OK, here’s the deal. I seem to recall that I willingly left my father’s house, willingly got in the rickety ol’ van, and willingly went through airport security without pausing to look back. I do not recall, however, what my mother’s face looked like as she waved goodbye to me, a loner on a journey to an unknown land. I do not recall because I never looked back. I could not look back for fear of loosening my last strong nerve and breaking down into a teary mess. I feared my hand would fail me and drop my wheeled carry-on suitcase, which was my entire possession. In it I had a couple of dress changes and shoes. I had my visa-stamped passport in my hand, and I was clutching it so hard I can still see the impressions my sweaty fingers made on its front and back covers. When the plane lifted, I shut my eyes until the captain assured us that we had attained cruising altitude, and it was safe to unbuckle our seat belts. However, I continued to keep my eyes closed until I convinced myself that the plane was no longer flying nose-upwards. By the time I was ready to open my eyes a crack, we were flying across the border out of Kenyan airspace, and entering the Ugandan airspace. My folks back at the Nairobi airport must already have been on their way outside the city and hip-hopping back to the country by then. I can imagine my poor mother clinging to my dad, completely overwhelmed by emotion. I can picture her shaking uncontrollably, and trying very hard to hold back her welling tears, as she always does when she is excited. My dad is holding her, and he is very shy because everybody is looking at him. He usually is very confident around Mother when they are alone in the house, and a little more when the kids are around, but today, everybody is looking on. They are watching him, and he is embarrassed. Yet, there is little he can do about it because he has to steady the rental van. Poor old man. Back to my situation: I fast forward and I was practically in the US before officials recorded it. A few hours and a couple thousand miles later and I am at the airport in Detroit, a rare entry point for students entering the US from my country. JFK, San Fransisco, Logan. Bradley, even. Those are the names my friends have mentioned to me as their entry terminals. I have yet to find another who came in by way of Detroit, Michigan. But I wasn’t thinking, “it is a long way from home.” Now, another fast years later, I am suddenly struck by how peculiar it is I do not think it is a long way from home. I have made myself a home in this new land, and like the prodigal son I am squandering my time with work, study and life. I am quite happy. My friends are happy. We have fun. There are things, however, that jolt me to realize how onerous a task it is to keep smiling and holding on to the one nerve keeping me from going ballistic about how crazy I miss the folks. I have been asked how I do it: how I do not appear to care, why I look callous, why I laugh away like a lunatic. I have made numerous excuses motivated by the desire to protect myself against hurt, against the very lunacy I’m assumed to be inflicted with. I say things such as Facebook, Internet, Cellphone, Phone. I argue that communication has become easier and facilitated by technology, and physical contact has a peripheral importance, if any at all. I realize that I make no moral or economic sense with my half-baked excuses, but I find consolation in the fact that I have successfully brainwashed myself with such nonsensical jabber. I feel that my capacity to persuade even myself surprises me, and I’m crazy as charged for admitting it. Nonetheless, there are severe attacks of unrelenting solitude that pelt me like hail. These moments are diabolical. I get a crushing and unknown sense of defeat. I feel like an empty shell (although, it probably is just a metaphor for I what the emotion really is). But, I’m more interested in the defeat part of it. It bothers me, and it irritates me. I get worked up about defeat. I imagine that I have always been excited at the idea of success since I first learned my ABCs from my nursery school teacher, Mrs. I-forget-her-name. I always wanted first-place. I envied the genius. I looked upto the best people, the diligent, all the while jealously and silently hoping I were them. I hated defeat, and continue to. I have tried to understand why I suffer these “defeat” bouts. I have come to some conclusions, all of which point to my hate for defeat. When I strolled out that mud hut I used to live in in my father’s house, I was headed for great things. I knew there would be speed pumps, nasty STOP signs, and uncompromising DEAD ENDs. I do not presume to have seen it all. But, I have goals of my own – the goals of a lazy man – those that I strife to achieve on a day-to-day basis. Examples: (1) work – waking up, dressing up, walking up to the bus, smiling all day… (2) home – washing up, cleaning up, eating my fridge dry of foodstuff… (3)…. I find my list is not endless. Anyhow, I expect myself to work everything I set to do, especially my own selfish small goals well. When I do not, I am angry. But I am not angry at myself, no! I love myself too much to do that.
