Leaving.
I said goodbye 3 times from 3 different places.
The first that felt like bye was leaving Oman, it’d been about 10 days that I was there but I got to meet more than 50 people over there, I lived the whole time together with 2 girls from the national team in Oman (they did the same I did but in Oman) and a group of trainees in a big, hot villa and I got to participate there in a conference and as well visit new places. My kind of vacation.
It’s still a mystery for me how I created such strong bonds with so many people there, how they still remember me and send me messages because I was a really transitory and rather random element there. Someone who seemingly dropped by from Jordan for a conference, half dead-tired half thrilled about what was about to start there. Omani people are tremendously hospitable to be quite fair, they love to drive you around even when going nowhere, they will even go out with you in the unbearable heat if you ask them too… or they will lay on the sofa with you the whole lazy afternoon if you don’t.
On the day I was leaving I was almost disappointed I was not gonna be seeing anything more but then suddenly I had a big group (big as in it wouldn’t fit 1 but 2 full cars) dedicated to go do whatever, which turned out to be going to a museum because all other options were closed or done already. Two Brazilians (Cintia and Carolina), a Polish girl (Ewelina), an Indian (Yousuf) and then Anjali, Sam and Aisha came afterwards on a different car. Four others had left on a trip to Dubai otherwise we would even risk to be more.
I don't have a picture with them all. Missed the moment! But I have Anjali, Sam and me posing like true Omani girls :)
It was a simple, small and at times interesting museum, I even read there things I didn’t want to about Portugal (we’re known there for slicing off noses and ears of the locals back in the colonization years!) and it was so hot that all the walking we did felt as too much, no matter how much walking I normally like to do. Oman and the Gulf countries are some other reality, I heard these days it’s more than 50° over there and there were even unbelievable news that it can go as high as 80° (which is not possible without human extermination as we know it but gives you an idea how unimaginable it gets).
And then we headed to the airport, they went inside with me and waited for ages for my check-in (I was right behind a never-ending train of household packages with people around it, to the sides and appearing from behind and front), we mocked the tourism add of Oman above the desks and talked about other things I now cannot remember exactly, all I remember is their faces then. And then I was about to leave and got a gift, I got this beauty and a letter from the national team:
About 10 days meeting pretty much everyone for the first time, except for around 7 people there, whom I also didn’t know that much before landing! Ain’t it o-mazing? For me it was and I miss them even today.
Then I came back to Jordan, still had to finish some work and then basically pack up and get ready for my trip: I didn’t travel home from Jordan but instead went through Palestine and then Israel before taking the plane, in Tel Aviv.
This was the big farewell, this was the one I wanted to avoid because I didn’t know how to deal with it. Reaching the conclusion that I didn’t have time to be with everyone individually and that after all this time there was no unrude way out of an official farewell, I organized an evening where I gave myself the expectations of cooking, doing a small presentation of Portugal and basically sharing some words with the friends who would be there. Well, the eve before at 4am I still had all my clothes around the room (and not inside the bag), I hadn’t even started looking at the pics and at what I could prepare as a presentation and the words were at one third done (I had started writing something like small messages for each person, personal ones, but was yet unsure how I’d pass them on to them).
And then the night came, I was supposed to meet just before my neighbours and Cécile (we lived in a french spot of Amman) because they wouldn’t go to the party, we stayed home for a bit and I got late, people started calling where was I and for directions (which I didn’t know haha), I said bye to my neighbours and me and my flatmate went out to find a taxi and get to Tareq’s place, where we were meeting everybody but before I met some friends around the corner because they really had to leave before.
People calling again saying they would have to leave soon too and me freaking out coz this was not the party I was hoping for. Abed, Amal and Shatha then ended coming up to Tareq’s house for a bit and at least I got to stay with them a bit more.
Oh my god coming up I felt like staying near the door, or going to the almost empty kitchen… there was a lot of people and I wasn’t ready, no presentation, no food, not even the proper parting smile! I run around and said hi to everybody, talked to them all and it felt really good to have them all there: JJ, Karlijn, Hanne, Sultan, João, Breno, Fadi, Shaher, Hakeem, Osama, Ma’moon, Safa’, Mirza, Walaa’, Luma, Maher, Lana, Bechir, Eyad, Bashar, Suzanne, Tareq of course…
Some of my favourite people were there and I had no decent presentation about Portugal, no nice, well-thought words to tell them, nothing for them to eat and think it tastes Portuguese.
The night was good because those people were there, there was a very random slide show with some of my pics in Jordan and others from Portugal, there was a bit of dubka dancing and singing, there had to be singing in my farewell :) And then people started leaving, the conversations went from the living room to the kitchen and then we stood in the hallway by the end, I gave away some things I had to share with them and then I had to leave and right then someone else called and I still met halfway Amer.
I still remember the last words face to face (“you must apply”, “come visit me in Portugal”, “I wish I had met you for longer”, “I’ll see you soon”, “I’m getting used to this”…), the strong hugs and another one, the thank yous, the random photos, the licking of my glasses (seriously?!), the sambuzas that we didn’t prepare, the sharing of some last photos, my laptop that didn’t play only Portuguese songs but some other random ones… It was really really really such a pleasure to have lived this year with you all!
But the farewell was still not over, the next day I had until 3pm to actually finish packing and get gone, which started after I came back home and ended around 11am I think, when Elton came over and still had to wait for me coz I was not even ready. I needed to do mail things and find the bank before so he came with me, then we met Cecilia, the Mexican girl that was back to Jordan for my last day there! The one who went to the airport to receive me the day I came too, we came full circle! So I finished the last tasks, we went back home and had lunch and then it was already time to go to the bus station, from where I’d meet the uncle of my friend Amal and go until the border with Palestine, about one hour something away.
More hugs and smiles, all a bit rushed, and I got to the bus station. Afterwards I’ll tell more about the trip there but now there’s my last farewell to write about, the moment when I left what almost became my family in Palestione after a few days. This was my last trip and in many aspects will be one of the most memorable. I was really privileged because if at first I thought I would be doing most of this trip totally on my own, it turned out that I had company almost the whole way – and great company!
My last farewell was when I left the village where Nasser’s family is from, there were his mother and brother there, his aunt, husband and children, his uncle whom I shared the taxi with days before, and his family, his grandmother and some other cousins… we had lunch together, the Sabri family and me, and then a taxi came to pick me up and take me to Ramallah, from where I’d go to Jerusalem that afternoon. The sweetest children faces, the tastiest food, the most welcoming smiles and such joy… I learnt for years that the context influences people and there it was the negation of my 7 years of study. Love, kindness, joy are unconditional, they can actually blossom in any time or place within us, we are such extraordinary machines.
There were more small farewells, many others way before (each time someone would go away) and there were still other moments that were like farewells but weren’t spoken, acted, felt as such but these 3 made me conclude that no, leaving is not the hardest part at all. They say the ones who leave actually are the luckiest ones and no matter what the odds are, you have the hope, the wish, the will to see them again. You promise, you say things, you look in the eyes or not, you smile and laugh and things get better, things get comfortable again if only for a few moments.
The hardest part is when you are already gone but still you are there with them, you just can’t meet them up anymore. You still write to them and see the pictures, you get messages and phone calls but you are in two different places already. You go out and have fun but then something reminds you, you talk about something that makes you think and you go back. And you’re not in the place you are now because you are still in the place you left.
This is the hardest part for me, right now, being here with you being there.
