Power, Weakness of Distance

Distance is at once strong, at once weak.

It carries us away from our loved ones. It flies us into lands and places, new and familiar, far away from our homes. Distance carries us into places we have never been before.

Distance will carry me away from Malawi to Berlin in Germany this Sunday, August 16, 2009. I am going for a TV Station Management course lasting a month. It is a source of joy to travel, to see new places especially. Yet leaving the familiar, the everyday routine is also a source of sorrow.

I will miss my bedroom. I will miss my house. I will miss the road I drive on everyday, especially the delays caused by tracks on the Magalasi Road. I will miss my workmates.

But these are things and do not appeal to feelings and emotions. It is human beings who appeal to emotions and feelings. Human beings also appeal to reason and common sense. So my friends in Malawi will miss me just as I will miss plenty of them.

Still, as always, one person will be missed a lot more than everybody else. But at the end of one month, the same distance will carry me home from what was becoming familiar to the missed familiar, to the one I missed most.

Then, upon being welcomed by friends and relatives, I will prove that distance is a coward. It carries you away and brings you back to your place.