Dakar Je t'aime

Dakar je t'aime

Haven't written for some time now; haven't had the stamina to face my muse or that airy beautiful breeze of being detached from the daily hectic life of work, errands, even hang outs that some time when u are so overwhelmed becomes a burden on its own…in the sense that you really want to see your friends, but see them alive and interactive and you are just forlorn and distant.
I believe that in a lot of aspects I m blessed. But deep down inside, I have this pain…pain of being incapable to let go, to just be…but I don’t know a certain version of me that I would like to be, sometimes people choose their version of me and decide to live with it. let them be then, but I am not this nor that, I m still trying to be, wouldn't mind trying for as long as I live just with a little peace.
I pray in the morning, to a God that I don't know, I try to find an ultimatum, I try to surrender, I wish I could…friends say I shouldn't be outspoken, but it helps knowing that its out there, maybe if I can't find my God, I can find companionship.
A week ago I had my third trip in 2010 outside Egypt. Senegal, Dakar…je t'aime. I hate airports, and more I hate flights, especially when it’s a 12 hour trip.
I landed in Dakar at 6:00 am their time which is GMT+0 , everything changed upside down, I met the boss, two Yemenis amazing women and our baggage was lost in Casablanca's airport. That was one hell of a start.
There is something about Africa. There is something about less cosmopolitan country than your own hometown, there is something about Dakar.
One of the most beautiful experiences ever is to communicate with people who tell you "sister" just by walking in the street, although eventually you realize that that’s probably the only or more or less the most likely to hear them say in English. There's something amazing, that they speak in French and you get along just fine. How distressing language has become the link between human beings; and here I am using a language not even my own to reflect on a life changing cycle in a wheel of experiences. I started thinking in Yemeni, especially and most notably for me in words that has to do with wanting and belonging… in my mind I would stay "eshtahy…want" and "haqy…mine"…
If I would write a travel suggestion I would say that the weather is hot the people are lovely and the food is various and amazing and the ocean is huge and it's a cheap country. But would you believe me if I told you that it's the only country I have been to, that actually have a very distinctive smell that I still remember when I sit and contemplate in my bed in my 10 minutes meditation before sleeping.
One benefit for Nawara is the guys there don't mind chubby girls, I should go live there then. But I realized it's not about guys anywhere, it is actually about the fact that I don't even have a visualization of my own body in my own little head. I have been up and down and I still don't think there is a Nawara that I know. Just what people want me to see and I think I have a long journey not to be afraid to acknowledge my own flesh.
Yemeni gals … I have shared a room with the most lovely woman I have ever met, she made me laugh, she made me feel alive…She made me feel Nawara. She is a heroine for me. And the young one will always be a young sister I wish I had a chance to pamper.
African women are purely women… I can't describe how they come to be alive and fully generated in what the live up to and how their spirits are just a reason to keep going.
The only Senegal guy I have met, I mean liked talked… I salute … there are still men out there.
Me, being around feminists, me alone, laughing, aching, wondering, a spectator of a show of life, a participant in a dream. To whom it may concern, I m blessed with an ache in my heart.