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The Traveller's inner
Monologue.
By Harald Friedl (Translated by Sidney Rosenfeld)1
The first landscape of my life … This is where I was born, in this light I began to
see, in this world of sound I began to speak. Here I learned to distinguish between what
is disturbing and what is reassuring. But then I had to leave.
My family emigrated to Europe with me when I was still small. Yet, I have always walked on
the soil of Africa — even when strolling around in Vienna, Geneva, or Berlin. For a
long time I did not miss Africa. But as one grows older, history takes on more weight. The
urge became stronger to reconcile my existence with my origins.
The life one has not lived is the source of inner conflict. If my dreams could not resolve
the conflict, perhaps I can still find paths between the two worlds of my feelings and
emotions: the world I owe to Europe, and the other, which Africa gave me.
2
I have the feeling that I was here once already and viewed the world with a child's eyes.
Déjà vu? Perhaps I was once on this very cliff — lying on the belly of my mother or
my father — and watching something that fascinated me.
Traveling, drifting, until my feelings find something in which they recognize themselves:
Heaviness, lightness, friendships never made, loves never promised … Crossing paths
in life that are marked on the map I carry inside me … For the world is a whole. And
"foreign" is not the opposite of "home," but just its reverse side.
"Stranger" in Swahili is "mgeni." And the search is
"kutafuta."
3
Tanzania is not a country of civil wars, destructive drought, and great famine. A land of
want, certainly, but not entirely without hope. And yet my parents found so little
prospect for life here that they turned their backs on Africa. My mother once said:
"I prefer to die in EUROPE and perhaps be reborn someday as a white person."
"Fate" is called "masaibu." And "to struggle along"
"kutunsa maisha."
4
All of my senses tuned to receive… To be like water that flows in hollows …
Steered by the roads, not to be sought consciously …
I once imagined Africa as a land of smiles. In my head free men and women romp about, and
I, the ever discontent one from the north, the city dweller, was amazed by their calm and
composure.
Amazement — the child's version of interest. But how long can the amazement last?
After the amazement comes the wish to understand: I cannot tell myself that Africa is
merely the setting of a journey and not MY world.
5
How is life possible in a world abandoned by the spirits? The missionaries burned what
they did not want to tolerate: the old masks, the windows into the spirit world. History
transmitted from mouth to mouth is growing silent. Now Africa bears three souls in its
breast: One that is promised to Allah, one that is promised to Jesus, and one that belongs
to the elements and the ancestors.
"To remember" is "kumbuka." And "to believe" is
"amini."
[...]
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