hello again dubai

In the Dubai airport. Midnight on Thursday. This place has become all too familiar to me. My fourth time traveling through. Surprisingly enough, I haven’t had any major mishaps… yet. Flight was delayed out of Toronto because of the snow and I thought for sure I would miss all my connections, but so far so good. I take great pride and pleasure in traveling alone. But I must admit—something almost always goes terribly wrong. I spend every trip now in almost constant prayer that I won’t end up stranded or with lost baggage or getting harassed by immigration.

Being at home for a week shook me. I’m left questioning if I’ll ever have what it takes to live in Canada again… I’ve always been pretty aware of the reality of poverty and how privileged I am to come from a nation like Canada—filled with wealth and opportunity. Even just that basic knowledge or awareness was enough to torment me. If only slightly. I’ve always had this lingering and nagging sense of guilt over how well off I am and how unfair it seems that so many others suffer. This guilt would manifest itself in various ways. One example being my willingness to overeat or save or reuse things for fear of wasting something that would be deeply appreciated or needed by someone else. Ridiculous, I know. After a while, I figured out that I wasn’t doing anyone a favor by eating the blueberry scone off the floor at Starbucks or consuming the practice drink that was about to be poured down the drain. If anything, I was only making myself sick and fat. I’ve sort of overcome that problem—but now—the guilt is so much worse.  After a couple of trips to Wal-Mart this week, I concluded that I was unable to cope in such situations and would be better off avoiding stores altogether for a while. Every time I walked into a store I was overcome by emotion and could hardly contain myself from bursting into tears. I miss Africa. I miss the simplicity and the rawness of life there. I miss the clarity and the peace I felt there. I miss the feeling of focus and contentment and purpose. Walking through the vast and never-ending halls of the Dubai airport just now, I crossed paths with a group of Africans. I stared and concluded that they were probably Sudanese. Nearly cried and worked hard to restrain myself from latching on to them and asking all sorts of questions.

I love travel—and I love experiencing new places and cultures. But I am being reminded of how heart wrenching it can be to move from place to place after investing and loving so much.