Chechnya

Did anyone know where Chechnya was before the Boston marathon?

I did.  When we first moved here, our flat was nestled between two different apartment complexes.  One was filled with lots of little kids who spoke German with an accent and were not native Austrians.  They were loud and playful and polite.  When their ball would be kicked into our tiny little area not even considered a backyard, they would ask us if we could send it back over the fence.  After time, after perhaps 1,231 "hello's", we began a between the fence friendship.  At one point it budded into them knowing our girls names and them bellowing their names from the concrete space they used as a playground asking if they could come out to play.  I have a picture of these kiddo's with Addison.  One lazy Saturday afternoon she took her guitar over to their space and spent the afternoon teaching them songs.

These kids and their parents are from Chechnya.  Hard-working, loving and respectful people who came to Austria in search of a different life.  A better life.

According to the L.A. Times (April 19, 2013) "A massive Russian crackdown on Chechnya's bid for independence in the 1990s and the installation of loyal leaders there pushed the Caucasus Muslim enclave from the headlines years ago. But resentment has festered and at times bled into the global holy war being waged by Islamic militants."

I guess I've come to see the ramifications of being a foreigner ... since I am now one.  Because certain Americans stand for and have done certain things, many put me in the same box.  Unfair.  Yet, typical and characteristic of human nature.  We tend to put things in boxes.  However, boxes confine.  My hope during the aftermath of what is and has been a horrible act of violence is that we do not quickly form opinions of the rest of the population that call themselves Chechnyan.