EXPAT STORY : A STALK OF BAMBOO

Struggles in a strange land are very common to us EXPATS,  I'm creating a space in this blog for writers who would like to share stories or any writings whether anonymously or with a name, I am willing to listen and perhaps coach you in life. 

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A Stalk of Bamboo

by : Anonymous Expat Writer in Kuwait

I have a broken finger. I’ve had it for three weeks now. I am not so sure if it is mending properly. You see, every day, I merely splint it with a stick two inches long I rummaged from our communal kitchen and patch it around with a folded tissue and a transparent scotch tape.

 If I need to go out, I hold it together with a Band-Aid I bought from a pharmacy so it would look a bit fancy. For one Kuwaiti Dinar, I was able to buy sixteen pieces, although now I only have four left. If you see me walking around with a finger roughly patched in a tissue held together with a Band-Aid, 

I’ll merely laugh and shrug it off as a cut and assure you with my boyish grin that it is healing quite fine. 

I am afraid it is not.

I do not have the means to go to a hospital to have it checked and I do not know whom to talk to. I dare not impose anyone; we all have our own problems. I dare not even want to mention it to my mother. I am my mother’s son. She calls me from back home, checking on me, and with my boyish grin, l lie to her without batting my eyes that everything is fine even though they are not. That I have spent my last remaining dregs of Dinar to buy that band-aid and that I will be trying to budget 500 fils for a month before payday comes, and that I will, once again, merely eat that 150 fils worth of sliced bread you can buy from a Bakala for my daily meal. 

We all have our reasons for lying to our loved ones. I love my mom. I do not want her to worry. I know how she worries about me here and I do not want her to worry more. It pains me so deep that sometimes I purposely do not answer her call, watching her name dance on my phone screen, waiting for her call to end and hoping she’ll just realize I might be too busy. We all have our own reasons why we try to swallow down our tears and say that everything is fine. Hoping that maybe tomorrow, or the day after, Kuwait will live up to its promise. 

Insha’Allah. So they say. 

Tomorrow is another day. I shall bind my broken finger once again with a tissue and a tape and smile that it is merely a cut.