8.12.10 Dubai, United Arab Emirites
A blur of a day...sitting on the rickety wooden benches, backs missing, mosquitos feasting, at the Dar Airport, waiting for the security guards to rise from their naps and roll off their cardboard beds on the floor of the screening room to scan us through the barely-functioning machines; an aborted takeoff ofthe Ethiopian Airlines startles me from fresh sleep, to which I fall quickly back once we become airborn, the unknown problem quickly masked; landing in chilly, damp Addis Ababa, my last stop of this short tour of the continent...drinking macchiatos and gazing at the cityscape of Addis through the large terminal windows, a city under construction, a work in progress of many many years, thrusted in the rememberce of wandering those very streets two short years ago on my first adventure to the continent...flying over the desolate red sands of the Sahara, searching for signs of life, seeing none, to aproaching the oasis of Dubai, scorched earth giving way to the towering skyline and hypercapitalism of this strange land, the airport a microcosm of the same Western decadence that I have not missed, have not even thought of, yet I plunge in headfirst, western magazines, books pouring off racks, electronics and icecream well beyond any abundance seen in quite some time...the feeling of landing of Guam after a year or so in Pohnpei, completely dizzying and disorienting the mellowed mind.
I havent stopped wandering the halls all day in amazement, fully cognizent that this small outpost is just that-a post that will soon be left for another headlong plunge into the developing world, the world that I choose for its very difficulty and unease that Dubai paints such a stark contrast to. I sit in the waiting lounge of the Sri Lankan AIrways flight to Colombo, surrounded by exclusively brown men, I wonder if they are returning home after work in this boomtown, what their stories are, and they smile a familiar smile, the smile of the subcontinent, and I get a wave of nostalgia, and return their glances...tonite to Colombo...
