Boonaa Mohammed

15 July 2009

Bismillah,

It is easier to guard your tongue where there is no one to talk to. On a daily basis I will have a handful of conversations which I more or less will not understand. Language barriers suck, but they also force you to re-evaluate everything you say, and if it’s not necessarily important, you most likely won’t bother. I am now beginning to understand why we were given one mouth and two ears, probably to shut up and listen more. Quiet people always scared me, because I never quite know what they are thinking. The same can be said about someone who always lets you babble on. In a city of roughly 6.8 million there is always something to do. Even standing on the side of the road provides immense entertainment. You will just see little ghetto things that nobody finds funny but you, like a whole family of five riding on a motor scooter or a 6 year old trying to hustle you into buying scented Kleenex.

Poverty presents itself in the most heart-breaking form, but for all the gaps in meals and modern luxuries, people seem quit content. After all they don’t really know what they are missing, as though flat screen TVs at bus stops isn’t really missing much. Sometimes a trip to the market will put your senses in overload; all the sights and sounds just force you to sit down. Even with all the time in the world, you wonder where the days went. I have been here for about a month and a half and I can’t remember what I did last week. In Egypt the sun is ruthless and doesn’t go down until you have had absolutely enough. There is sweat dripping from your skin as you walk to the corner store. Everybody works and everybody plays, but once you hear the adthan it is strictly business. There is a Masjid roughly every three steps you take and there is no sound more beautiful than that of the call filling the air.

I miss home, like I miss puberty. Both provided interesting day to day affairs, but still you are happy where you are. I am in school 6 days a week and although I have found it quite challenging, I must say the challenge tastes like Buckley’s, kind of rough but supposedly good for you. I don’t know why I am using so many random weird metaphors; I guess I’m just trying to see if I still remember how to do the whole English thing. I haven’t bothered taking many pictures, because the experience couldn’t fit on a memory stick and besides experience is not what happens to a man, it is what a man does with what happens to him. I haven’t bothered to write any long blogs since I got here because I haven’t really had much to say. I don’t think I’ll be coming back some sort of entirely changed man, I plan on more or less just trying to live by the things I already knew. I have been doing a lot of reading though, so much so that I decided to purchase a small library considering how cheap everything is here. As someone who claims to be a writer or a performer or whatever the heck I think I do, it is a shame that I haven’t taken more time to get acquainted with books. I always made up excuses like “Oh I am a visual learner” but the truth is I have just been really lazy.

I try and call my Mom every couple of days because I know she worries about me more than I do. It’s weird how being away from my family has made me appreciate and see them in a whole different light, I’m sure it will all disappear once I return. I’m leaving for Oromia in two weeks, and InshAllah I will be there for about a month before returning to Toronto in early September. For a while I wasn’t really sure what to expect or how I should prepare for the trip back to the motherland, but my spirit is telling me to stop thinking and just do it. Egyptians are generally pretty chill, but they are always surprised when I tell them I’m from Canada, because they didn’t know that Canada let Black people in. On a funny side note, most Egyptians are convinced they are not African; some believe they from a random part of Europe?

With no cell phone and no one to report to, sometimes I just sit in the shade and wonder if anyone will recognize me. Nobody ever does and it is the most comforting feeling in the world. I am just another random extra in the movie of life. Wish you were here.

Love is Love,

Boonaa

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Boonaa Mohammed is an activist and artist based out of Toronto. He is currently studying and travelling in Africa.

Check out some of his award-winning spoken word and other works at: http://www.myspace.com/boonaa