Antonius will be your name, the fragile Sister Angelica with the watery eyes said to me as we parted ways, visibly pleased in her belief that she was doing the work of God by attempting to convert me to Christianity.
By account of this little old lady’s soft hands, with their gentle touch, one could hardly imagine her having any crusader-like ambitions. Seconds later, outside the St Mary Catholic Church grounds located in the old walled town Harar, a historical Islamic stronghold in eastern Ethiopia, I was approached by a young woman with enlivened eyes. She wanted to know my name. |
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Hands that wanted knowledge to outrun the end of time must have crafted the Timbuktu manuscripts a few centuries ago.
Why else would these hands have laid down their writer’s thoughts on paper that equaled its weight in gold? And perhaps they knew future generations would come across the archives of their lives to unveil a world fuelled by scholarly activity. |
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Ferraris rolling by and skyscrapers climbing higher each day in Dubai are reminders to Gadija Appleby, a cabin crew member with Emirates Airline, that she’s living in an international city.
“It’s not like this at home, of course,” laughs the twenty-something Capetonian who has lived in one of the world’s oil-rich countries, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for almost four years.
“When you walk down the street at home you know you’ll run into your neighbour. But in Dubai, when you leave your flat, every flashy car you can think of drives past you when you walk down the street. That feels international."
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