Announcement: Rock in the desert 25th of January camp Awsome. Look it up in facebook if your registered, attend if you can and lets support our local rock scene.
Its the 10th year annaversary. 10 years passed, this experience still won't stop haunting me, haunting my thoughts, my dreams, my emotions.
The vivid scenes, the taste of dust, the exhaustion, the pain, the agony. Was it all worth it? Never regret anything you did, always learn from what you did though is the way I always look at things.
One person I know is a true friend since he was there ever since I can remember, my dear cousin Dr Shredd. This guy has been there through good times and bad.
It started in this cool breezy night, we were walking as we always used to when we were teens since we didn't have cars and we hated being a burdon on anyone to drive us around. It was a weekend and it was like our ritual to go to my grandfather's place for lunch on Thursday and start walking around three areas after that. Kaifan, Shamyiah, and Khaldiyah was our territory. For some reason that day we walked through all three of them back and forth and we finnished our regular tour with a lot of energy left.
I don't remember how the conversation started but it ended with, how long would it take us to walk to N's place in Bayan, I apologize if am disclosing private information. And of course, when you have group think, 2 guys that are bay3eenha. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this "experiment" as we put it. We're just trying something new. We went for it on the spot.
I know the post is getting long but it would be pointless w/o a conclusion. The journey began.
9 pm, we were walking in Kaifan, when the idea was approaved w/o question by the two of us, and we walked towards 3daylyah. Mind you, since we don't drive, we don't know the exact way we have a vague idea of where it is. On the way we passed by college of business which used to be in 3udaylya at that time. We asked the security dude, where is Bayan? he explained to us the way and he asked so you guys are drivving? no we are walking, we replied. No way, you will get there at dawn he said while laughing. Its ok, it is like an adventure for us.
What was our route? I can't really recall, we passed through areas, we crossed highways. Half way through we started questioning if we actualy can do this, we had no choice though, forward was the only way to go. Despite the temptations to simply take the guaranteed route and go back to our homes. But am glad that Dr Shredd is the type that will c things through to the end. We kept on going.
Tired, our legs hurting, dry as hell we reached a big house and saw the security guy outside, he immediately took us in and offered us water and tea. Was a nice break we chatted for a bit and the guy was soo generous to this day I feel gratitude to this silent hero.
We stayed the course in that agonizing journey, until we finally reached Jabriyah. We realized that we are ever so close to our target, final place we had contact w/ people asking which way to Bayan. The last parts of the journey are the most painful since you know your almost there but its hard and painful at the same time. Its like when your doing pushups and the last ones are hardest because you know your almost to the end.
we crossed the 5th ring road, we ran accross. We found an opening in the fence. I don't know why there is a fence and why people found it necessary to cut it in a certain place to allow for people walking to walk in.
We entered Bayan, at which point we were silent. We pushed our limits, and we were operating on pure adrenaline at that point. Covered in dust and sweat, we made our way in Bayan to finally reach N's place. It was 2 - 3 am. Everyone was asleep, we were so happy we made it. It is time to be proud of what we achieved, we achieved our goal, we were victorious. One final challenge was waiting ahead.
Its late everyone's asleep, and being the considerate people that we r we thought the worst thing to do was to wake them up. We had 2 options, order a taxi and go back home "imagine" but instead we decided we wanted to end it there. We can't put in any more effort for any kind of journey. We jumped the wall, we borrowed a ladder and we set it to N's window. We climbed up the ladder we open the window and N is sleeping.
N, N, wake up, dude check what we did... N, N... no reply.. the dude's sound asleep. Well we crashed, all dirty and everything we had a sound sleep.
Next day, news about the journy spread around. Everyone was talking about it, we got yelled at. Yelled at good, w/ everyperson having his own point to make:
YOU COUL'VE BEEN KIDNAPPED.
YOU JUMPED THE WALL? WHAT IF SOMEONE SAW YOU AND CALLED THE POLICE?
A CAR COULD'VE JUST HIT YOU
ARE YOU GUYS STUPID? WHO DOES THAT?
Here we are 2 teens who achieved our goal after 5 hours of walking, we believed what we did was great, no one seemed to agree.
10 years later, a reminder of this journey has surfaced, 3 of our aunts had a smaller journey/adventure the other day walking back and forth between Kaifan and Khaldiyah... No one yelled at them. It is obvious that its in our genes, it wasn't as bad as people made us feel that it was. You know what that extreme reaction did to us? why? why weren't we praised instead of being punished for such an act?
Oh well, the next time a younger generation of the family tries such a journey, everyone will be reminded. One day this journey might even turn into a tradition, a breakthrough in participant's lives.