EP Back-Track: "Child of the Nile"
How my friendship with a Ugandan security guard healed my teenage blues.
In 2008, my family moved to Qatar, what would be the last step of my childhood world tour, our second in the Middle East, and our home for seven years.
Driving out of Doha airport at that time (a lot's changed now) the first thing that strikes you is the hot Arab night, of course. The minarets stand tall in every neighbourhood (naturally) and the muezzin sings his song of praise in an echo that reminds you where you are. Further on, you pass between the carpet and furniture shops, Indian delis and car retailers: a McDonalds, a KFC, a Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts, a French Carrefour, a German Aldi - any world delicacy under the sun the Qatari planners (or were they?) could pay for and develop.
From that time (I was thirteen and learning), it didn't occur to me how much people there were from poorer parts of the world to work and function the Arab and expat desires to delight in these Western chains. As it turned out, most of them were Filipinos. There was a system: an average Filipino was considered easier to understand than an Indian, Bangladeshi, Tamil ("South Asian" for reference), therefore many non-communicative roles - like cleaners, dish-washers, the like - fell to the latter. Makes sense right?
This carried to my school, and where it became the most personal.
At my school, the cleaners were again South Asians, the girls who ran the cafeteria (little more than a kiosk) were communicable Filipinos. The Filipinos maybe earned a fair slice more than the South Asians, they had a more personal service, and a fair slice less than the teachers, staff, receptionists, oil executive parents of the students, a Qatari sheikh, relative of the royal family... There was a system. A cross-cultural hierachy. That's how it was, and awakening from a pre-teen slumber into the dismal days of puberty, adolescence and progressive maturity brought to life more personally this multi-faceted immigrant world of which I and my family were apart of.
I began taking nightly violin classes at my school when I was fifteen. The instrument had long attracted me; I was happy with singing and the guitar, but felt I would enjoy another string to my bow. The nights were cool then, my brother had gone to university in England a year before, my sister long-since. Friends were disappearing to other lands, other Arab states or simply back home after a finished contract.
My family had recently moved house, smaller for the decreased numbers, but closer to school; so attending the lessons was a walk in the park. The lessons went great, just the one a week. A lovely but slightly terrifying classically-trained Romanian virtuoso led the dance, retired from her days at the Bucharest Philarmonic. A stern teacher was Lavinia, but good at heart. Our lessons ended well and on our goodbyes I began the walk home. Just before the gate, I met the eye of Moses, now my closest, most respected long-term friend.
Moses was from Uganda, which I knew nothing of, but apparently someone in the colonial era called it "the Pearl of Africa". He was one of a team working for a security agency employed at the school, to manage the comings-and-goings of the attendees and direct the cars during the morning and afternoon parking. He wasn't the soldier guard to protect us from Islamists or thieves; the Qatari police were also on call for that - but they didn't talk as much. Moses was friendly and kind, with a light of curiosity in his eyes. Bottom-line, we got to talking, briefly at first and prolonged after more weeks. Every night just him sitting there, drinking his tea and watching the quiet night.
As weeks went by, Moses took an interest in my music and we played some guitar in his booth. I remember some tea and possibly some "ugali" (semolina starch paste), an East African staple and beans and chaps (chapatis) for me to try.
"I want to write a song about you" I proposed.
So we did. Moses wrote out a script of text for me and I clung it to my bedroom wall.
The song carried itself, and the peace and good humour of Moses became contagious. Here was I: fifteen, at school, warm, comfortable house, my own bedroom, dulling at fleeing friends and school responsibilities, the pains of aging, this expat life. There was Moses: father-of-three, has to work in Qatar to provide for them, Ugandan opportunities bare. His flat room was shared by three others of his job, a mattress on the floor, a place to wash and to cook. Stairs leading down to the road where a bus would drag him back and forth from the school, ninety minutes each way now - they'd recently relocated all migrant flats to outside the view of the main populus.
But Moses had no choice. It was his lot and he knew why he was doing it, he had a responsibility and saw this as his only way to improve. "Don't worry, be happy" was his regular phrase, as well as "East and west, home is best". So keep positive, don't look down and always hope for home. That was Moses' teaching, and it occurred to me this was the thoughts of many of the other migrants, from whichever part of the world. It was wonderful how they interacted together, learned about eachothers' cultures and shared their experience. They all had come here for a better life, only temporarily, to seek benefit in Qatar's opportunity.
As a teenager, nothing is black and white; everything changes, and there are many questions that never get answered. No one can answer them. But Moses gave me a strong bond of friendship and whole-hearted confiance which I never felt before. He helped me through an awkward period, and reminded me of the Ibo man who took care of me as a child in Nigeria. He taught me perspective, very constructive for a maturing youth, that no one else could provide.
He taught more me more about the complexities of the world, and how we are all just players in a shifting society making our aims and desires possible with what we have to begin.
Like Moses of old, he led me to the promised land, and from the waters of the Lake Victoria came this wonderful child of the Nile.
