My two bookshelves now lie empty of its contents. I have given away all my books except the four or five language book that I keep with me. Slowly but surely  my apartment is going back to its original form, empty, just like the way I found it three years ago. The color of the carpet is not as bright as in the beginning, but that only meant so much life hapenned in the place. The walls are still white but now they  are full of laughter marks and conversations. The fridge is empty but for a pack of cheap beers and the remnants of apple shisha. That shisha pipe will be gone as well soon, given away to a good friend, just like it was given to me. 

My new life will be even more transient that the current one, committing of just 6 to 8 months to stay in Cairo. I will own nothing for the place I'm moving into, most probably a fully furnished place, just adapting whatever taste the land owner has, delegating yet another little details of my life to other people.

Africa has been calling me since I was 15 and finally, 12 years letter, I will step my foot on the northern patch of continent. But I really want to do is go West, as I promised Henry sooner or later we will play Djembe in the heat of Monrovia summer and I'm glad to tell him I will be able to fulfill that promise, inshalah, this year; four years and one civil war later.

The risk of living a transient life is you can become a ghost, moving from one place to another leaving nary a footprint, becoming someone that other people remember vaguely sometime in the past, because as you keep moving on, you left them behind and they will forget you, sooner or later, mostly sooner. In the end, what you are is a blurry image in others' memories and the clearest picture of you is stored in a dusty shoebox somewhere.