Trip 2 to Beijing: Part two

Getting a train in China is a strain to all the senses.

The visual: people playing musical chairs, hoping to get a better seat than the Seat Lottery had bestowed upon them.

The auditory: a woman somewhere in front of me was playing music that sounded like a woman having a molar removed, over and over again. A woman behind me was furiously cracking open an endless supply of seeds.

The tactile: if you sit in an aisle seat, which I was lucky enough to do on my journey there and back, you get hit my passing trolleys, people's arms and babies' heads. Once my sleeping head ricocheted off the head so violently I thought someone was using my head as a punch bag. The seats don't have arms rests, which really are ways of sectioning of 'your seat' from 'my seat'. Instead, you often end up getting too close for comfort to your neighbours, or they end up taking some of your seat and push your aisle-seated butt into the already impossible narrow aisle.

The olefactory: Despite the no-smoking signs, people smoke plenty. Imagine being trapped in a box for 9 hours, with increasing amounts of cigarette smoke being pumped into the air. By the end of the journey I smelt like a long-term nicotine addict. Oh and there's also the garlic fire-breathers. Again, I was fortunate enough to be sat next to one. Every time he breathed in my direction, or just wafted himself in my general position, an overbearing stench of garlic overcame me. Finally, there's the squat toilets, but I think I have truly overcome my aversion to those.

9 hours sitting on a seat was a good test in sleep deprivation. I slept a little, but not enough. When we got to Beijing it was horrendously cold. It was 5.30am and still dark. I made my way to a McDonalds close by, found a seat and tried to sleep. I made a little small talk with the girl next to me (elegantly dressed in a warm purple coat, perfectly straightened hair) in between slamming my head onto the sleeping bag I had put onto the table in front of me. I really needed sleep and warmth and considering giving into the comfort of food by ordering what everyone else seemed to be ordering, but I kept strong.

8am, the sun was up and I made my way to the subway and to the embassy. I got my passport pretty speedily but didn't know what to do with the rest of my day. I had communicated with a girl that wanted to stay with me in Jinan, about getting a place in Beijing. Kindly, she found me a host and I was to meet up with her at 6pm. I stayed in the embassy until I had motivation to go elsewhere. To be frankly honest i thought about just going striaght home, but I decided not to because I would be going to Shanghai the day after.

Finally inspiration hit me in the form of a smell-memory. Blueberry muffins. I would go to Starbucks. I asked the woman who had given me my passport where the nearest Starbucks was, she told me and I went.

Oh my God, how good that warm, soft blueberry muffin was. Mmmm. I charged my Ipod and proceeded to read some magazines I found at the embassy, waiting for my next wave of inspiration i always figured I'd end up inside the Forbidden City, but I didn't really want to do that. I didn't want to pay a lot of money for the ticket, and even if I had I would need a guide if my visit would be in anyway meaningful. In one magazine I found that every Monday from 1-3pm they taught Mahjung, an old Asian board game. Sorted, that's what I'll do.

I scanned my Couchsurfing messages on my Ipod and found one girl I had wanted to surf with said she could meet up with me, because she was free that day. Plans change, I'll meet up with this girl.

I met her at the National Library and she showed me round. It was so beautiful. The inner part is a large square lined with books on all sides.

She then took me to a restaurant where we had a selection of local Beijing foods (I'm pretty sure this is where I got food poisoning because just recalling it makes me want to gag) and then to an old city street lined with kitschy shops.

The food we ate

She went with me to the subway station where I was to meet this host that I had not a clue about. All I knew was that this girl who I didn't know anything about had organised that I could stay with him. We found a nearby mall and watched a competition that involved hammering open some golden eggs, said hi to an old, white santa who had a very attractive Chinese girl standing behind him, then watched the beginning of a Sesame Street show.

My couchsurfing buddy and I at the mall

The couchsurfing host turned up, I said bye to my friend then followed him as he looked for wrapping paper for his son. I felt a little sick, but dismissed it as fatigue, and continued on my way. My host moved very frantically, and it made me very nervous to follow him as he moved so fast.

He lived five minutes from the mall. At his home, I met his partner, their 2-year old kid and 3-month old baby. Something about how tired and sick I was, combined with the franticness of it all, gave me the impression of how difficult it must be raise kids. I seriously doubted ever wanting kids as for the first time I contemplated how difficult it all is. The 2-year old was screaming, the baby was crying, then they grow up and they give you even more trouble. Was it really worth it?

The couple were french, although the host was part American, and it was nice to refresh my French. Since they were mainly speaking french to their 2-year old, they were using non-abstract language, which made it much easier for me to follow. They had lived in Malaysia, the Phillipines and now China.

We went out to a Japanese restaurant in the mall. I would have never dreamt of eating somewhere like that, I prefer the cheap and cheerful option. I wasn't hungry anyway, so I ordered something simple, which turned out to be the cheapest thing - rice, miso soup and pickles. The waiter was smug and conceited and I wanted to bang his head on the table, but instead I replied with a smug and conceited manner.

I ended up trying to feed the 2-year old, who was running round and round. At one point the mother thought she'd lost him, and panic as I'd not seen in a long time consumed her face. 'How many times a day does panic like that fill her?' I wondered, once more considering whether children really are the way to go.

We go home, I made the couch up and tried to sleep as fast as possible, thinking I'd feel better with a little shut-eye. But as soon as I'd got into my sleeping bag a fever coursed through my entire body and I knew I was in trouble. I spent the entire night running to the toilet, vomiting and the other liquidy accompaniment, hoping no one else would wake up. It was a rough night to say the least.

I woke up with a decision to make. Should I brave it and keep going to Shanghai, or go home? Shanghai, home, Shanghai, home? In the end, it was home.

I managed to take my weak self onto the subway, the to the train ticket office, onto the train, sit on the seat without vomiting for 6 hours, drag myself onto the bus (which had conveniently waited until I got onto it) then pull myself onto the second bus, (which also strangely was already at the bus stop that I was walking towards and didn't leave without me), walk a little bit and finally let myself into my house. This time I did take medicine, unlike last time I got ill when I was determined to battle through the pain.

The good news was that I figured out what kind of farm I want to stay at when I get to America, and that was the biggest questions I had. I have just emailed them my resume, so we'll see what happens.

Trip 2 to Beijing: Part One

This was supposed to be a bumper trip, Beijing and Shanghai all in one. It ended up being just one day in Beijing. I got a fever/food poisoning and decided to call it a day and drag my sorry self back home to Jinan. That meant I couldn't visit my Chinese friend from Uni, and I missed out on Couchsurfing with a really cool girl in Shanghai. Strangely though, the school schedule had changed so that instead of just missing 2 hours of teaching, I would have missed an entire weekend of teaching, if I had done the entire trip. On top of that my school couldn't find a replacement anyway, so my sickness was a blessing in disguise.

Allow me to dissect for you my short trip anyway.

I had finished my long work day on Sunday and was ready to head for the train station. I was planning on taking the night train and getting a seat chair to save money. At the last minute my school principal talked me into getting the fast train the following morning. After a bit of deliberatio I decided she was right. Then., at the crucial posint when I would either turn left and go home or turn right and go to the train station, I turned right. I already had everything with me - sleeping bag, clothes etc. that if I went home I would have lost the momentum I had been generating in my mind all day.

If I'm honest I wasn't in the mood to travel/sightsee. All I want is to get to living my life doing something I am truly passionate about. I don't want to fill my time doing other things, even if it is travelling. But my Beijing leg was really to get my passport from the embassy (if travelling was what excited me I woldn't have had the feeling when I got to Beijing of 'What the hell am I doing here?', now I understand what my brother was getting at when he and I travelled to petra in Jordan. He was like 'Amira, what the hell are we doing here?).

I missed the first bus stop for the bus that would take me to the train station (BRT 5 if any of you care) and unbeknownst to me, I had to walk for half an hour before the next bus stop came along. Walking in Jinan is like playing Russian Roulette, in every breath of air you may or may not be breathing deadly particles. Most likely situation is that you are.

When I got to the train station I bought the first, cheapest ticket to Beijing. When I read the time of the ticket and my seat and carriage number I was very happy. I felt like it was a lucky sign - 23.07 was the time of the train (my birthday and month), I was in seat 91 (my birth year) and carriage 7 (my birth month). The train was later delayed to 23.32 (another play on my favourite number, 23). I almost skipped away from the ticket office, I was that happy, surely something interesting will happen on this trip, I thought. (Just to save you from the disappointment of an anti-climax, nothing earth-shattering emerged from this trip, except perhaps my discovery that when I cover my ears I am infinitely happy in stressful, people-filled situations. This combined with my obsession of twirling my hair led me to self-diagnose as autistic for a few hours after I returned from my trip.)

Next I needed to find a chair to place my weary self onto. I chose a chair that was directly under a powerful light, so that I could read my Kindle if the need arose. The waiting room was heaving with people. It turns out that I sat next to one of the most delightful women I've met in China to date. She was exactly like my Egyptian auntie, Safaa. So full of happiness, optimism and energy, but in the innocent child-like way. She kept nudging me playfully.

In the 90 minutes I sat next to her, I learnt more Chinese than in the 3 months I've been here. Immersion is definitely the way to go, and if my life takes me to a non-English speaking country in the future, I will definitely stay in a homestay.

There were 2 awkward moments though. The first was when she kept repeating one question that I just couldn't make sense of. 'You homo? You homo'. Hmm... me homo? What does she mean? She had asked me if I was alone in Jinan, I said yes. Could she really be asking me about my sexual orientation? I continued to play dumb but then things got icy. She stopped smiling, as did her friend/acquaintance behind her. Think Amira think! Surely, she couldn't be asking me that.

Finally I found out that what she meant was 'Do you miss your family?', I can't remember exactly how I found out that she meant this, but it helped us get through that difficult part in our blossoming relationship.

The second awkward moment was when she typed in the word 'xiang' into her phone, as if I knew all the Chinese words and all I needed from her was to type in a word and I'd automatically understand the meaning. Anyway, I thought I'd make a joke that would blow her socks off. I remember how xiang was the first part of the word for banana (xiang jiao) and so I proceeded to hunt for the blackening bananas in my bag. She thought I was hunting for my Ipod with its dictionary app. When I triumphantly pulled out a banana I was not met with the rip-roaring laughter I had imagined, but with a blank, confused expression. Obviously not everyone thinks it's funny how often Chinese syllables are repeated.

At one point a teenage girl sat between me and this woman that was filling me with so much postive energy, to translate for us. I was distraught. I don't want anyone translating, I just want this woman and her energy. I think the girl could tell I didn't want her there (I think I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep), she was made to feel suitable awkward and voila, I open my eyes and she's gone, Happy Woman is sat in her place. Phew, order has been restored.

Happy Woman is on the left

The time had come for us to part ways. She gave me her number and told me to call her when I returned to Jinan. We said to each 'It was nice to meet you' and we left. A man sitting opposite us called out 'Thank you' to me as I left, this made me smile all the way to the train. I'm glad I made a few of his waiting hours more enjoyable, even if I did ignore him, as I have a habit of doing with all strange men.

I'm back!

I have crawled out of my blogless-cave once again. Often when I'm feeling down I tend not to blog. Also there are times in my life when I don't have anything I think is that interesting to share. Or I may be in a transition phase, where I'm working something out with myself and don't know really know what it is, so I can't yet write about it.

I have been going through a transition phase that was generated by my feeling down. Here in China I don't have enough to do. I work all weekend but then only one hour on Tuesday and two hours on Friday. I live on my own and so I don't have a constant supply of emotional support to live on.

I could fill my time with all sorts of things though, right? I could learn Chinese, I could take up a new sport, I could travel (but not really because of my fragmented, slightly frustrating teaching schedule, but actually that's where my list ends. The thing is, all my life that's exactly what I have been doing; blindly filling my time with various activities. But actually, right now I am getting close to what I feel is my purpose in life.

I want to be a gardener. I want to set-up an intentional community where we are pretty sustainable and grow organic food. We would be a family or tribe and we would actually have to rely on each other. One of the feelings that gave birth to this idea was the great sense of detachment from other people I feel in China. I go to work, to teach kids that often don't want to be there, then buy things from people I don't know, who often don't want to be there, and go home. I have no real relationships with anyone that provides my services or anyone that I provide services for. There was once a time when small communities cared for and needed each other but with the growing detachment of people from what they consume, due to 'efficiency', we have become less human.

So back to the intentional community and gardening. I want to be a gardener of the land and mind. When you work with the land you become connected to nature. When you care for the land, you care for yourself. Just as in gardening when you pull out weeds and plant seeds, so in the mind we can pull out our negative, destructive thoughts that stop us from being who we truly are, and plant positive thoughts.

So that's the main concept of the community. Gardening of the land and mind. I find the word gardening has more beauty and love than the word farming. To me, the connotations of farming are slightly destructive, quite intense and mechanical.

That's why I have reduced my contract here in China to 6 months, instead of 12. I want to get on with my purpose in life, because teaching English is not it. I have already spent many years fulfilling what was expected of me - in particular the last year of studying at the University which I has withdrawn from - I'm not prepared to waste anymore time. Also the heavy pollution here was another 'push factor'. Although I would love to be busy outside the house, to fill these long hours I've got, I am also worried for my health. Some days you can't see a few metres in front of you.

But I couldn't have asked for a better school or nicer staff members. I couldn't have asked for nicer people than those that live in Jinan. These people have made me feel safe, happy and have taught me greater generosity.

Chinese koshari

I was walking down the street and caught a whiff of something amazing. I definitely detected notes of garlic and tomato, but I decided to investigate further. A small shop had a queue of people in front of it and I headed towards it. I watched as the man furiously made bowl after bowl of vegetable (pak choi, lettuce and seaweed), noodle (rice flour udon noodles or thin wheat noodles or thick wheat noodles) and his wife ladled them out into very large bowls. That's something I've noticed here, people don't skimp on portion sizes, they really ladle the stuff in Egyptian-style. I met a girl in Beijing who said to me it is commonly believed that Northern Chinese people are taller than Southern Chinese people because noodles are their staple food, not the rice of the South. Maybe they also have larger portions in the North.

I tracked the source of the tantalising smell to a red sauce that they put in the noodle soups. They also added a large tablespoon of salt and MSG, a quail egg and a small wheat dumpling. (I know all this because I stood and watched for 30 minutes, not because I have a super sense of awareness that means I take in the entire situation in front of me as fast as a Sherlock Homes-wannabe).

So after 30 minutes I heard my tummy rumbling and asked for thick rice noodles without spice, salt or MSG. The man looked at me as if I was wearing my head backwards. It seemed that he was right. Without the MSG and rice, my Chinese koshari was very bland. But at least it was healthier!

Chinese koshari - you can see a bit of brown tofu, a quail egg, a wheat dumpling ball and to the left is a bowl of pickled cabbage. I have a fork just in case I get infuriated with the chopsticks. Incidentally I shouldn't be placing the chopsticks vertically because it's considered bad luck. It is reminiscent of vertical incense sticks at a funeral.

But my heart still belongs to my Egyptian koshari. During my last year at university I wrote an 'Ode to koshari' in my University newspaper which pretty much sums it all up:

Koshari – the national dish of Egypt
By Amira Mullaney

In my humble opinion, this is Egypt’s greatest national dish, and equally, it is the most delicious concoction of flavours to have ever graced my taste buds.

As you go through life, you may meet Egyptians that’ll tell you I’m over-exaggerating, but pay them no heed. Although this carbohydrate-loaded meal may not look like anything special, when you take a nice big spoonful of rice, pasta, lentils, chickpeas, tomato salsa and fried onions, what I can only describe as magic, begins to happen.

It’s not just the satisfying taste, but also the smell of the fried onions and the multiple layers of texture, that make every bite memorable. You’ll find yourself reminiscing with a close friend, ‘Remember bite 23? Ah, bite 23...’. But the soft rice and pasta, the slightly harder chickpeas and lentils and then the outrageously crunchy fried onions, really do leave you gasping for more.

If you happen to find yourself walking down any street in Cairo – as you do – and your stomach starts screaming for your attention, stick your nose into the air and locate that beautiful smell of fried onions. Next thing you know, you’ve hit Koshari Paradise!

Almost every Koshari shop in Egypt is identical to the next, and as one of the cheapest foods you’ll find in the country, eating in a Koshari shop will give you the perfect opportunity to spy on the natives.

The most famous Koshari shop in Cairo is called Abu Tarek, situated quite close to the heart of the city: Tahrir Square. Inside, it’s perpetually heaving with hungry Egyptians, and quite a healthy helping of tourists who are in search of a more memorable meal than their usual Big Mac.

Once you’ve seated yourself on the tin tables, a waiter will come quickly to take your order. Here in Koshari Paradise there is no need to furrow your brow over choosing what to eat – every dish is the same! - all you need to worry about is choosing small, medium or large. You can also order extra fried onions (recommended), lentils, salsa or anything else you fancy.

You’ll notice on the table two long wine-bottle-type bottles. In one of these you’ll find a red liquid and in another you’ll find a yellow liquid. Please, please don’t make the mistake of absent-mindedly pouring the red liquid into your bowl (as I have done before), as this is very, very spicy chilli sauce. The yellow liquid is something called Dakka, and it’s a mixture of vinegar, garlic and cumin.
In no time at all, the waiter will plonk onto the table your bowls of Koshari. If you wish to sample the red and/or yellow liquids, the way to do it is to stopper the top of the bottle with your (probably very grubby) thumb so as to leave a small gap (not the most hygienic invention in the World but at least it’ll boost your immune system). Gently lift the bottle, and pour the liquids in sparingly, via said hole, onto your food.

Next it’s time to mix the bad boy up. Take the plastic/metal spoon that you’ve been allocated and carefully mix together all of the Koshari layers. Be careful because there’s usually not enough room in the bowl to mix it, so if you can do this without spilling half of the dish down your front, then please contact me as I’d like to learn from your superior wisdom.

It usually takes Egyptians on average 5.3 seconds to drain a bowl of Koshari, but I’d recommend that you take your time to savour the delicate nuances of the dish.
When you’ve crammed the last mouthful into your mouth, no matter how full you feel, you must try the traditional pudding served at all Koshari Houses – rice pudding! Then you can truly say that you’ve had a happy carbohydrate-filled Koshari day!

A tribute to my father

The photo my father laminated (from right: my brother, mother, me, my father, a cousin)

This is the most personal post I have ever written. Some may think it is inappropriate to be written a a blog post, it should be in a personal journal instead, but I feel this is right.

My father died 2 months before by thirteenth birthday. It was the most painful thing I ever experienced, but I don't believe I was allowed to mourn it properly. My mother took the 'tough love' approach, I think that's what she had been taught before, but unlike me she had never experienced a parent's death when she was so young, her father died in 2001. My father died on Sunday and she made me go to school on the Monday. I think she felt it was better not to brood over what happened, but that's exactly what I needed.

My gran saw me crying in the garden in front of the small pile of my father's possessions, that had been transferred from the Bungalow he lived alone in, in a nearby village. There was his red 'Le Coq Sportif' bag which he brought with him every Sunday to our home where we would spend hours around the living room table. He would teach me endless amounts of French and throw in an anecdote of his time working on his family farm in Ireland (the time he was locked in the pen of an angry bull which came charging at him and gave him a head injury, was the most memorable story).

Towards the later years of his illness, he began using a cane. I didn't think much of it, more did I know what hospice was. A few weeks after he died, I watched a programme on television which talked about  terminally ill person who was in a hospice. Then things began to click. I wondered if I knew what a hospice was, which I knew my father went to, would I have tried to spend more time with him, to discover more about this wonderful man. This was one of the biggest regrets I had. We had so much in common but I had not made enough effort to know more about him. I thought we would have forever together.

It was not until I was seventeen that I first told someone about what happened to my father. It was an English teacher at my school and we were walking on a South African beach, on the last leg of our 5-day camping trip in the St. Lucia Wetlands park. I couldn't believe that I had not told anyone in four years. All that time I had bottled up all of my grief. My friends at school came to see me on that Monday. I was sat in a spare math room during lunch, during lesson times I sat in the library. My friends shuffled in awkwardly and didn't know what to do or say.

What happened as a result of not fully expressing my grief was that my heart locked tightly shut. How do I know this? My evidence is the fact that I don't know what it means to 'miss' someone. When people like my mum, sister or friends tell me they 'miss me', I don't understand what that feeling is like. I don't miss people, not my mum, not my sister or brother, no one.

When my gran died in February I was not sad, I didn't miss her. I think I managed to force one tear out, but that was after a lot of work. My brother on the other hand, was crazy with grief, and jumped on the next plane to Cairo to attend her funeral. My gran was in my life a lot. She lived with us every year, in England, for 6 months.

What I want to do is 'heal' me heart. I want to let the pain that has been locked inside, out. In some respects its quite convenient not to miss people, I have no yearning to go back to see my family or friends, so some may say that I am really 'independent'. But on the other hand, this means that I am not able to experience the complete, glorious spectrum of human emotion.

It's been nine years since my father died of the brain tumour. My conscious mind may have lost some of our memories, but I know that my subconscious has a perfect record of everything I have ever seen or done in my life. That's why, before I sleep I will start to ask my subconscious to show me all of these memories. I want to re-live my time with my father. I want to fully experience the pain of loss and then hopefully I will heal my heart.

After I meditated this morning (meditation helps clear the conscious mind away (like the froth on top of the sea surface) so that you can look down into the subconscious mind, and see the wonders that it has in store), I picked up a photo from the coffee table beside me. I was about 6, and my father, mother and brother were sitting on a brown, fluffy couch with me. I noticed something new on this photo. It was laminated. I know no one else in my family that would take the time to laminate a photo. Then, I started recalling other memories tht I had not thought about in years.

My father was avidly interested in current affairs. When he watched the 10 O'Clock news you could be sure that you wouldn't be able to ask him one thing. 'Dada, what's...'. 'Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' would be the response. It annoyed me no end. He would furiously jot down notes on McDonalds napkins, and keep them for whatever future use he had in mind. 

I have not inherited this interest in current affairs, but I have inherited his interest in religion. I wish I had asked him why he had converted to Islam, and why he no longer wanted to be a Catholic priest. But, maybe its not too late. The subconscious mind has all the information that humanity has ever known. It has the answers to these questions as well. One day, I will find out.

Other things I remember, my father was an avid fan of 'Lyon's Victoria Sponge'. He would cut each of us slices of this cake and we would sit together and eat. As a family we very rarely ate together, instead we often ate on floor stools, in front of the television, so eating this with my father was special for me. Often we would also have ginger nut cookies, dipped in milk.

When he left at the end of a long Sunday of lessons, I would kiss his bristle bearded cheek, and he would kiss me cheek. I had the irresistible temptation to wipe off the moisture on my cheek, but I couldn't do it in front of him, because that would be rude. Then he'd put his brown cap on, and his brown coat on, and leave through the front door. 'Bye bye Dada, I love you, you're the best dad ever', I'd call after him.

What I have taken from this life experience in grief, is to let it out. If someone is crying from grief, don't try to stop them, don't make them feel little or don't shame them. Just show them love and kindness. My sister cried in Egypt this summer over my gran, 6 months after she passed away, and almost the entire family tried to shut her up any way they could.

How is it better, I ask you, that instead of crying on the outside, a person cries on the inside? So as not to inconvenience onlookers with the 'shocking' sight of someone crying, you would rather have that person cry inside and cause endless long-term damage to themselves, which is then manifested on people that some across that  person, because nothing can stay inside forever. But instead of coming out as harmless tears, the grief is likely to come out as destructive behavior. Fear, anger, hatred.

So again, when someone is hurting, let them hurt, let the cry, just show them love and understanding.

Here's to my father, Frank Mullaney. Born on the 2nd September 1946, died in May 2004. Raised on a farm in Rooskey, Roscommon, Ireland. Left school with Honours. Attended a school to become a catholic priest in Wexford. Left Ireland to head a parish in New Jersey, US. Earnt 3 masters degrees then did a PhD at Harvard in Sociology. Went to Egypt for his PhD studies and after meeting many Imams decided to convert to Islam. Married my mum. Moved back to America with my mum. Was hit by a car and doctors found he had a brain tumour. Had an operation which saved his life. Had two children. Moved to England to work at the Oxford Islamic Centre. Had my sister. Had a bicycle accident in London, the road was wet, there was a barbed-wire fence. The brain tumour returned. Moved to a nearby village to live on his own in a bungalow, marital problems and worsening of his illness were causes. Visited the family home once a week for lessons with the children. One beautifully sunny day, a family friend (who my mum thinks is an angel) called us to tell us my father was in hospital. How and why she knew, who knows. We were about to go to a Saturday Car Boot sale, one of our favourite activities. When we got to his hospital room, I rushed excitedly to wake him up, he seemed to be sleeping. The nurse told me he was in a coma. Later that day the doctor told me my father was going to die. I didn't believe it. We slept in the hospital. Sunday afternoon he died. A priest came in to say some prayers. 'You are very young' he said to me. 'And I'm the oldest child', I thought to myself. My Irish aunts came to the hospital, my mum and family friend had an argument with my aunts, something about next of kin. I didn't care. I just wanted my father.

Dada, you were the best dad anyone could ever have. Thank you for teaching me so much. I love you.