surprise

hi-hello-how are you? are you fine?

if i said this to you on the streets (not that i ever roam these streets) of dallas or austin how would you react? would it be strange or is that just paranoia that makes me think so?

hi-hello-how are you? i am (surprise!) in dallas. as of this very moment. yes, it comes as a surprise to myself as well. a surprise to myself, a surprise to my now married friend (1st of my friends to "take the plunge" as they say) zafar, whose wedding i flew halfway around the world; sacrificed the education of 250 young eritreans; nearly (or completely) lost my peace of mind, my leisure, my (normally bumping, i assure you) eritrean social life; attempted shady passport forgeries; ran around the exit visa circus; and dropped obscene amounts of cash to attend. but all is fair in love and war.

now i find myself on what should be familiar ground, and yet i'm disoriented. and yet my little cousin says i "speak like an african." wha? yes, you pronounce your t's. parTicular-ly. and yet i feel uncomfortable ordering a sandwich at the airport. oh wait, is that just life-long shyness and social awkwardness that i now conveniently blame on spending a year and a half in a town that doesn't have a single street that has a name?

the surprise trip explains the syrupy sentimental sentiments of my last post. my temporary leave (3 weeks) from eritrea has put pondering, searching thoughts of my pending permanent Leave (in the summer) on the palpitations of my heart and the stress marks of my conscience. but as established before, there is yet time before i weep the tears of a bittersweet, inevitable departure.

in the meantime...being back in "the West," as they say, was mildy repugnant at first, if for no other reason than the "See. Buy. Fly." sign at the airport. But typically, i've found it quite easy and effortless to slip back into things. although i do find things here awfully B-O-R-I-N-G. maybe because i'm boring? maybe b/c all of the comforts and carparks and shopping malls and the isolation of individuals, the isolation of lives, of homes, of existences into pockets of consumer goods are really just euphemisms for devices that suck the life out of you. like a soul-sucking vacuum cleaner.

the wedding came and went in a flash. the sitting in isolation in suburban hell has begun. next week i'll head northeast to freeze myself, possibly to death or severe sickness. then i'll return to the burning sun of agordat, eritrea.

in eritrea i suppose i do feel slight pangs of guilt when i tell people that are not allowed to go past their city-limits without a permit, much less their national border, that i'm travelling to such-and-such place. outside the country. before departures, i typically get (seemingly) good-humored comments like, i know why you came here, to travel the world! or, are you a teacher or a tourist?

how about a work in progress?

too early for goodbyes

i'm afraid that i shan't be able to write this very often again in me life, so i shall write it now for that reason alone. for bragging and the recording of bragging and the holding on to something to point to and say, yes, i was cool once. but it will never be as cool as the black and white photographs and 60s pakistani newspaper clippings of my father in vintage dress being described as a "pioneering rock star." will be a watered down version, as expected from me. by me. for me. but nontheless it will be mine.

oh yeah, so what was i saying....ahhh....yes. looking back on the year. what i can say that i fear i shan't be able to say again is that i spent substantial amounts of time, not just touristy amounts of time, in 5 countries on 3 continents and in 5 different geographic regions in the past year. those would be: eritrea, UAE, eritrea, USA, egypt, eritrea, pakistan, and back to eritrea. well, enough bragging. from here, the only way is down, i fear.

i need to pee. bloated bladder. i'm used to drinking inordinate amounts of water in agordat. asmara is freezing (relatively). sometimes my water-drinking habits lag behind my geographic location, and i end up with bloated bladders while i am homeless and toilet-less in asmara.

i spent all x-mas day in this dingy ass internet cafe. doing work. only a few breaks in between. saw a pile of sheep skin and other thrown away bits, the occasional half-skull, in a big heap right in the middle of a roundabout. i wonder if that was a designated throw-away point. eritreans like to slaughter and eat sheep and goats on holidays.

there have been holidays galore lately...there was euro x-mas, then new years, now ge'ez x-mas. there's epiphany and eid coming up. then there are finals and semester break. the there's 2nd semester. then it's over. yes, i'm zooming ahead with the lens in my head right now. wondering, thinking, shit, i don't have much time left do i? what the hell did i do while i was here? why the hell can't i speak the local language(s) yet? am i that much of a loser? why do i do so much work and so little play? i need to flip that around. i intend to try to make up for it all the next semester. and then i intend to stay on in the summer, further trying to "make up" for things. or just get some extra credit. some extra time here. time to take it in, stop and say hello while i was so busy running and screaming and frustrating and sleeping and tiring thinking that i have time. i have time. or not even thinking about time b/c the only time you think about time is when you think you don't have it. or when you have too much of it. and then it's with opposite attitudes. i will be sad sad to leave. yes. very sad. people ask me, many people ask me, will you extend, will you be here next year. i say no like i wish i could say otherwise. but i still say no. i already have a friend in major denial about my leaving. i just half-lie to him these days, oh, yeah, maybe, maybe i'll be around. you never know. but i know. i will be gone. and forgotten. as is meant to be in this world. the most unnatural thing, immortality. i don't intend to live it, in any place.

my memory will fall away as the long strands of hair i noticed on at least three agordat-ites (my word) on my return in october, even though only one admitted it, i took it as imitation, as flattery, he's being like me. hadn't noticed any boys with pony-tails in 2003. sweet sweet. perhaps i was just cushing my ego with delusion of imitation. whatever, i don't care. i just know i will miss this place and the lives i touched and touched me.

it's a bit early for a sentimental farewell, isn't it? what am i doing? i will only repeat myself, exceed myself with sentimentality 6 months later, i better save it. stuff it. bring it out again when it's more pertinent. as of now, i still got half a year in this joint. plenty of time to accrue more emotions and experiences to gush out in an uber-sentimental farewell. so, until then.

do you know it's christmas in africa?

ever been mad at the world while eating a chocolate donut and sipping on a cappucino? that's what i just did. mad at the world, mad at band aid, mad at the lady at the ministry who told me to "come at 2 o'clock," mad at the kid who called me an italian, mad at the beggarman who rubbed my penis.

it's christmas here today, and i guess i'm not in the "christmas mood." someone commented, "you were sick last christmas," and i thought, maybe i'm allergic.

the occasion beckons, so i ask, have you ever realized how utterly stupid band aid's "do they know it's christmas [in africa]?" is? it actually took a friend's pointing out for me to see the eurocentrism and western arrogance that bleed through the singers' heartfelt charity. that's just how normal the idiocy of western arrogance has become.

it struck me like an epiphany, yeah, i thought in wonder, how fucking stupid. a bunch of rich over-the-hill amero/euro pop stars asking a continent of 50% non-christians if they knew it was christmas time. and then telling them they would feed them. gee, thanks. am i the only one who finds that a bit condescending? seems like a pop-extension of the 20th century evangelization of africa. as a homage to bandaid, maybe i'll write a song for the zapatistas. ask them "do they know it's eid in chiapas?" and then offer to feed them. or how about, "do they know it's hanukkah in ramallah?" offer to fly in some food on a hellicopter gunship.

or maybe i should organize a group of eritreans and ethiopians, we can ask, "hey white boys, do YOU know it's christmas in Africa?!" and it's january 7th. not december 25th. [this is the real kicker, "do they know it's christmas?" was originally written for ethiopians, most of whom celebrate christmas on (or around) january 7. the more you know, the more eurocentric and condescending (with heartfelt naivete, good intentions and career moves in mind) the song becomes. well, i guess it was addressed to the west afterall. But still, do they know it's hanukkah in ramallah?]

and by the way, on a totally non-peripheral note, most of the eritreans i know say they don't want your charity. they want independence.