White Other

09/03/2010 - How did I become White Other?

That day I was standing in the front of a railway station in a small city in the middle of England and I was looking around curiously. During the next couple of years I was going to hit the bottom and overcome my fears and then achieve more than I had ever dreamt of; I was going to reject myself to discover who I was and then accept myself; I was going to cry so badly that it made me laugh. That trip was going to be my own wordless but meaningful scream. But that day, in the middle of March, when I was standing in the front of the railway station in a small city in the middle of England, looking around curiously, I didn’t know this.

I looked at the old surface of the station, made from carefully laid red bricks; at modern buildings with huge windows with offices inside; at shops, one with posh suits and another one, on the other side of the road, with cheap shoes. I drank in, absorbed this scenery. I inhaled the smell of my take away coffee, mixed with curry from an Indian restaurant next to the station. I absorbed, imbibed every single person passing by: a black woman carrying her lovely cappuccino baby, an Indian lady wearing a pair of flip-flops despite the winter weather, a very old, pale gentleman with his very old, ginger dog on a leash, its red collar reminding me of something. I soaked up the sounds around me and I noticed that I hardly understood anything. It wasn’t the Queen’s English I had been taught at school. Even if it had been I wouldn’t have been able to, as I had only got a C. But the words around me were a strange mixture of different accents and pronunciations which made me confused… and would carry on doing this for a long time… for too long…

I picked up my rucksack, spilling my coffee. It was either bad luck or a good omen. I didn’t know and didn’t care. I just grabbed my not quite heavy belongings: the rucksack with 5 t-shirts, a jumper, a pair of trousers, underwear, a laptop I still needed to work on my projects and a book I always hugged as a mascot when I was sad, and I went to explore the city which had picked me to live in. I was childishly naïve enough to believe that these were enough to settle down here and be happy. I didn’t know that day that courage is not enough to face all problems, that openness should be secured by a door chain and that an attitude fades when it’s watered down by negativity, like brandy. As I didn’t know this I courageously walked into the city with an optimistic grin on my face, stopping every time when any guy said something to me I was unable to understand.

Then I heard this low voice which gave me goose bumps: “Kurwa!” Definitely I was able to understand this, and it made me ashamed. The guy looked at me and said in our first language: “A new arrival?” I looked at him surprised. How did he recognize this? That day I didn’t know that during the next couple of years I also would be able to identify our people at first sight.