I am GHODSI HOSSEINI, a woman from the land of beauty and ugliness, of originality and tradition, of justice and discrimination. Like tens of millions of other Iranians, I grew up in a religious family, and like millions of Iranian children I witnessed the revolution, war, corruption and ideological breakup of my country. Like thousands of Iranian girls with identities vastly different from our traditional mothers, I secretly fell in love, enjoyed my youth and connected myself to the outside world. Like a few women in my country, I chose my own husband. When it became too difficult for me and my family to struggle for freedom and the least human rights, we had to seek refuge in a safe country to raise our son in a new land and build a bright future for him far from war, destruction and the poisonous educational system.

This is my story about my first days of asylum in Germany and then my unintended trip to Canada, which happened for the sake of bad news. There I began to understand death, life and the beauty and ugliness of the world. I finally realized there is only one nation in the world called "humans" and only one country called "the world."