missing the Queen's death

On the day I was drinking cow's blood with the Mursi, and taking my final photos of the women with (or without) their lip plates, my Queen was dying.  In the late afternoon, which is I believe when the message was released that her doctors were concerned about her health, I was watching a small Hamar community sacrifice and cook a goat in our honour.  If I'd been in London and heard that message, I probably would have joined the throng outside Buckingham Palace, but I was oblivious to what was going on.

That night was the first of two in a campsite in the Omo Valley area, right down in the south of Ethiopia, so not somewhere that gave me any access to wifi.  However we'd had a group conversation earlier in the trip where I'd noted my addiction to the news, that for example the first page I open in the morning when I go online is the news - to check that nothing major has happened in the world "like an earthquake, assassination, or the Queen dying", so when the tour guide went to check the news that evening and saw the headline of her death, he came straight to tell me.  I was devastated, in tears at the dinner table, and as much bewildered as sad ("How could this be?  How could this woman who has been head of state since before I was born not be there any more?  What does it mean for my country?").  Truthfully, I wanted to be there in London, not in Ethiopia - but the guide confirmed that there was not even a flight from Jinka, the nearest city, to Addis Ababa the next day.

They were kind enough to drive me to a lodge which had wifi, so that I could have my fill of the news, and when I got back to the campsite they had given me a tent to myself, on the assumption, I guess, that I'd be up crying all night.  But I'd exhausted myself and fell asleep.  & the next day was probably the best day of the trip, the morning at a Dassanech village but the afternoon attending a bull-jumping ceremony of the Hamar, not something you can ever guarantee getting to see on such a trip.  It is not the kind of ceremony you can half-heartedly attend, as the sights, sounds and smells drag you in ... so I enjoyed myself and forgot about the news from home.

It was an interesting step along the road of my life.  When I first became an expat, I left many things behind: sold my treasured collection of vinyl records, mostly from my punk youth; sold my expensive City suits (eg a Nicole Farhi suit that had cost me £300 was sold for £10 at a car boot sale); and getting ready for my first day in the office in Dakar, made the great decision to not wear any make-up - the first time I'd been seen in public without mascara and eyeliner since my teens!  During my years as an expat I left some of my culture behind, as I did not have access to UK television, did not follow the music scene, etc, and I missed some events of national cultural importance, such as the 2012 Olympics.  I also left friends behind - not deliberately, but it happens when you are away from home for many years.  & finally (I thought), setting off as a nomad, I left behind the security of having a fixed home to go back to each day.  But then, with the death of the Queen, I realised that there probably is no 'finally' in the life learning/changing process, as this was yet another step in my 'casting off' of ties, that British cultural identity that strengthens in the first few years away (raising my glass in a toast to the Queen at a British Embassy do back in my early days in Dakar, something I'd never have done before that) but then does start to weaken over time, especially when you make the choice to enjoy the here and now of a bull-jumping ceremony in Ethiopia rather than being mentally back home with your fellow Brits.

Of course there is still a part of me that is sad that I missed probably the most important event in my country in my lifetime, but another part of me that sees it as another release from the many ties we all have.  Ties that have a positive side, of course, but that also weigh us down, restrict our mental freedom to do whatever we like, whenever we like, wherever we like in the world.