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I arrived back in Khartoum this week after a two week break that encompassed my birthday, london, dc, old friends and most importantly family. I have to admit I dreaded coming back here, I’d heard nightmares about 50 degrees in the shade, haboubs towering fifty times the height of the tallest building, and worst of all, was going back to an ambiguous difficult political climate where anything can be made to seem reasonable and achievements can seem impossible. To brace myself I had smuggled in key survival tools: speakers for my ipod, hair curlers, wine, and most importantly duck pate with crackers from Wholefoods. Being back however has been a lot easier than expected. I think I was mainly dreading coming back because I had charicatured it so much in contrast to my visit to old haunts and with old friends in DC and London, which had been blissful and is something I still miss.
I was sitting relaxing in DC in Jurek’s front garden last week, my bicycle lying beside me where I had dumped it, sun on my face, nothing to do, watching him haphazardly water the plants, his car, the picket fence and all the pedestrians in between, and came to a mini revelation. Last time I remember sitting on a suburban doorstep, dappled by the leaf caught sun, unencumbered by responsibility or due payments to time I was about six or seven in my first and longest home in Muswell Hill. Shortly thereafter I was unceremoniously plucked from my haven and dumped into the mid-stream current of school timetables and uniforms (something I never got the hang of, having arrived at school in half my pajamas more than once), gcse’s, a-levels, university and employment. It seems like only recently I’ve surfaced to take breath, to survey the landscape and to decide which direction I want to swim in.
Other considerations come into mind of course, like why are you swimming, surely a boat would make more sense, if I got a boat should I let others use it?, should I stop at the shore and think about it for a while, what if I get cramp and drown, are there sharks?, who’s that swimming over there and are they drowning someone?, if they say it isn’t technically drowning is that ok?, should I try to stop them from drowning that person or should I be grateful it’s not me, would this be easier with goggles, should they be designer goggles?, etc etc. All these are key questions, most of the time you only have a second or two to contemplate them before a wave whacks you in the face. Sometimes when it is shallow, you can take your time and wade. These are the best times.
The mini-revelation that I had in Jurek’s garden though was this, I’m swimming upstream, back where I came from, to those moments in the front garden where the biggest responsibility was washing the car and the most complicated thing was wondering whether you had enough energy to move to the fridge and eat and the latest project was catching tadpoles with mum’s turkey baster (something she never forgave me for even though I thought it was quite reponsible of me to dry it and put it back in the kitchen drawer). The revelation was that underneath all the travelling, soul searching and questions of responsibility and legacy, this would make me happiest, I’m just trying to find a way to justify travelling back to it.
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