This neighborhood was one child’s universe: the home, the friend’s house, the grade school, the paths traversed in-between.
I still find it difficult to grasp that I see my old house again only thanks to satelite technology honing in on a warzone. The picture presents a future unimagined; you can’t see it here but the neighborhood was under development as I busily explored unbuilt houses and kicked up dust from the road in my wooden-heeled boots (a fashion for young girls) — so much yet to be.
But “yet to be” would translate to decade after decade of counter-development, the sacrificing of regional alliances, the depletion of dignity, so-called brain drain, and the ire of the world.
On a very personal level, this is where the creative impulse was initiated. I was on and off the grid, making believe with bits of detritis, testing the extent of my imagination with bricks and rocks from the various construction zones. Language got me around the neighborhood, smells and sights were subtitled in my head.
rheim alkadhi | ريم القاضي 