...where there's love overflowing

I have run the race set before me. My current journey is coming to an end. I have seen places and met people throughout this journey that helped me create memories that will last a lifetime. I have experienced things that I never thought I would. I have done things that scared me, and did them afraid. I have expanded my mind and my heart. I helped people who were suffering. I found ways to communicate without words. I formed new relationships with people who really aren't so different from me. I trusted people in a way that I never have before. I let go.

The long journey home has just began. I am currently on a flight from Cairo and I will arrive in Houston in 2 and a half days. When looking at flights home, I had an option with a much shorter duration, but I found that I could see more cities in between for just a little more money. I'm flying from Cairo to Athens, and then I have 29 hours in Amsterdam. I'm leaving the airport to check out the city of course. After Amsterdam, I'm flying to Manchester, England where I have a 12 hour layover before finally flying to Houston. My return is a surprise to everyone at home. I'm both excited and scared right now, which is exactly how I felt before leaving home in July. I'm excited about going home and being with the people I love most and where things are convenient and familiar. I'm scared because I am a different person now, and I won't be going back to life as I knew it before. I have changed and the way that I do things in the future will change. The scariest part is I don't know exactly how those changes will play out. I'm still processing what happens next. All I know is I'm walking into a new life, because I let go.

Fine City

Unpublished from September 2018

The movie, Crazy Rich Asians, is a romantic comedy with the first full Asian cast in Hollywood in 25 years. I decided to see the movie in Kuala Lumpur after hearing a lot of buzz. It was my second movie in Malaysia. My first movie theater experience was when I saw The Darkest Minds. I expected that there would be an anthem before the movie, like in Thailand, but there wasn't. I assumed all the monarchies would have the same rules. (I'm still trying to understand what's expected in a monarchy.)

Crazy Rich Asians is a cute movie that I recommend if you want to see a light-hearted comedy about love and it's various forms. I recognized many of the actors from their other projects. The character that stood out the most to me though was Singapore. It is a city-state, which was formerly part of the federation that combined Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. The movie highlighted all the great things about Singapore just like Girls Trip was a commercial for New Orleans/Essence Festival. I was already planning to be in Singapore a few days later, so I made mental notes of things to see there while watching the movie, including the building with the boat on top (Marina Bay Sands), the Gardens, Chinatown, and the Harborfront. I reached out to a couple of my FAMU classmates who previously lived in Singapore for suggestions too. My boyfriend would also be meeting me there, and I was excited about exploring the city with him. We had a wrench thrown in our plans when my boyfriend missed his connecting flight in San Francisco because the flight from Houston sat on the tarmac for 1.5 hours waiting on a gate at SFO. He was rebooked on a flight the next morning, which meant we lost a whole day together. We made the most of our time anyway. 

The only activity that was confirmed for our trip was a special dinner reservation at NOX that I rescheduled after the flight delay. We had the most amazing experience at Nox - Dine in the Dark. I found the restaurant online after seeing an ad for a similar restaurant in KL. We arrived at Nox a few minutes before our reservation, and we were the first people to arrive for dinner that evening. The host/bartender explained the concept when we walked in and let us sample a couple of appetizers that were on the menu that evening. We locked up our phones and watches and anything that might produce light. When we were ready, we entered a door where our visually impaired host, Bernard, was called to escort us to our table in total darkness. Once we were seated, he told us where the glasses and silverware were placed on the table and guided us on how to enjoy ourselves and remain safe over the 3-course meal. It took some time for us to adjust to the darkness and really relax into the experience. Both my boyfriend and I have general personal safety rules in public spaces.  We had to let go of all those rules based on sight at Nox. Instead, we used our other senses, paying special attention to the sounds around us. We enjoyed the food and drinks placed before us and tried to guess the ingredients based on taste, texture, and smell. He and I ate totally different meals - he's a carnivore who doesn't eat seafood and I'm a vegetarian who eats seafood (pescetarian). Nox has a set menu that they change each month. They ask guests for their food allergies and special diets at the time of the reservation, during the initial welcome, and the host confirms it when you're seated at your table. After dinner, Bernard escorted us back to the lobby where we had a pop quiz. The host asked us to write down what we thought we ate, what ingredients were in the drinks, what we liked most, etc. Then, he gave us a breakdown of our actual menu, and we were surprised by how many ingredients we missed. We also asked questions about the dining room layout, and learned it was much bigger than we thought. I was curious about how Bernard knew which meals came to our table and never confused them between the two of us. I learned that there is a sighted person in the kitchen who places the meals on different trays in a dumbwaiter and maintains the order making it easy for the visually impaired hosts to deliver them accurately. I highly recommend dining in the dark, and I plan to do it again in other locations. It is pricey, but well worth the experience.

After our fabulous dinner, we walked a couple of minutes and were transported to the streets of Istanbul. Beautifully decorated shops and restaurants with delicious aromas lined the Arab streets.

We also explored the following sites over the next few days: Singapore Flyer, Sentosa Luge, Chinatown, Little India, Chinese Garden, Harborfront, and Clark Quay.

Before seeing the movie and visiting myself, all I knew about Singapore was 1) I had a pen pal there in high school named Mahdia md Noor that I wish I could have met in person, and 2) they caned an American years before because he defaced property or something like that. At home, we like to say "Don't mess with Texas". People really should not mess with Singapore. They are on high security alert and seem to be in a constant state of fear. I first noticed when armed military walked back and forth through the airport. Also, everywhere we went there was a sign prohibiting something, from chewing gum to molesting (groping) women to trespassing, and the punishment was a fine and/or caning and sometimes death. Selling, using, and/or possessing drugs will get you killed. Check out some of the weird laws here: https://adventurousmiriam.com/10-weird-laws-singapore-get-trouble/

Don't mess with Singapore!

NOX

A brief history of apartheid

Disclaimer: This is information that I synthesized from memory of various sources, including tours and visits to the Apartheid Museum, Constitution Hill, District 6 Museum, South African Museum, Groot Constantia Estate, South African Slave Church Museum, and more. 

When the Dutch first settled in what is now Cape Town, South Africa in the 1600s, they created a supply stop on the route from Europe to India in search of spices for their bland food. They planted fruit and vegetables and made wine to sell to the ships passing around the Cape of Good Hope. Without those foods, many sailors would die of scurvy, or vitamin deficiencies, on the long voyage. They needed laborers to plant and harvest the crops though. They also needed labor to build homes and other structures. Who did the work? You guessed it, slaves. The Dutch East India Company was under strict orders not to enslave the powerful local Khoe-San people, because they were valuable trading partners - in the beginning. Instead, they brought in slaves from East Africa, India, Indonesia, and Madagascar. Eventually, the Khoe-San were overpowered when the whites steadily encroached upon their land. When they filed official grievances with the Dutch government, they were basically told to shut up or they would be killed, because the whites had the guns. Later, the British took control of the Cape. Slavery was abolished throughout the British empire in 1834, but the people were not fully emancipated, and were forced to continue working in bondage until 1838. Just like in America, many of the former slaves returned to the same land as sharecroppers, slavery by another name.

Meanwhile, the area that is now known as Johannesburg, was a grassy plain without any permanent settlement until gold was discovered in the late 1800s. Workers came from all over southern Africa, India, and other places to earn a fortune, that never came to fruition. The mine workers, including whites, lived in poor, unsanitary housing, and the mines were dangerous, deadly places. Slavery was officially over at that point, but gold mining, was essentially a form of sharecropping. The only benefactors were (still are) white, corporate owners.

Poor people of all races lived in the same slums. The urban areas needed the workers in order to be sustainable, but the whites in charge didn't want all the races mixed. They thought race mixing led to crime and disease, and a degrading of their "superior" race. They created a system known as apartheid (separateness in Afrikaans), state sanctioned/institutional segregation, where everyone was classified by race and was subject to certain laws based on their race affecting every part of their life. The classifications included black (native), white, colored, and Asian/Indian.

"A White person is in appearance White and not Coloured; A Coloured is a person who is not a White or a Bantu"

"518 Colored persons were reclassified as White persons; 1 White person was reclassified as a Coloured person"

Apartheid was official policy from 1948-1994, but there were forms of segregation in place prior to it being codified after the 1948 election. From the beginning of Dutch and British settlement, there were mixed marriages and sexual relations between whites and the black people, which created offspring who were neither black nor white. They were called, "colored". In the early 20th century, each person was given a passbook that identified their race and indicated where they could go. (Ghandi's passive resistance movement began in South Africa when he protested the passbooks.) The racial classification was subjective, and there were many cases of people changing from one race to another. Not only did they look at your skin complexion, but they also made assessments based on hair texture, facial features, family name, etc. The classification system was very confusing. The classifications split families and sowed distrust amongst the various groups.

I was told that in South Africa, you are considered colored if you have any white ancestor/white blood. In America, there's the "one drop rule". If you have a black ancestor/black blood, then you're considered black. According to South Africa, in my nuclear family, my mother and my brother would be considered colored, my father would be black, and I would probably sit on the fence. My skin complexion would put me in the "colored section", but my kinky hair would make me closer to black. As my friends explained this system to me, I asked them if I had a baby with Trevor Noah, South African comedian and host of The Daily Show, who has a black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father, would our baby be black or colored. (Check out Trevor's video below.) One person said black and the other said colored. In America, we're all just black.

The Group Areas Act of 1950 further codified housing segregation, and forcibly removed people from their homes to designated areas for their race. Blacks were forced to move to townships, poorly constructed areas without full city services - outside of the city, but still close enough to cook, clean, babysit, landscape, mine, and do whatever work white people wouldn't do themselves. District 6 was a predominantly colored area in Cape Town with thriving businesses and families. The people were forced to leave and their homes were demolished when District 6 became a designated "whites only" section in the late 1950s. White people earned the highest wages and lived in the prime locations. Black people earned the lowest wages and lived in the worst locations. Everyone else was in between. There was even segregation in jail/prison. White prisoners were given meat and vegetables and sugar for coffee/tea, more time outside, and less crowded cells. Coloreds received meat scraps, and blacks might get meat fat on their rotting food in their overcrowded cells. Most blacks/coloreds were in jail at some point because of passbook violations.

Apartheid's impact on prisoners

Apartheid was a systematic approach to reinforce the supposed superiority of whites over everyone else. The irony is South Africa sent troops to fight the Nazis in World War 2. Although non-white South Africans protested the system for decades, the world paid little attention until the government started jailing, torturing, and sometimes killing children. Students from Soweto (South west township) rose up to demand justice and freedom, and they were threatened and attacked by the police in return. Sarafina!, one of my favorite movies, tells the story of the Soweto protests and the punishment inflicted on innocent children and families. There were also calls to free the world's most famous political prisoner, Nelson Mandela. The world started paying some attention when global citizens demanded that companies and governments divest from South Africa in the 1980s.

The South African government was slowly coming to terms with the fact that the violence and war on the people was unsustainable, and negotiations began to take place for a transition. South Africa's democratic election of 1994 brought about a repeal of apartheid laws and Nelson Mandela was elected as President of the new South Africa. Things did not change overnight. Legal segregation was the law for nearly 100 years, and ended less than 25 years ago. That was in my lifetime! Some people believed that the transition to a black President would mean that white people would receive blanket punishment and would be subject to revenge. Instead, Mandela sought peaceful relations and tried to mend the country's deep divisions. The new South African constitution was written to be inclusive of all people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, income, etc. 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which focused on restorative justice. The TRC allowed victims and witnesses to tell their stories publicly, and perpetrators also testified to their crimes with the hopes of receiving amnesty. Instead of sweeping decades of oppression and violence under the rug, South Africa shed light in those dark places to bring about healing. People are still learning to live together peacefully and overcome the challenges of apartheid.

Nobel Square: South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize winners - Chief Lethuli, Archibishop Desmond Tut, F.W. DeKlerk,Nelson Mandela 

Dreams really do come true!

When I was a child, I looked at a map, or maybe it was a globe, and I said I wanted to visit every place with my name. I only saw 2 cities with my name - Elizabeth City, New Jersey and Port Elizabeth in South Africa. I didn't know how I would do it, but I knew it would happen one day. I went to Elizabeth City for the first time around 2004 or 2005. Today, I fully achieved my childhood goal. I arrived in Port Elizabeth by bus early this morning.

"Hold fast to dreams..."

Oasis come to life

Dubai was not a place that I wanted to visit. All the pictures and travel stories I heard made it seem like a mirage in the desert, and I had no interest in visiting a fake city. However, Dubai was randomly selected for a 2018 girls’ trip (that never happened), and so I included it as a destination on my list in anticipation of that trip. I have to admit it was a good place for me to transition from Asia to Africa, and when I saw an inexpensive flight to Dubai from Mumbai, I said, “Why not?”. As the plane began to descend over the city, I saw darkness with a few random lights in the sand dunes, and then the whole ground lit up with lights of different colors. Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, was so much better than I expected. I also toured the capital city, Abu Dhabi, for a day. It was an interesting experience that I will always remember.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a combination of 7 emirates that created a federation on December 2, 1971. The country hit the lottery when oil (black gold, Texas T) was discovered the late 50s and early 60s. Just like a lottery winner, the emirates changed their appearance immediately and bought all the things they always wanted and couldn’t afford. The old villages, nomadic Bedouin lifestyle, and pearl fisheries were replaced by sparkling new buildings and infrastructure. In some cases where they demolished old areas, they later went back and rebuilt those same places as tourist attractions to show the old way of life. The country is so rich that citizens of the UAE, Emiratis, are given free houses and free education. The UAE citizens are rich and highly educated. You definitely won’t find those people working cash registers in shops and cooking food in restaurants. Who does those jobs? Immigrants. There is a large population of Africans (from Cairo to Cape Town), Indians, and Filipinos, and people from all over the world who come to make a living in the UAE and send remittances back home. It is a salad bowl (not a melting pot), where everyone seems to retain their own culture without assimilating. For example, there was the widespread acknowledgement of the Indian festival of Diwali with stores and attractions sharing festive messages and hosting sales for the Festival of Lights, and apartment balconies were decorated with lanterns and colorful string lights when I arrived days after Diwali ended. I also saw Christmas trees and decorations at some of the stores at the mall.  Immigrants can apply for citizenship after living 20 years in the UAE, and they must speak fluent Arabic.

Dubai is much bigger than I thought it would be, and it can cater to any taste. It reminds me of New York City, Las Vegas, Miami Beach, and Singapore all rolled into one. Dubai is like NYC, because you can find people and cultures there from all over the world, it’s the financial capital of the country, and it is fairly liberal and tolerant (of tourists) even though the UAE is a conservative Muslim country.

Dubai is like Vegas, because everything is a spectacle in the middle of the desert. There is so much to take in when it comes to the architecture, attractions, food, etc. because it is so different from anywhere else. The tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa, is attached to the equally large Dubai Mall, which would probably take days to explore. Dubai creates its own islands (see the Al-Burj Hotel and Palm Jumeirah). Also, Dubai is like Vegas because there were “girls, girls, girls” cards strewn on the sidewalks in some areas of the city.

Dubai is like Miami Beach, because the city sits on the Persian Gulf, and the water is a big attraction. The beachfront homes and flashy vehicles remind me of the opulence of Miami Beach. Most of the homes I saw were shades of white to reflect the sun. I was expecting Crockett and Tubbs to show up at any moment. The city seemed to come to life at night after sunset and the sidewalks were filled with people walking and dining at outdoor restaurants.

Dubai is like Singapore, because Big Brother is always watching you and will fine you for anything you do that is out of line. I did not see the police or military the whole time I was in Dubai, but if something happened, I have no doubt they would be there in 2 minutes. There were cameras everywhere watching every move. I still haven’t grown accustomed to the unsettling sight of police and military guards with assault rifles in public spaces like airports, malls, and parks, which I saw in all the other countries I visited on this journey. I don’t know which is worse though, seeing them out in full force, or knowing that they are watching even when I don’t see them.

I can’t deny that the mirage charmed me. From the tour of Abu Dhabi to the Museum of Illusions, from the Burj Khalifa to the abra (boat) along the creek, from Jumeirah beach to Jumeirah Palm, and everything in between, I was mesmerized. If you don't mind constantly being monitored and recorded, and giving up the right to disagree with the government, then Dubai could be the place for you.

Palm Jumeirah

a flock of Teslas

Aquarium at Palm Jumeirah

Fancy school bus

Fines

Jumeirah Beach with Burj Khalifa in the background

Box Park

Museum of Illusions

Abra at Deira Creek

No jaywalking

Diwali lights

Air-conditioned bus stop

Bus stop

Burj Khalifa

model of the tallest building in the world - Burj Khalifa

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

inside the mosque

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

Welcome home!

For months, I have stood out because of my differences. Yesterday, I arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, and no one noticed me. There were no stares. No one asked if my hair was real. I didn't see any fingers pointing at me. No one asked to take a picture with me. I just went about my business unbothered like everyone else. Being surrounded by people who look like my family and have hair like mine felt a little strange at first. I was part of the majority. The only thing I can compare it to is being on an HBCU campus again.

I am staying in Kensington near Maboneng, a trendy (aka gentrified) area of the city near downtown. The weather was warm and sunny, so I walked from my place to Maboneng yesterday. In between there were a lot of mechanic shops, beauty shops, and small grocery stores. It felt familiar. I walked around Maboneng for a while trying to figure out where I would eat. I settled on a restaurant and decided to sit at a table outside, because it felt so good. I moved inside a few minutes later when I felt chilly. The temperature seemed to drop so fast, and then it started raining. I wasn't prepared. It is summer in the southern hemisphere. Why are people wearing jackets? My weather app said it was 59 degrees. My shirt was sleeveless and I didn't have an umbrella. I finished my dinner and waited until the rain slowed to a drizzle before heading home. I wanted to get back before dark, and the sun was setting. There was no Wi-Fi for me to get a ride with Uber. I hurriedly walked down the sidewalks, cold and wet. After I passed the second or third liquor store with a cage (I think the total was 5), it finally dawned on me that I was walking through the hood. I almost started sprinting, but the sidewalks were cracked and missing in some areas, so I had to be careful and fast until I made it back home. As I neared my street, I said out loud, "Never do that again. You know better."

Today, I walked back to Maboneng for lunch. (I felt safe enough to walk in the daylight, but I was warned to keep my phone hidden.) I stopped at one of the salons that advertised relaxers, dreadlocks, manicures, pedicures, etc. on their wall, but this one stood out because they also had shea butter. I've been putting off retightening my hair for weeks and I need shea butter for my dry skin, so I decided to go in and check their prices. I walked out with a pedicure and shea butter, and I ended up making a hair appointment for tomorrow. I also stopped by a tailor's shop on my way to lunch. I'll have new custom-made outfits in a couple of days. It's a good thing I shipped my clothes from India back home, because I'm going to need the space. I went to a sushi restaurant, called "Blackanese". The waiter asked where I was from. (I might look like everyone else on the outside, but I can't hide my American accent.) I told him I was from America, and he said, "Welcome home". He also offered to make a list of the best places to visit while I'm here.

South Africa held the #3 spot on my travel bucket list for years behind Australia and Brazil. I'm so glad I finally made it, and I look forward to seeing as much of the country as I can. More to come.

P.S.  I started on my Dubai post, but I need more time to finish.  It's coming.