This Old Villa

I have to move this weekend because the college will no longer be needing the villa. It was officially called Al Ameen but it was known more properly as the Egyptian Villa because long Before I arrived most of the people living here were from Egypt and so people referred to it as the Egyptian Villa and the name stuck.

I first arrived here in mid-November of 2007. St. Joseph and I arrived here together and no one was here to meet us so we picked our rooms and made ourselves at home in what seemed to be an empty house at the time. There were others living here, but we were the only teachers. So we picked up a few things from an unmarked store a couple of blocks down the road that was literally behind a hole in a fence that was run by Pakistani workers. Roosters and cats were running everywhere amid the squalor and relative poverty of the surrounding shacks. But they had fresh fruit, veggies, meat and milk and we bought what we needed for one of St. Joseph’s wonderful stews.

A few weeks later, more teachers arrived. Evans had actually returned from a visa trip, Keveen arrived from France, and Dan of Detroit came from China, and a few weeks later Kyle came from Texas. I have a number of good memories of all of them. Joking around while waiting for the bus stop, a glass of wine with Keveen on the roof, Joseph and his Oogali, stew, and sitting with him out on the back porch drinking coffee while he had his cigarette in the evening. Kyle perpetually in the kitchen. People living together can’t help but get irritated with each other but they also learn to let it pass and get along.

But the villa is closing now. I and two other men and a Filipino maid are living here at the end, but it has felt very empty for some time. I have enjoyed the solitude for a change, and even though I like a lot of the people at the compound where I am moving, I will miss the quiet of this place, and the memories.

It seems like certain eras end, and new ones begin. Moves in my life, have never simply been moves they always seem to mark new directions and changes within as well. I made a promise to a friend who thought my more recent videos were sad, so I said the next one would be more positive. I didn’t expect to be saying adieu to the villa which may not seem like a positive thing, but I think it is, even if it is a matter of leaving a place and the memories it contains behind. But I will keep in mind at least one thing this person has taught me, and that is to be positive in my mind—to think positive thoughts. So as I leave this place, I will do so with the awareness that there is a future of possibilities ahead. Thus I will be optimistic and will look forward to the good things that are to come.