{"id":708,"date":"2022-01-02T22:54:49","date_gmt":"2022-01-02T20:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adham.elshahabi.com\/blog\/?p=708"},"modified":"2022-01-02T22:57:48","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T20:57:48","slug":"kenya-2022-day-1-what-am-i-doing-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adham.elshahabi.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/02\/kenya-2022-day-1-what-am-i-doing-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya 2022 | Day 1: What am I doing here?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here I go.. Here I wander..
Looking for a moment, and a missing answer..
Will we ever fill the void?.. Is it time to surrender?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the tiny room in Nairobi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I booked my flight to Nairobi 4 days ago. Planing does not make sense in these times of uncertainty. I needed to travel.. I needed to travel far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. I love my life. I love where I am living, and I enjoy what I am doing. I have been blessed by being constantly exposed to sensible souls, brilliant minds and remarkable personalities. However, we frequent travelers are cursed. We crave for the new. I crave.. I crave for a change.
New destinations bring new destinies. New changes that, if you allow, could alter your being. Well, it often happens also when you are not willing to allow it. I didn\u2019t really choose Kenya. It just happened. A combination of a reasonable ticket price, reasonable COVID restrictions for travelers, and the ease with which I could enter the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what am I doing here? I don\u2019t know. I just wanted to expose myself to the universe again and see what comes my way. I have always been fascinated by the concept of \u201cinitiative\u201d. Someone starts something. It needs momentum and energy. It requires courage and readiness to fail. Whether it is planning an event, approaching a charming person on the street or just taking a new step. Introducing energy into a system usually generates some beautiful Turbulence: life.
Serendipity, a beautiful word that sounds like gentle, soft kisses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This quote is also from “The Forty Rules of Love”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In this trip, I am hoping to encounter and challenge some of my fears. I am hoping to think extensively over the views of extended African sands. I am hoping to clean my heart from the entitlement and greed that creeps over it from luxurious privileged high standard living. 
My companion on this trip is a re-read; “The Forty Rules of Love” by Elif Shafak. I read this book a decade ago, and it has changed many of my perceptions in life.

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I landed early on the 2nd of January. Everything was smooth given my online Visa, COVID19-Vaccination certificate, and negative PCR test, I uber-ed my way to the Airbnb room which was in a quiet fancy neighborhood full of residential compounds surrounded by walls and having security guards on the gates. Sheila received me, showed me the tiny room, as well as the gym and swimming pool that belong to the building. Being in Africa, you come back to the reality that in most of the world things are not perfect. This is not the case in Switzerland, where perfection is constantly aimed at. Here the water tap is leaking unless you use higher power. If you don’t look at the street while walking, you are sure to fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n