Final Thoughts

I have been home from Dubai for almost 3 months. It takes a long time to decompress. The first thing I did was to plunge into the folds of my family. I have been gone for a year and I have missed so many daily miracles, like a niece learning to walk and a grandfather turning 90. I sleep on their couches and do whatever silly favors I can find, trying to dig my fingers back into the soil where I come from.


The next thing I did was to rebel against the Middle East. Even though I am not in that place anymore, the place was still in me. Any day weather allows, I wear a miniskirt. I take great pleasure in discussing "Vaginas" in large groups. And I gave myself a cleansing ritual in which I shaved my head: all the hair that formed during the time when I walked passed mosques, knowing I wasn't allowed because I might distract the men from their godly pursuits, and when the secret police almost arrested me for kissing my boyfriend goodnight on my doorstep, and when I was feeling so far away from home and nowhere near the culture in which I lived... it all fell off with the passing of my shears. I shook my head like a happy puppy and I have been free ever since.








The most recent phase of my decompression is a bit of nostalgia... Every now and then, an Arabic rhythm will find its way to my ears and my skin tingles with sweet memories of that exotic desert. The other day at Wheetsville Co-op, a place I consider to be one of the homes of my culture, half the to-go shelf consisted of baba ganoush, hummus, tabuleh, falafel, etc.. I smile at the dreadlocked Austin hippies who take it off the shelf as if it is theirs. Globalization.

Throughout the time I have been home, my greatest disturbance has been the lack of a bridge. No one here has ever been to Dubai... they barely know where it is. Sometimes, I get the question, "So, how was Dubai?" They are best satisfied with a one line answer that they can easily understand. To whatever I say, they inevitably respond: "Isn't that where they have all those cool modern architectural buildings?" to which I silently groan and say yes through clenched teeth. I lived an entire year in that place: fell in love, left a corporate legacy, learned to tell within 30 seconds which part of India the cab driver was from and whether he would try to rip me off by taking Garhoud bridge. I've never met anyone here who knows who Nancy Ajram is. I can't throw synical comments around about Emirati suppression of women because its taken too seriously: people are too ready to confirm their stereotypes.

What I need is a bridge. I need someone who knew me in Dubai, who lived it with me, to come here. Otherwise, it feels like I have just lived two parallel lives in complete ignorance of each other.

So if any of the dear ones that are still there would like to come to Texas, give me a holler! I'll give you lots of BBQ and beer as long as you'll sit around the table with me and my family and laugh about funny accents and shake your head about condoned slavery.

Until ya'll can make it, I have created a new blog. I will post all adventures there from now on, both at home and abroad: sarahsight.blogspot.com