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?