Sunset at Kite Beach, home for kite flying lovers in Dubai
Among many dozens of countries I visited, there are few that I actually lived in. They are (listed alphabetically) Barbados, Cyprus, Dubai, France, Germany, Poland, Porto Rico, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA. Eleven in all. Not sure if I ever called any of those countries home but I had a place to live in every one of them and I used to call that place “home”. But I also can call “home” somebody else’s place.
Liwa Desert in Abu Dhabi is maybe home to that tree
The Urban dictionary explains “home sweet home” as: “used as an expression of one’s pleasure or relief at being in or returning to one’s own home.“
So what/where is home? Where one sleeps (hotel?), where one eats (restaurant?). Is the keyword here pleasure or physical building or maybe just a place that makes us feel good. Does it need to be a place? Could it be a person? Animal?
What was home for our ancestors? What was home for our ancestors’ ancestors? Valley? Bush? Steppes? Highlands of Mongolia?
I know my ancestors’ home. There is no doubt in my mind they were the folks who took the Mongolian route during their migration from Africa to Europe. No doubt at all – and I have my blood type to prove it. Seriously. B negative. Very rare. Only 1.5% of world’s population is B negative. And most of those people live on Mongolian steppes.
Blood Type B developed in the area of the Himalayan highlands. Pushed from the hot, lush savannahs of eastern Africa to the cold highlands of the Himalayan Mountains, Blood type B may have initially mutated in response to climactic changes. It first appeared among a mix of Caucasian and Mongolian tribes. This new blood type was soon characteristic of the great tribes of steppe dwellers, who by this time dominated the Eurasian Plains. As the Mongolians swept through Asia, the gene for Type B blood was firmly entrenched.
Of all the ABO types, Type B shows the most clearly defined geographic distribution. The small numbers of Type B in Western Europeans represents western migration by Asian nomadic peoples. This is best seen in the easternmost western Europeans, the Germans and Austrians, who have an unexpectedly high incidence of Type B blood compared to their western neighbors.
The joy of playing in the desert. Always such a pleasure of returning. Is Liwa desert the two girls’ home?
There you have it. Black on white. No question about it. Scientifically proved. I am a nomad.
What is it all about, you may wonder. Nothing much, nothing really, just trying to get an answer to that one question I keep getting all the time … you, who lived in so many countries … and so on and on – which one do you like best?
N O N E !!!
There is no one country, no one place, no one anything in the world I like ‘the best’. Not possible. And the more I travel the less possible it is to pick the one. Forget it. Silly question. Next one.
Yes, there is one ‘next one’, next question they keep asking: How can you? Why do you travel? Why don’t you settle down? Hmmm, and what exactly am I suppose to do? Sit put in one place, same job, same neighbors, same food, same horizons, same views, same everything. Year after year. Thank you very much but no thank you. Once you begin to travel, once you begin to appreciate (as it is called today) the nomadic way of life, you also begin to live a global life. Your thoughts get global. Your vision gets global. Your pallet gets global. You get global. And no one single place in the world can match that. Once you start there is no way back. You keep on and on and on. And love it.
Home away from home – Al Maha Desert
Any drawbacks? None I can think of. Nomadic lifestyle requires quick adaptation. You lose some and then you gain some – as they say.
First things that go out the window are things you never really cared for, like stuff indoctrinated in you by others when you were still a child. And that feels more like relief than a drawback. Pure pleasure.
So what was it all about that home sweet home? One’s pleasure or relief at being in or returning to one’s own home? There you have it. And btw perhaps I should visit Mongolia.
p.s almost forgot – Happy New Year
