and good times. Learn from everything you can. Be the man I know you can be. Love Mum

 After a to month travel he came to Norway.  But of course - Norway did not believe his story and said that he could stay until he turned 18, but then he would have to go back to Afghanistan. But again - they did not tell him this until 1 month before he turned 18. He waited in Norway for 2 1/2 years - went to school, got friends, learnt the language - found a mom. He made Norway his home. And then Norway said that you are not welcome here, we are going to send you back to Afghanistan. It is the second most dangerous country in the world, but it is safe for you there now that you are 18 years old.

 Going back is not an option for these boys - for them it is a deathsentence - so he ran away again. 
He is now in another europeen country.



He was one of the lucky ones, this country did not find his fingerprints in the system, so he was allowed to seek asylum there. He will soon have his interview, and I am begging that they will give him asylum.



Before he left Norway he said to me - "Gunn, you know, I used to have dreams - I don't have any dreams anymore". 

I am glad to see that he now have some dreams again - he is dreaming about getting his asylum and then come to Norway to visit his "mom".




I miss him so much! It is so hard when I talk with him and I hear that he is about to cry. All he wants is to come "home". I know he have such a hard time, he has got a bed, and he get a little bit money, but I know that he is starving himself to make the money last. All I want to say is "Come home!" But I can't. I have to tell him to keep going, I want to say that it is going to be ok - but I can't. These boys are unwanted everywhere. Until they have got the positive answer to their asylumaplication, they have no future. 



 He has got a lot of good memories from Afghanistan. About the farm his family had, the fruit-trees, his mother. "I had a good life there", he says, "but the the Taliban came...." 
Now it is Norway he thinks about when he thinks about home. But he is stuck - he can't go to Afghanistan, and he can't come to Norway.... he is stuck in a country where he don't speak the language, where he don't have any family, his only comfort is all the other afghan boys in the same situation. Not much of a comfort when you are 18 and scared. 



When he left Norway he had a little backpack with him. 1 trouser, 1 jacket and 2 t-shirts. The only thing he brought with him that was not clothes was a picture of me and him. A selfie we took one time, that I framed and gave him for christmas. He had a couple of hundred euros in his pocket and took off to start a new life somewhere. I bring more than this when I go away for the weekend.....



 So I have stuffed this album full of pictures of him, of us and of the things we did together, and I am going to send it to him. I know he will love it, I only wish I could be there with him when he opens it. 



 His english is not good, so he will have a hard time understanding all the quotes I have added - but he needs a little challenge - I will tell him to google translate it πŸ˜‚



I hope you liked the album, and I hope you took the time to read this story. There is bad things happening in this world. refugees are not seen as people anymore. We are seeing more and more of the "us vs. them" retoric. There is a lot of similarities to the retoric that the nazis had towards the jews.  
We want to stuff them in camps and forget about them. 
We watch them die and we do nothing. 
So many people die in the mediteranian sea, and the people are sitting behind their computerscreens saying things like "good - a few hundred less of them comming here". 
Human life has no value anymore - if it is some of "them". 



I am sorry to drag politics into this, but this has become such a big part of my life and I am so afraid to see more of my boys beeing sent back to Afghanistan. 

Thanks for stopping by!

I am entering this album to these challenges:





September 17, 2018

Christmas - really?

This weekend I was at a the paper party as we call it in Norway. Lots of great people and lots of fun. 

I did not make much, but I was challenged to make a christmascard inspired by my neighbor.

My neighbor is at his best - not like the rest of us :), so I decided to make an untraditional christmascard.



It says Merry christmas on the inside... well, just under the quote "I don't like you, you are ugly and have no manners at all!" Happy holidays neighbor *lol*


Challenges:

About freedom and happiness

Hello again

Here is a card I made this weekend. Not much to say about it - it is what it is :)
It was fun to make.


I am entering this card to the following challenges:





Thanks for stopping by!

Gunn

July 21, 2018

Steampunk minialbum

Today I have a little Steampunk minialbum to show you, and it comes with a story.







I started making this album back in January, so it has been a long journey. It all started of as a kind of a grief process. The boy in all the pictures is an Afghan asylum seeker. He came to Norway as an unaccompanied minor in 2016. He fled Afghanistan after watching his mother being brutally murdered by a familymember and he himself being beaten almost to death by the same person for rejecting to join the Taliban as a child soldier. 






He is so gentle, polite and helpful. He is a true gentleman,
holding the door open for me, carry the shoppingbags,
always ready to help in any way.






He is such a beautiful boy, and I really want to show him off, but to protect his identity I must hide his face. 





The current rightwing government in Norway takes great pride in having the harshsed immigrationlaws in Europa, so they rejected the boys application for asylum, they think he can go back and stay with his family (you know, the one who killed his mother and almost beat him to death).  But since he was only 16 at the time, they said that he could stay in Norway until he turned 18. Because when you are 18, you are a grown man and can easily fend for yourself in a country torn by 40 years of war. And you know, when you are 18, all your familyfeudes are bygones. And of course - lets not forget that the Norwegian government thinks that Afghanistan is a really safe place.

I think I managed to put in about 70-80 pictures in this
"little" album.

So, when he turned 18 in January we expected that he would be deported back to Afghanistan. 
He has an older brother who has been granted asylum in Norway, he lives in a town about 5 hours drive away from here. My boy decided to move there to stay with his brother until deportationday. 










Here is the way to to push ups... 




And this is where my grief process begins. This boy has chosen me to be the one he calls "mum". He speaks so highly about his mother, so it was very emotional for me to be given this "title". He is a proud boy who keeps his emotions very private, so when he said to me " You know Gunn, I have been all alone for 10 years, nobody has been taking care of me or looking out for me, and then I met you", I had a hard time holding my tears back.










He loves taking selfies.


When he moved to his brother in January I was convinced that I would never see him again. Everyday I waited for the call saying that he was sent back. Everyday I would pace around, watching for that green little dot on messenger telling me that he was online. And you would not believe the relief when I saw him log on to messenger and send me "Hi, how are you πŸ’—?" The police did not come for him today either..... 









Like most teenagers - his phone is never
far away.

In the end of March I could not take it anymore and I went to see him - one last time. I was tearing myself apart wondering what was going on - why did they not send him? I decided to take action. I asked for his papers and I got a lawyer to look at his case. I turned out that he was just forgotten in the system. I am not a believer, but there sure was someone or something watching out for him. The Norwegian system does not forget something like this. Usually the police will come the day they turn 18.

His case did look hopeless. He had been rejected twice and it is not easy to appeal after the second rejection - I read his papers over and over and over - and had nothing.

In May the system finally remembered him and the police came to pick him up for deportation.




He was not at home that morning - so the police did not find him. Again, I think someone or something was protecting him. Due to a recent operation, the doctors had given him a no-flight order, so the deportation was stopped, but he was scared, almost paralyzed - to him; being sent back is a death sentence. 


I wish I could show you the smile on his face
this day.

But, by this time I had finally found something in is papers that I hoped could help him.


2 weeks ago he was granted a 6 month permit to stay in Norway - and later this year we will make an appeal and hopefully they will turn around and give him asylum.

The situation is still unclear, but he is safe for now - and I have finally started to hope that my boy will have a fair chance in life and a hope for an happy ending. And this eventually gave me the motivation to finish this little album.

I hope you can all give him some love.







I have made space on the back of all the tags to write, and maybe one day I will be able to write his story there.



Thanks for stopping by!












I am entering this album to the following challenges: