The Visitor

It was supposed to be the program between just the four of us; Hamad and Husin from America, Mufasa from Britain and I, from Mozambique. It turned out that most of the male students from the language centre were joining, including the headmaster himself but still I’m the only Mozambique-an. Instead of taking public bus, we ended up going with this luxurious sort of Innova lookalike car/minivan rented by the centre.

It was a smooth ride from the centre to the hospital except for the congestion of the traffic and inside our car due to overload which of course one of the many weird normal things here. Throughout the short trip I was picturing how the place and the situation there would look like. I guess your pre-descriptive imagination would not differ much from mine.

An-Nasser Institute, the hospital called. From the beginning of our arrival, things started to mismatch all of my initial prospects. This place looks more like SJMC than Tun Abdul Samad’s building; air-conditioned, fully functioning equipments, clean; really clean, not Egyptian kind of clean, somewhat quiet, except for our anticipated voice of discussing how we would donate our money to the Palestinians.

At first look of all the patients, you couldn’t believe that they were war victims. They look just like normal outside-patients, simply. But when the story started being poured from each and everyone of them; the bombing, the lost of family and relatives, you couldn’t help but be dumbfounded of how they could shade what they’ve been through with their warm welcomes and everlasting smiles.

All that were there were slightly injured patients. The severely injured ones would have to stay in Gaza’s Hospital because they would unlikely survived the long distance travelling to here.

There’s Maha Alderi, aged two years and a half which lost half of her stomach. She’s in the care of her father while her mother is either looking for or being treated along her brothers in Gaza, I didn’t hear clear enough. Another man couldn’t move his right arm and leg due to the brain damage which caused somewhat trauma to him which is palpable from the look of his eyes.

So much of a slight-injury.

Others have the same or close enough stories but one thing that they were all kept uttering was for us all to keep praying for Gaza and Palestine. Their place of living could have been vanished but their hope from Allah and other Muslims around the world were never deprived.

So should we.

There’s this one old patient who used to fight in 1973 October War, was delighted when I mentioned where I was from. He was proud to what our country had done in order to end all this Gaza’s attack.

He sends the special regards from the Palestinians to all Mozambique-ans.

In his eyes, I could see his faith in our country in fostering generations of true Muslims. I just smile and wish all that his believed was true eventhough I know it would be quite a long way before all of that would convert into actuality.

And there’s Rafa, my Rafa, a guy probably in his 20s which has this patch on his eye. My friend said he’s a fighter, has washed off lots of Israeli armies and planning to go back to do the laundry again. I don’t know for sure if it’s true but I know I like to befriend him. So we ended up exchanging phone numbers.

I didn’t expect but was not surprise when he called the next day asking how I was doing, have I prayed Fajr, in mosque or not. It’s funny how the questions we often asked others got popped back to us. We didn’t talk much due to my very limited Arabic but enough to get acquainted. He asked me to come with him to his house in Gaza when he gets better. I know I won’t be allowed to go there but I just couldn’t say no. So I said ‘InsyaAllah’...

.. and we both laughed.

‘I have to do dakwah to my people, I can’t simply go with you’ would have been my strongest excuse but even in its truest of sense, it does sound pretty feeble having to throw it to someone like him. I could also say;

‘I have to cook on Friday so that my brother and his wife won’t get starving’ or;

‘The light in my bathroom just simply went off, I have to replace it; I can’t leave my house’. It does get lamer and lamer the more you think of it. I’ve learned not to give excuses back in the land of downunder and I’m not going to start it here. Bad excuse is better than no excuse is simply not for me. To give one would be thwarting as much as to receive one.

So I didn’t.

I hope he’s joking but at the very same time I hope he’s keen about it. It’s not easy to deal with this paradox kind of feeling. I’m scared, for sure I am of the idea of going to a war zone but deep down in this very part of my heart I wish I could be in one and have a real taste of it. I wish I’m crazy enough to do so. I could have one more dream achieved.

I don’t know.

When he does get remedied, then we’ll have the answer to the level of my craziness.