Aya - Part 2 - Welcome to Isa
Yav (7:12pm): Hey! Did you make it?
Yav (10:08pm): Yo Aya :) please text me back, Khawa’s starting to worry
Yav (6:33am): Ayaaa
Yav (6:33am): aaa
Yav (6:33am): aaaaaaaaaaaaa
Aya (7:40am): Hey! Sorry, I was so dead when I got to Isa last night I didn’t get a chance to connect to wifi
Aya (7:41am): Just having a quick bowl of harissa before going to meet Ashur in 20 minutes
Yav (7:42am): Hey! I’m here
Yav (7:42am): That’s crazy, I’m pumped for you!!! Why haven’t you sent any pictures???
Aya (7:44am): I will! It’s just been kind of overwhelming to be here. My head is spinning. I can’t believe it’s even real, Yav. They say there’s like 50 people here already, and supposedly Ashur is already negotiating another abbey in Avignon. Things are moving fast
Yav (7:45am): That’s insane! Are you serious? Project Chadesh is already getting another site?
Yav (7:45am): Did they tell you how they’re paying for all this yet?
Aya (7:46am): Not yet. I just keep hearing “anonymous benefactor,” same as you
Yav (7:48am): Hmmm. interesting. Do yo think it’s Peter Thiel?
Aya (7:49am): LOL I know you want it to be Peter Thiel, Yav. I don’t know, I have no idea
Yav (7:50am): Okay, gotta head to work. You’re living the dream Aya! Who would have thought you would beat me to Isa. Send pictures back to the Ankara chat when you can!
Aya (7:50am): I will, thanks’ Yav. And tell Khawa not to worry. Everyone here is super nice and welcoming
From the other side of the complex came the clear gong from the bell tower signaling 8 o’clock. Time for her meeting with Ashur.
Aya stood in the morning sunlight of the orchard with her eyes closed, trying to count the different bird calls coming from the fruit trees and surrounding forest. The air was crisp, but the sun of Southern France was warm, and she was able to unzip her jacket and feel the sun warm up her chest and stomach.
Right as she was sinking into a meditation a pair of hands came from behind covering her eyes. “Guess who?!” exclaimed a familiar voice.
“Naj?!” replied Aya excitedly. “What are you doing here?” Aya spun around to face her friend. “Last time we talked you weren’t even sure if you could go remote! And now you’re at Isa? This is amazing!”
“I know!” said Naj, “I found out last month that I could transfer to the Munich office and go full-remote. I found out a couple months ago and I kept it a secret so that I could surprise you.”
After three years of friendship mediated by a screen, they took each other in face to face. Aya had learned to enjoy these special moments. Friendships took on a special depth when they made the jump from URL to IRL. And she was so glad there was someone she knew and trusted here with her.
“You’re taller than I thought!” said Aya. “and are a lot fitter than I expected for a computer programmer, haha.”
“Oh, why thank you! I’ve been crushing the Proof of Workout channel. In case you didn’t know, I’m number seven in women in the Americas” said Naj, putting her fists against her hips and twisting 90 degrees jokingly revealing her profile.
“Oh god, are you even more of a ham in real life?“ said Aya, laughing.
“Haha, well you’re exactly as I’d imagined you, very petite and cute as a button.” Naj said.
“Oh great,” said Aya, rolling her eyes.
As the two girls swapped stories about their travels, a man with green eyes appeared suddenly next to them on the flagstone trail. They must have been so caught up in their excitement they hadn’t seen him approach. The first thing Aya noticed was his warm, approving smile. “You two already know each other?” he said. “That’s amazing!”
“Yeah,” said Naj. “We met on those global calls three years ago, before everyone broke off into smaller teams.”
“Oh yes, oh yes, you’re Yav’s cousin!” Ashur said with recognition. “You’re one of the OGs indeed. I still remember that speech you gave on your first call about wanting us Assyrians to have a country of our own. It was a stirring talk!
I have to apologize for not being present on the server the last couple years,” Asher said. “After we got the regional teams set up I had to start working on fundraising and forming political and religious alliances, so I had to leave it up to my deputies to manage things on discord. I think it worked out in the end,” Ashur said, gesturing with open arms at the beautiful monastery and gardens all around them. “And now we can start a new chapter of building a physical foundation on top of the amazing digital one you’ve laid,” Ashur said as he pressed his open palms together in a gesture of prayer and thanks, bowing to each of the girls in turn. “What you’ve done with the Artist’s group Aya is a dream come true. We use your logos in all of our press and media output, and your other art has been instrumental in ingratiating us to new members, and even skeptics. Project Chadash can seem so technical, but with your art you make it human and relatable.”
Aya smiled. She and the other artists had indeed put in a lot of work to produce new art and cultural artifacts to attract new members and show that their effort is part of the eternal human struggle for freedom and self-determination.
“And you Noj,” Ashur said, orienting himself to her “The dashboards you and your team designed have been so key to our progress. They were one of the decisive factors in the French government allowing us to sponsor so many residents. You were able to prove that as a cohort we collectively earn above the average wage in France, so would not be a drag on the system. Plus almost all of us are paid by companies outside the country, so it’s just a capital inflow for them. You are a wizard.”
“I think of myself more as a digital-enchantress, but I’ll take the compliment.” Naj said, joking.
Ashur grinned even bigger. He seemed to like connecting with people after so much time on the computer. But he couldn’t hide a tinge of weariness. He was climbing a mountain many had said was impossible, and if you looked closely, you could see it.
“Come, let’s walk around the orchard and get to know each other a bit. We have some time before we meet Layah.” Ashur pulled two yellow apples the size of a softballs off of the nearest tree and tossed them to Naj and Aya. “Did you know that France is the third largest apple producer in the world?”
Aya took a bite. It was crisp and juicy and still cold from the night before. She had never had an apple fresh from a tree before, but with a single bite decided she very much liked walks in the orchard.
“No, but does that mean we get to make cider?” Naj volleyed back.
“Yes, the Benedictines that we leased this from have a full cider producing operation. We will indeed make cider, along with some other value added food products. We are tech workers, but a healthy mind and spirit is in contact with the land.”
“How did you manage to lease this place, anyway? And how long do we have it for?” Asked Naj, not hesitating to take advantage of being near the horses mouth for once.
“We have negotiated a fifty year lease with the Benedictines who built this place.”
“And then we give it back?” asked Naj.
“And then we have an opotion to buy.”
“Why did they decide to eventually lease it to you? I remember that when you first approached them they very publicly said they had a responsibility to their donors and brothers and they had no intention of vacating the properties.”
“Us, they leased it to us. If you live here you are part of Project Chadash. And why did they do it? I think I was able to persuade them that helping a persecuted Christian minority that keeps getting massacred and displaced by muslim extrimists is a cause that God cares for, for one. Another reason is the Benedictines have over 400 monasteries around the world and their numbers are dropping. This may be temporary, but if so, they need money and help to bridge the gap. These properties are a lot to maintain, and they’re being shuttered and turned into museums at best, condos at worst. We can pay them good money for the use, they retain ownership, they know we will steward it with full respect, and a small but influential group inside of the order believes we could be devleoping a model of great importance to Christians in the 21st century. They see us as pioneering a Benedict Option.”
“Do you see us as pioneering a Benedict Option?” Aya asked. She was aware that it had been put forward as a model for Network States. And here they were at a Benedictine monastery. Coincidence?
“The short answer is no,” replied Ashur. “we are not standing against or in judgement of the outside world. We want to embrace it and be embraced by it. But I’m sympathetic to the ideas of the Benedictine Option and certainly they can learn from us.”
As they continued their walk over the grass and dried leaves, they came to the end of the orchard. In front of them was a wooden porch swing overlooking the valley with vinyards and forested hills in the distance.
“Let’s have a seat. I still want to hear from you two,” Ashur said. “So now you’re going to have to forgive me. I’m aware of your work, but I don’t really know your stories. Would you mind catching me up a bit on who you are and how your experience with Project Chadash brought you here? By being invited to Isa you’re already considered leaders in the community, but I want to learn how that happened.
“Aya, why don’t you start.” Ashur nodded toward her as they took their seats with Ashur on the far side and Aya in the middle of the bench.
As the porch swing began to gently rock back and forth, Aya thought back to that first call that her cousin Yav had brought her to when she’d met Ashur and Naj and many others for the first time. It was impossible to try to grasp how much her life had changed since that moment, how the trajectory had started to curve and bend until it finally took an entirely new course to a monastery in France pioneering one of the first Network States.
“It’s hard to summarize..”
“That’s okay, we have a while.” Ashur said. “Take your time. I want to hear the whole story.”
Aya pictured herself sitting back on the couch next to Yav.
“Okay! What did you think?” Yav said, shutting his laptop as the call ended. “I think you made a good impression. Everyone seemed to like your whole “we need a homeland” speech. Where did that come from by the way? You’ve never said anything half that provocative to me before.”
Aya adjusted herself on the couch and leaned her head against the backrest, looking up. She felt like some tectonic plate inside of her was shifting, and it was not comfortable. “Yav, what the hell are you guys doing? Does it strike you as a bit inconsiderate to try and go around giving people hope that we can start some kind of a country together? We’ve been through enough as a people…”
“Hey hey, what’s the deal?” Yav broke in, “You said you wanted to come. You asked me for information, then you showed up for the call, then you gave some stump speech like a 20 year old Iraqi revolutionary, and now you’re mad at me?”
Aya rolled her head on the backrest to look at him. He had a point. Why was she feeling anger? Wasn’t she excited just two minutes ago? “You’re right, Yav. I just..” she fell silent.
Yav got up and sat back down in a chair facing Aya from the side. He stared at her and said “Tell me what’s going on. You’ve lived here with my Mom and I for eight years and I’ve never seen you show an interest in anything but drawing. All of a sudden you’re interested in this completely wild experiment about starting a new country, and then as soon as you learn more about it you get angry.”
Aya searched her feelings. Searing hot ones, freezing cold ones, hollow ones. They squirmed in her like worms. “Yav, my family has barely survived three genocides in four generations. My father was killed by extremist thugs trying to defend Mosul. My family came here with nothing eight years ago, and now my brother has disappeared and probably joined some separatist group…” she paused. Yav listened intently “I’ve never wanted to have hope. Yes, I’m sick of us being the pawns of larger nations, pushing us around and sometimes even trying to destroy us. I just.. “She trailed off again, her eyes gazing out of the room, past the far wall, a thousand miles away. Or maybe she was looking inside of herself. “I want to believe, and I don’t want to believe. Because it’s painful, because of everything we’ve lost, and because no one’s ever told me we can try to control our own fate… And if I believe that, what does that mean for my life?”
The question hung in the dry Turkish air. Yav took a deep breath. His cousin had never said this many words put together to him in their lives. He now realized that her stern and dismissive exterior had been protecting wounds which lay unhealed all these years. He felt bad for her. Yav had lost his father too, but to a traffic accident. It was horrible, but not as tragic as your father being shot to death by insurgents overrunning your city while he was bravely defending it.
“Look, join the group.” Yav broke the silence. “You clearly care about this. You’re half right, we have no idea if it’s going to work and we can’t make any promises. But when you talk about this I see you have a heart for your people. If you just go back to normal and don’t look any further, you’re going to regret it.”
Aya sat empty now, no longer overflowing with feeling. She felt something like a draft blow through the inside of her body. Her life was empty, utterly without meaning, and she knew it. She waited tables, she chatted with her friends, she hoped to meet a boy (but never made the effort). But none of it was going anywhere. “Okay, I’ll join.” she said. She turned her head and looked at her cousin, “Thanks Yav” she said with an exhausted smile. She rubbed her face with her palms and searched the back of her head with her fingers making sure her braid was in place, trying to regain composure.
“Don’t thank me. Just don’t forget the fire. There’s a long road from here to starting a physical country, and I have a feeling you have a role to play.” Yav said, giving Aya a smile and searching look.