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So I don’t like to complain. I genuinely appreciate that I have a lot, and am very thankful for it. I’m very aware that I am the object of many people’s envy. However I am also human and humans are never satisfied with what they have.

So here I sit on the 13th floor in a beautiful sea breeze while others are making do in the heat below on the street. I have a view, I can see sky, while all others can see are brick walls and washing lines. I sit starring at 300 channels with nothing on. I sit at home with a dial up connection. I traveled for two days and paid a fortune so I can sit here with a dialup connection. I could have saved a lot of money if I’d just turned on the heating at home and sat doing the same thing with my wireless ADSL. I probably would have spoken to more people than I’ve spoken to so far. Everyone is being extremely considerate and “letting us rest”. The result is it's my second morning and the only people I’ve seen so far were my 16 year old cousin who brought us milk (I do like the milk here, it’s much nicer) and our door man and his family. His wife, whose name I’ve never known, took me by the hug and was very interested in how we were going and was really nice. She’s always been really nice. I remember as a child I would play in the car parks and little reserves in the street outside our building and 3am Ga3far and his wife would always be keeping an eye on us. She was always the arbitrator whenever there was an argument amongst the kids. Yet those days are gone. I’m now worlds away from that old life and I’m a stranger in my own childhood home. None of those friends are here any more. They’ve all moved on with their lives. I have too, but for some reason I keep coming back expecting things to be the same way they were when we were 12.

I can see my old school yard from the balcony. They put up another building in the garden behind the school’s convent. I remember that garden. It had swings that we were never allowed to use. On my first week at that school we were taken there to play one morning and kids started telling me stories of dead things and blood buried underneath. Kids can have the strangest imagination. Why on earth would five year old girls think of something like that?

Anyway, there is no more garden. It’s now another block of flats with satellite dishes on top. Kinda like the one we have on our roof receiving the 300 channels with nothing on.

I’m afraid to go for a walk. I’m afraid to see what else has changed and left me behind. I’m afraid to see how else this place is telling me that I don’t belong here anymore, because eventually it will sink in and I will believe it. When that day comes, I will be a stranger forever. I will never be home again.