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i am leaving eritrea for a week to visit karachi, pakistan, long-lost city of my birth. city of 12 million. city of pollution traffic dirt and too much inequality to fit into the whole world. city to where i've long planned for a grand return that never comes. and it certainly won't this time around. for my visit will be sad, as i'm not visiting karachi but visiting a loved one near the end of her life. it's a cruel irony of life, a cruel irony of my life, that i spend it far away from people while they are living, only to visit them when they are dying.

i have a week, not enough time. but it never is. 1 week, 10 days, 38 years, half a life, half a person, like the numbers of death, random and always wanting. a macabre lottery.

it's been a week of pickpockets in the rarest of countries. a week of mistaken identities. a week of navigating the red tape. a week of extreme frustration and anger. a week of holding it together while feeling it come apart. a week of hope, excitement, sadness, action and inaction. in that order. with the last 2 endlessly alternating and opposing. a sarcastic play on my life.

travelling. on the bus from barentu to asmara. climbing the mountains, i look out the window to see, much to my surprise, a series of white, puffy clouds. at eye-level. i study them for a few moments, to make sure my eyes aren't fooling me. are they mountains? no, they are white puffy clouds. i never realized we were so close to heaven.