Beirut to Amman. Taxi-driver chain-smoking. I wrap a towel round my neck (still a bit feverish) and wind down the window. Have drunk plenty of water for suhoor, but simply dry bread to eat. Tiresome and dull journey, but mercifully trouble-free. You just pay your 52 dollars transit visa and don’t forget (as I did, spending too much on tempting boxes of crystallised fruits) the 500 Syrian pounds exit tax.
Iftar on my own, up on the roof of Rainbow House. The lemon juice which looked irresistible to the thirsting soul turns out far too sticky-sweet for more than a glass-full. But this alone-ness is simply a passing shadow. Residents and friends and former residents one by one return or visit, eat, drink. Smoke. Chat. We catch up on news of travels and doings, just like a family.
This youth, this energy and openness. They don’t know what are the consequences of all their daily dealings, as travellers or as workers, with all the people they come across. I don’t know. It changes them, us; it changes the people we come across. But consequences ? It’s like trying to predict the next pattern in a kaleidoscope.
Air travel is such a scald on the planet’s fragile skin. We have to find better ways of doing it. But my solo Mercedes taxi-ride today was not exactly cheap in carbon terms. If we can just smooth those border crossings. I would fight and never give up the fight for the right of people to move, in sustainable ways, across any border they want to !
