![]() ![]() ![]() There are “African markets” that sell stale desiccated and preserved replicas of what one misses the most about home. If you no longer know how to tie your gele head-tie, there are shops that will do the honors for you – for a modest fee of course. There is a multibillion dollar industry out here in America devoted to soothing our collective angst. And it is not for lack of trying exiles go through a million hoops to replicate the bread of their childhood. Nothing tastes, smells, looks the same and everywhere you go you hear voices of impish vendors selling fake reminders of home because there is money in selling the weary traveler a mirage. It is the assault or the rebellion of your senses that hurts the most. I guess it makes sense, this disconcerting feeling of constantly being out-of-sorts, like a gentle but persistent hangover. And all your senses rebel to the death against the changes that you need to embrace in order to enjoy, well, purgatory. Nothing is quite right one feels neither here nor there, trapped in a dispensation that is not quite alien, not quite home. Exile is a fitting metaphor for alienation. ![]()
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