I'm on a train from Germany to Lausanne, Switzerland and the scene is as follows. The outstanding view of the blue sparkling lake mixing with the perfect green hills as we stumbled upon Lausanne took my breath away and left me both speechless and sceptical. I asked myself "is this real!?". The scenery was one of those you'd find in cartoons. And me being a cartoon lover, it harmonised the adult me with the child me and left me with inner peace. The peace that was broken right after few seconds.
In the midst of trying to grasp what my eyes are seeing, I came to realise that I reached Lausanne and soon after I forgot all the harmonious atmosphere I was in and went into a deep state of anxiety, asking myself "I'm here. What should my first words be to him? What should I say?!". I was anxious and excited at the same time, I'm meeting my uncle for the first time. My uncle Ali left Baghdad prior to my birth in the 80's due to political reasons in which he could have faced execution if he'd stayed. Anxiety stuck and grew every mile we step closer to Lausanne Main Train Station. Few minutes later the train came to a halt. I grabbed my back bag and stepped out on the pavement.
I kept on starring into peoples' faces trying to figure out if it is Uncle Ali or not even though I had no utter idea how he looked like as I'd never really seen him, even in photos. Few minutes passed and no one showed up, so I picked my cellphone up and rang him. "Ring ring ring; hello..." a woman answered. I asked with confusion whether it's my uncle's phone or not. She said yes, and that she was his wife. After few chit chats, she told me that he was on his way and that he's supposed to be there any minute. Right after hanging up, I saw him coming towards me even though he'd never seen me. We knew each other, blood was a real factor. I said to myself "I'm sure it's him, he has uncle Faris's cheek bones and my dad's walk.". I started walking towards him and when we were a meter away, he said: "Abdullah?", which is my Name, and I bobbed my head. After it came the longest hug i've ever hugged someone, most of it I was thinking what he would be really thinking. To him, I was as if his whole family was physically existing with him. Words flew out of my dictionary. For the first time in my life, I was speechless.
I stayed for two days in Lausanne, through which I connected with my uncle like no other uncle. I knew more about what he did when he left and how he managed to turn life upside down for himself. It was one of the most beautiful-for-the-sole trips I've ever made.
This trip, which was in August 2013, came into my mind now when thinking about my own situation and my own country. How I am in many ways similar to my uncle. I've been living in Egypt since 2005, and I'm 23 now. Almost half of my life was spent as a foreigner. I managed to have my place in this country even though I felt as an outsider the first few years, which were literally living hell. And now with my country being more and more torn apart by illiteracy, I see no other alternative but continuing my life like this, a foreigner which I have no problem with. But there will always be something missing, something I noticed my uncle missed as well.
Homeland.