This is it. My apartment is empty and there is an echo in the living room when I type. I closed the bills, took my name off the mailbox, threw some clothes in a couple of suitcases and handed my Belgian ID card back to the city of Ixelles. I am waiting for the expert to come and check how much damage I managed to do in the the 357 days that I called this place my own. In a few hours, I'll be in the Eurostar back to London and soon will begin to fret over the search for a new home, surrounded by people I love.
It was the shortest of years, it was the longest of years. There won't be anything to miss, with one notable exception: long, spumante-fuelled and zabaglione punctuated lunches at Luca's. The memories there, I can honestly say, were my only happy ones in Belgium.
I haven't decided what to do with this blog yet. I may just keep it and use it as a reminder that home is always where the heart is. Or I may re-title it and go on with my adventures in London.
In any case, this is another closed chapter. Adieu, but not without adding one of the most underrated of Jeff Buckley's songs.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Ayed's eyes
I win. It’s all done and signed. London is waiting for me. I’m going home.
“Welcome back to your real life,” Brussels seems to say. “Here’s some work and here’s a bit of feeling ill, enough to tie you to your bed for the weekend. It’s going to absolutely suck.” I smile. I’m alive again. Ayed’s eyes are golden and I am going home.
Ayed is a nineteen-year-old Bedouin from a tribe that settled a few decades ago in the outskirts of the Wadi Rum desert. I met him while unsaddling Assaf, my stallion for the trip. He explained to me in his disarmingly broken English that Assaf was a ticklish pain in the ass. Assaf – my white Sandstorm – sings, runs, chases mares and bites when a human being tries to brush him. He is so loveable otherwise. But no, it wasn’t a good idea to try and get him ready on my own.
So every morning, noon and night, gorgeous Ayed came to help. He wouldn’t let me carry the bucket of water to my horse unless I put up a fight. He figured it was an exploit for a teeny person like me to carry heavy buckets while walking in soft sand for distances that had to be long (you don’t keep a stallion near the rest of the herd lest he try to untie himself and mount every mare in heat or kick every other male he finds). I did put up a fight every single time, Assaf was thirsty and I wanted him to like me as much as I liked him. “Assaf, he go fat,” Ayed would exclaim, helping me saddle him after a decadent lunch. Assaf, you fat bastard, you high-maintenance stallion, thank you. Because every day, in the desert light, Ayed’s eyes were golden.
My “tentmate” Nathalie and I would try to set up camp in places protected from the wind and with as few rocks as possible. Quietly, I would lobby for a spot close to my horse. Assaf would wake all of us up at 5:30, when the first rays of sun hit the sandy plains. Every morning at 5:30, I would fake a whine and a moan, all happy and tangled up in my sleeping bag: "Not getting up. Assaf, shut it."
All day long, I rode and whispered to him (thinking Robert Redford might've had a point). Asked him to trot, canter or slow down, negotiated with him so we would both feel comfortable, getting his ears to stay where I could see them and his teeth away from other horses' asses. All of me focused, intent, all of him listening, even when he pretended not to.
From time to time, I’d look up and watch Jef tell the others about the geological formations and the first people who lived there. Someone, maybe me, would launch into a song. Soon everyone would join in.
After a few hours, we’d meet the other half of the group and Federico would crack jokes while his lovely Maddalena and the rest of us rolled in the sand laughing. We would giggle like a bunch of school kids when Faleh, the other guide, ordered us to "listen to the silence." We would nod emphatically when his older brother Mufleh would dismiss “complicated people” with an impatient huff. At 5pm, as the darkness came, we would gather around the fire to drink hot, sweet sage tea. And that became our definition of comfort.
I lost my camera on the second day. Mufleh took me in his jeep and we drove on our trails. Mufleh made me relive my day just by looking at the animal tracks: “Here, you saw goats. Here, you walked. You stopped here. The canter was there.” After a two-hour, unfruitful search, he decided it was my turn to take the wheel. There I was, driving a 4x4 in the middle of the moonlit desert, next to a Bedouin who would not stop taking the piss:
- Mufleh, for crying out loud, where am I going???”
- I don’t know, Saudi border?” he said, laughing his ass off.
- Mufleh, you're freaking me out.”
- I don’t know, maybe turn left? Oh look, there is shooting star.”
- A shooting star! Gotta make a wish!”
- Ok, I make wish.”
- Is this a tradition for Bedouins too? Make wishes when you see shooting stars?”
- Nah, that is tourist thing.”
By then, I’d forgotten all about my camera. Later, I realized that it turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened. There's something about keeping your camera at hand that makes you feel like a spectator. All of a sudden, I was free to just enjoy.
It worked. Two weeks later, as I prepare to leave this God-forsaken town, my mind's still filled with all that gold in Ayed's eyes.
“Welcome back to your real life,” Brussels seems to say. “Here’s some work and here’s a bit of feeling ill, enough to tie you to your bed for the weekend. It’s going to absolutely suck.” I smile. I’m alive again. Ayed’s eyes are golden and I am going home.
Ayed is a nineteen-year-old Bedouin from a tribe that settled a few decades ago in the outskirts of the Wadi Rum desert. I met him while unsaddling Assaf, my stallion for the trip. He explained to me in his disarmingly broken English that Assaf was a ticklish pain in the ass. Assaf – my white Sandstorm – sings, runs, chases mares and bites when a human being tries to brush him. He is so loveable otherwise. But no, it wasn’t a good idea to try and get him ready on my own.
So every morning, noon and night, gorgeous Ayed came to help. He wouldn’t let me carry the bucket of water to my horse unless I put up a fight. He figured it was an exploit for a teeny person like me to carry heavy buckets while walking in soft sand for distances that had to be long (you don’t keep a stallion near the rest of the herd lest he try to untie himself and mount every mare in heat or kick every other male he finds). I did put up a fight every single time, Assaf was thirsty and I wanted him to like me as much as I liked him. “Assaf, he go fat,” Ayed would exclaim, helping me saddle him after a decadent lunch. Assaf, you fat bastard, you high-maintenance stallion, thank you. Because every day, in the desert light, Ayed’s eyes were golden.
My “tentmate” Nathalie and I would try to set up camp in places protected from the wind and with as few rocks as possible. Quietly, I would lobby for a spot close to my horse. Assaf would wake all of us up at 5:30, when the first rays of sun hit the sandy plains. Every morning at 5:30, I would fake a whine and a moan, all happy and tangled up in my sleeping bag: "Not getting up. Assaf, shut it."
All day long, I rode and whispered to him (thinking Robert Redford might've had a point). Asked him to trot, canter or slow down, negotiated with him so we would both feel comfortable, getting his ears to stay where I could see them and his teeth away from other horses' asses. All of me focused, intent, all of him listening, even when he pretended not to.
From time to time, I’d look up and watch Jef tell the others about the geological formations and the first people who lived there. Someone, maybe me, would launch into a song. Soon everyone would join in.
After a few hours, we’d meet the other half of the group and Federico would crack jokes while his lovely Maddalena and the rest of us rolled in the sand laughing. We would giggle like a bunch of school kids when Faleh, the other guide, ordered us to "listen to the silence." We would nod emphatically when his older brother Mufleh would dismiss “complicated people” with an impatient huff. At 5pm, as the darkness came, we would gather around the fire to drink hot, sweet sage tea. And that became our definition of comfort.
I lost my camera on the second day. Mufleh took me in his jeep and we drove on our trails. Mufleh made me relive my day just by looking at the animal tracks: “Here, you saw goats. Here, you walked. You stopped here. The canter was there.” After a two-hour, unfruitful search, he decided it was my turn to take the wheel. There I was, driving a 4x4 in the middle of the moonlit desert, next to a Bedouin who would not stop taking the piss:
- Mufleh, for crying out loud, where am I going???”
- I don’t know, Saudi border?” he said, laughing his ass off.
- Mufleh, you're freaking me out.”
- I don’t know, maybe turn left? Oh look, there is shooting star.”
- A shooting star! Gotta make a wish!”
- Ok, I make wish.”
- Is this a tradition for Bedouins too? Make wishes when you see shooting stars?”
- Nah, that is tourist thing.”
By then, I’d forgotten all about my camera. Later, I realized that it turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened. There's something about keeping your camera at hand that makes you feel like a spectator. All of a sudden, I was free to just enjoy.
It worked. Two weeks later, as I prepare to leave this God-forsaken town, my mind's still filled with all that gold in Ayed's eyes.
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