Ikhide R. Ikheloa@ikhide
How does exile feel today in the age of the Internet? What does exile mean today? Is it any different for me than three decades ago when I left home? I think so, yes. Exile is real, exile is dislocation - it is physical and spiritual. And I have felt it deeply and painfully.
When I came to America, there was no Internet, you wrote long letters to the darkness and if you were lucky you got a reply that only made the longing for home ache harder. There was this wall. Black, dark and forbidding. The pain I felt at a certain point almost drove me insane. There was this horrible hunger for what I had left behind, I looked for home in everything, in the food, in the songs, in relationships, in the booze, and each time, its absence taunted and haunted me. I'd never been so alone in my life.
I did visit home five years after I'd left. When my siblings saw me again, they flung themselves at me, their joy was boundless and mysterious. I always remember that reunion, I had returned from a certain dark place. I am lucky. Kunta Kinte never went back. Well, some would say, I'll never go back.
Life is not so bad now. The Internet and cellphones have broken down the walls that used to reduce me to tears. I see home and home sees me. Always. This separation doesn't hurt as much as it once did. I think also of the mysterious bonds of this wireless world and how easy it is to reach and be with someone, and I think of my world before now and I think how incredibly grateful I am to those Americans who reached out to vulnerable warriors like me and tried hard - and succeeded - to make things hurt less. America has her issues but she has some very good people. Many of us are still standing - because of them. I salute them. Maybe I'll send each one of them a text - in gratitude.