Life after coming back into the UK!

Dear all,

It has been more than a month now, since I had to abort the continuation of my peace pilgrimage from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to the Gulf States, and had to come back to the UK.

But here, it really has felt like I have come back home, and I’ve seen a lot of my good friends who have been very supportive and helpful to me, in order to forget about all those incidents and difficulties which I encountered throughout my peace journey.

On my first two weeks back in London, I managed to visit few of my good old friends and talked to them about my peace journey, and told them about how much I would like to write about my peace journey and suggested maybe even a book might be a good idea, to write down what I have seen and encountered throughout my journey, because I do not think anyone who is going to visit as a tourist or even as a journalist will be able to see and feel what I have seen and felt.

On my first week back in London I paid a visit to a place called “Passing Clouds” with a good friend of mine, who told me there was going to be an evening of poetry (“Lyrically Challenged”). He kindly wrote a poem about my peace journey and what has happened to me, then kindly introduced me to the people there. I very briefly spoke about my journey, and I mentioned I am going to write a book about my first peace journey from London to the Middle East. (“First” because there will be more.)

The following weekend I went back to Passing Clouds again, with the hope of making an arrangement to have an evening to talk about my peace journey in more detail, and there I heard from a person who has been through a few different detention centres here in the UK and he was explaining about what has happened to him. At the end of it I mentioned to him and to the audience that what you can see here in the UK is just a drop in the ocean compared with what is going on throughout the world, things I have seen throughout my peace journey and we have to do a lot of work to eradicate all this.

As you all know life here is a bit faster-going than the place that I have just come back from (Middle East), and I wasn’t yet adjusted to the speed of life here when already an opportunity came up to do some IT support work. I saw this as a good way of adjusting back to the fast-going life here in the UK, while reflect back on what I have been doing for the last six months or so, therefore I took the opportunity, and I have been working in this school for almost four weeks now. It is a school that I worked in before, and it has been a great pleasure to see all those old faces in the school and talk to them about my experiences as and when I was getting a little gap of free time.

It has been a fascinating and a curious peace journey to many and particularly a few specific teachers in the school were very interested to hear more. Even the head of media asked me if I wanted to do an interview with some other people he knew, and I told him I’m always happy to talk about my peace journey to anyone who is interested in listening.

Towards the end of my third week back in the UK I went to west London to see two of my very best friends who I came to know during the Occupy (OLSX) camp, and they have been excellent supporters of my peace pilgrimage throughout the whole journey. One of them runs “the PHOENIX Project”, which is a very good project with a film show almost every Friday night. After about two hours of very good conversation and chit-chat and telling them a little bit of my journey here and there while having a very lovely dinner, I said goodbye to them, promising to go back the next day to see a film.

So it was Friday evening when I went back to west London to see the film, which was about Utopian London, that I saw another very good friend of mine who I came to know him through OLSX and he has been almost like my brother here. Even during the time of my ten days in HELL in KSA I did call him to say “I am ok for now, and no need for a panic and tell others as well not to panic and don’t go to KSA embassy yet to protest”, so he meant a lot to me, and after the film show at “the Phoenix Project”, I saw another two friends from the time of OLSX as well, and they did talk about the film in a little discussion group.  After that we had some refreshments, and I told them a little more about my peace journey, a couple of photos has been taken by one of my good friend, that shows the event.

At “the PHOENIX Project” talking about my peace journey, after the film show!

then later that evening I went back to the West Country to a place where my very good friend lives.

On Saturday we woke up a bit late because we went to sleep quite late. After having a great late breakfast (and early lunch) I was reminded of ‘meal times’ which I totally lost track of throughout my journey, because I could just eat whenever there was something to eat and if there wasn’t anything I couldn’t complain, that’s just how it was. Then I told my very good friend a little bit more about the story of the peace journey, and after having a great day of good food eating (he was trying to feast me to make me put on a bit of weight again) our time went beautifully well, in and around the garden. My friend also had his lovely new girlfriend there, and we got to know each other slowly since the Friday night, and she was such a wonderful woman, a good companion for my well-deserved friend. I noticed that they could talk for hours without any problems, it was like they hadn’t seen each other for years, and I really enjoyed being with both of them.

Late afternoon, after his lovely girlfriend left us, we were getting ready to go to a boatyard near to the Thames river to get a cover for my friend’s boat and he took me through nice places in the countryside and showed me around the area and explained how the place used to be in the past, and also he pointed out to me where his boat is located and hopefully in the near future we will go and see the boat. On our way going and coming back we saw a camping area and he told me in a jokey way “you should go and tell them their tents are not in a straight line” and that was a great loud laugh “LOL” based on the time of OLSX (and many other occupations). Later that evening we had a great pizza meal and then some more chat before going to sleep.

On Sunday after scrambled eggs for breakfast he kindly took me for a lovely, almost 6km of walk around the village where he lives and it was a great walk and a reminder of my peace walk; I had to do a walk like this throughout my journey and even sometimes three times longer than this as well. He took some nice photos of me around the village too, which you can see, few of them here.

The River Churn beside me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Churn

The River Churn behind me.

The River Churn behind me present day!

You can see the past in this link!.

http://www.francisfrith.com/south-cerney/photos/the-river-churn-c1967_s517009/#utmcsr=google.co.uk&utmcmd=referral&utmccn=google.co.uk

My friend also showed and photo me, on our route, that we were walking, the river Churn and the water which was going to an old mill as you have seen some photos of them, and also he was explaining to me that what was going to happen to the old canal, that in some places you couldn’t even tell there was a canal there, it was just, like a piece of land covered with trees, but he was hoping that the restoration programmes for the canals, which he is involved with, will hopefully restore almost the whole 40km or so of this beautiful canal before it gets too late. I was saying to him “it will be a great route for your boat to come this close to the village”.

The Old Canal!

The Old Mill behind me!

After coming back and taking a quick shower, and having an absolutely delightful two days of talk and rest over there, my wonderful friend kindly took me to a place in Swindon and I caught a megabus and headed back to London to attend the school again on Monday.

It was another new week at the school and while I was helping them with their technical questions they were also asking me about my moral peace journey.  I had to talk a lot, to many of people there, telling the story about my peace journey from the start and only very briefly, so I decided at the end of the week, when we were going to have three days off 04/05/06.05/13 (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday), send a brief message to all staff and students at the school for their kind patience with me during this hard period, many of them will be aware of what I was being doing for the last six months, and most of them have been absolutely great in supporting what I have done,and also giving them a link to my blog so they would have enough time to read my story and I have to tell less about it and more about why I did it, and If they wanted to become my friend on facebook as well, I have written that they could send friendship requests and we can keep in touch more often.

Also in the e-mail I mentioned that they might have to bear with me if I am a bit slowed down and even sometimes might not be able to remember some password or the cause of some technical problems, just to let everyone know that if I wasn’t as fast as before, the reason behind it was, that I have been away on this journey, and I am very much capable to catch up with what whatever I could do in the past here in the school, and now with more confident and clearer mind, so I left the message just like this for them to absorb.

Here we go again it was another weekend and this time towards where? You guessed it right, to the West Country again; the second time was going to be a very special one, because we were going to have a micro gathering with a very special friend of us from the time of OLSX, reuniting again three of us and spending some good quality time together, talking about what has really happened to all of us during the past six months while we have been away from each other.

In London it was about 10pm that I was waiting for my best West Country’s friend to come and pick me up, because I had too much with me to carry on a bicycle all the way to west London to meet up at the PHOENIX Project, so I had to ask him to kindly come to near central London and give me a lift from there.

I had with me a bicycle, some clean clothes and some clothes for washing, and the flysheet of my historical ‘peace journey to Middle East’ tent, which survived the hands of KSA’s police. After almost all of my stuff was taken away from me at the Saudi border I was lucky enough to get some of my things back, which had been scattered all around the no man’s land between the Jordanian Al Omari border and KSA’s Al Hadithah border. When I found the cover for the historic tent, there was the cork of a wine bottle on top of it, like it had been planted there to make me think this theft had been done by some drunk people. I had big doubts – it felt like a set up, a way they (the KSA authorities) had thought of to get rid of me after I was there for ten days. They took the poles from my tent, but they didn’t take the cover, knowing then I wouldn’t be able to put up the tent and so it would be very hard to continue (a drunk person wouldn’t think that way, at least I haven’t seen one in my life thinking that way, and this along with many other things made me feel sure the theft was the work of KSA intelligence, intended to make me head back to UK as soon as possible).

Anyway, back to the Friday in London: I also had a laptop which my wonderful friend had lent to me the first time I visited him, so I could start to write about my peace journey as soon as possible.  I was carrying all of this, and also all day on that Friday I had been running around the school which made me tired, so I did not have enough energy to cycle all the way to west London with all this stuff (it was almost 10km), so I had to ask my friend if possible to kindly come and pick me up, so we could then head towards the West Country together, which he did. He kindly turned up on time and then because of a bit of misunderstanding on both our parts we got lost, but after me giving some directions and then him having to go back a bit and then listening to the lady navigator (Satnav), we finally started talking to each other again and told one another how our week had gone, because it was just a week ago when we had seen each other and now it was time for a catch up.

After almost two hours we got to our lovely destination and we were about to send a text to our wonderful guest who was coming from the north, when we got a text from her to say she wouldn’t be able to make it on time and we shouldn’t wait for her; she is well equipped and she is going to sleep in the middle of West Country’s forest.

By this time it was almost 2am and my friend and I both decided to go to a deep sleep each one of us in our own bed, in luxury compared with what I have been through in the last six months of my peace journey. We woke up in style as well, knowing we have this special guest who will turn up soon from the north and who has slept in the forest last night.

So, here we go! it was just at the right time as we were preparing for our breakfast that our special guest turned up. We were so delighted as we saw each other after quite a long time – I had just seen her for a brief two hours the previous week, but now I was going to see her for more than a day and this made my wonderful friend (the West Country host) and I so happy. He set up a video and audio so I could talk about my peace journey to the Middle East and it would be recorded, he did this hoping to encourage me to find a best way to record and write it all down. He also made toast for us and our visitor told us about her more than four hours journey from the north, through road closures on M6 and how when she stopped for the night she was already quite close to us and we were still awake, but she has decided not to come and disturb us and the neighbours so late.

Below you can see a nice photo of me and my great friend from North, while we are talking about what has happened in the past six month, which it has been taken by our wonderful host.

My great friend from North in our wonderful host’s place in West Country!

So on Saturday 4th of May the weather in the village of the West Country was an absolute delight and after our nice breakfast and talk it was almost afternoon and we decided to go out to the garden and try to find some poles so we can make the historic peace journey tent cover into a proper tent again; this is the tent which I have put up more than 100 times in towns, villages and even capital cities all the way from UK to KSA. The idea that I’ll just throw it away because it’ll be no use to me with the poles stolen was completely false, and within about half an hour, with the help of my great friend with his tools and equipment and spare parts, the tent was up again in the garden. I cleaned out all the sand which had got into the tent in no man’s land during the time of the biggest storm I have ever seen (beside which the heavy gales and storms of OLSX were nothing but I managed to save the tent after that, too)… and here we go!, it was up and running and ready for the next expedition, ready to complete the round-the-world peace journey.

After this we started to put up the most wonderful pentagon /geodesic 2.5m dome that my friend has made it (it is 8m in total, but because of the space we just put up this small one and it was a wonderful experience to spend some time together putting it up. While we were doing this my friend told me that last year he had been in the Green Gathering festival and it was a great experience to put up the 5m geodesic dome there. I told him if I am around I’ll be happy to come and help to set it up with you at this year’s Green Gathering. Last time I helped to put up a geodesic dome was in OLSX and that was just a 5m one but an 8m one would be more fun. I also said I could talk to people at the Green Gathering about my journey as well. My aim of a peace visit round the UK to spring and summer festivals is now approved to go, next I have to go and see if I can speak to the organisers of nine or more festivals and get to go there, to talk about my peace journey to Middle East.

Below you can see a few photos from the historic tent, the Dome and some working equipment in the garden:

I am putting up the historic tent, while my great friend is watching and enjoying the sunshine of the West Country!

The historic tent, the 2.5m Dome, and our great friend in West Country!

I am cutting some screws for the base of the historic tent!

After having a wonderful breakfast, repairing and finding two missing poles for the tent and making some extra bits with some screws so that the tent can stand very nicely, and also putting up the dome, we had enough time to have a wonderful afternoon tea and then head out for a great walk again around the village, this time in a new direction because I was always reminding my good friend “no repeat and always go forward”, and he kindly did arrange that and three of us had a wonderful almost 5km walk. On our way home we went to a place which is called LONDIS and I asked my good friends “what does it mean?” and I did not get an answer, but now with the help of Internet we don’t have to worry about anything, and here we go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londis. From LONDIS we got some stuff for our evening meal, and we got back about 8pm and after a little bit our host’s wonderful girlfriend turned up and she has come with plenty of cakes, dessert, and ginger cookies, so we didn’t have to worry about after our meal.

Our evening meal was a nice vegetarian one and almost all of us loved it our wonderful friend from the North has brought a little bit of fresh vegetables from her Garden and we all had a bit of it as well, and then as I mentioned our dessert was already there and we enjoyed it very much, then talking was on till late into the evening and there it was, we had enjoyed another day out in the West Country, and after saying goodnight to each other, we all went to our luxury beds again.

At “the West Country in our host’s place” talking about my peace journey, after a great vegetarian dinner which was made by our great friend in West Country!

At “the West Country in our host’s place” talking about my peace journey, after a great vegetarian dinner and a wonderful dessert made by my great friend’s girlfriend!

On Sunday it was another new day and another new dawn and because our wonderful friend from north was going to leave us at 12pm we managed to have another good two hours together around the breakfast table, and chatted away about whatever we have missed from yesterday, and then we said goodbye and a big hug till next meeting which isn’t set yet, except that we know there is going to be a Green Gathering on 1st – 4th of August in Chepstow (https://www.greengathering.org.uk/), so we hope to meet up again there and catch up with a bit more of our different stories and adventures.

After saying goodbye to our northern friend, then we were just left with my good West Country friend, his girlfriend and I, and we had another good day ahead of us, and we did some more camping repairs and after completing those and putting down the precious (priceless) peace tent then we disassembled the dome and then we started repairing bicycles, just in case we had a chance to go for a ride the next day on Monday, which was another day off. Then my friend did some gardening, and then again he kindly arranged for us to go for another wonderful walk around the countryside in a different direction than before, but on the way we encountered mosquitoes (or some strange flies) which we didn’t expect to see at this time of the year, but we managed to survive, and again it was a great continuation to my journey, walking every weekend, I wasn’t feeling that I have stopped my travels. So, after about another 5-6km walk we got back to the house then while we were relaxing and listening to some nice Gramophone music they kindly made a nice Italian pasta dish and after talking about a little bit of art, we planned our next day, and enjoyed the rest of the evening.

On Monday after again having our wonderful breakfast we did go to a camping equipment show and we enjoyed the exploration of different tent experiences and even talked to a man from the show about my peace journey, and then my good friend’s girlfriend said goodbye to us and we headed towards his boat on the Thames river. On our way I saw some people were playing with some handheld helicopter and airplanes and I really enjoyed watching them, and then we headed to the riverside where my good friend’s boat was anchored. I found out that the platform for the boat had been damaged and we tried together to put four new poles into the ground and push them down with a tool, which was new to me! a “post rammer” , also this new tool caused a little bit of injury to my left hand thumb,but also I was bitten by a plant which was all around the area, “Nettle”, of course I forgot all of this after having a nice late lunch on the board of the boat, as you can see me here.

An enjoyable meal on the board of the boat!

I really enjoyed helping to do this temporary platform, and after that my very good friend kindly took me back to Swindon through the famous magic roundabout and then after a bit of debate with the driver of the National Express coach (the driver was asking for my ticket and I was saying “here is my booking reference number” and he was telling me “I can’t accept this, it is just your writing” and his argument was “if I said to a bar man, ‘here is a £10′ and gave a piece of paper with £10 written on it to the bar man, so will the bar man give me a few pints of beer? he wouldn’t, would he?” And he said “what you are asking me is like this, and anyone could write this and come and try to get on board a coach, will I allow them?” and I was telling him “these are two quite different issues, here I have a reference number and in your example it is just writing.” Finally I had to call National Express head office and they talked to him, and he let me get on board, and so I managed to head back to London for another week of action at the school with IT, and my peace talk.

The last weekend and this one I tried to gather some of my thought to write about the period that I have been back and also about  my main peace journey and also plan for the next few weeks, during which I have to start my peace journey again, and this time around the UK’s spring and summer festivals. I haven’t had much time for visiting anywhere far, apart from going to a swimming pool a few times here in London, and spending some good quality time with few of my nice friends here in the capital.

I have spent almost four weeks running around and trying to be a little help to the great school where I was working, and I have seen a lot of good people there trying their best to teach and prepare many of the younger generation, despite the harsh reality of the outside world. All we can do, wherever we are, as human species is to be just helpful to our fellow human beings, nothing less and nothing more. I have seen that the austerity measures here in the UK is affecting the heart of education which isn’t really doing much to prepare our young students for the world that they deserve to live in! The school where I have been working is affected, like many other sectors of society like the NHS. Here in the school people were talking about who and what departments might be the victims of the austerities. I can’t see the world is going to be any better by just saying “I can’t do much – I am just an individual and we have to do it all together”; I will carry on with my peace mission and will tell the world it is not going to be any easier for us if we just accept what we have got and expect the world to change itself!

As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “if you want to see the change in the world, you have to be part of it”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi

It was here that I knew again and again even I couldn’t resist this system, that I wasn’t going to be part of these changes that I want to see in the world right now and not to tell myself I’ll see the change that I want in 30 to 50 years.  I believe it is going to be too late for the humanity as a whole if we are going to wait that long, with today’s technology and availability of the resources we can do much better than what we do now, if and a big IF that all of these are not used for the profit.

In the society that profit has the first say in every aspect of it, surely it is a sick and depressing society that we all should think much more carefully before we do anything for this system, otherwise we have just become “the matrix” which it has a very bitter reality in our life.

Till next time, may peace be upon you all, where ever you are in the world.

Back in the UK!

I’d like to say, first, why I am back in the UK and then I will go back in my memory almost a month to say what I couldn’t when I was in the hands of the Saudi Arabians.

I arrived early morning of March 29 in the east of Jordan at the Al Omari border crossing. I was welcomed by the border police after showing them my letter in Arabic, which explained what I was doing and why I was there, and they kindly sent someone with me to see the manager of the border who I hoped would help me to cross.

After about an hour or so I managed to convince the authorities and they kindly helped me, even paying for my exit tax. They knew I didn’t have a Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) visa and in Arabic they were saying “the Saudis will deport him back,” but they let me go through and there I was, going into my 14th country, towards the 80th town, city or village of my journey. I had a nice breakfast in the no man’s land between the borders with some truck drivers, who had already seen me on my way from Al Aqaba, then I headed straight towards the border town of Al Hadithah in the KSA.

Near to the border building I was stopped and asked “where are you going and what are you doing?” so, as I have done before, I showed them my message in Arabic but the border police kept saying “Visa, visa, no visa, no Saudi Arabia!” They said I have to go back to Amman, the capital of Jordan, to get a visa for KSA, then come back. I was saying “I have not gone to any embassy to get a visa and I don’t go now as well,” and I asked if I can see the manager of the border. They let me go another 300 yards to another set of buildings where passport issues are dealt with. After about an hour they were still just saying “visa, visa” over and over, as though they were thinking I didn’t understand, so again I asked for the manager. They told me it was Friday and the manager was not available and even the governor of Al Hadithah town was not available. They asked me to stay in a room and wait to see what we can do, see if they could get in touch with the main people by phone and hopefully get a response from them.

I waited until late afternoon and the border guards kindly invited me to have a late lunch with them, which was a mixture of rice, chicken and some kind of vegetable in a big round tray. All of them were eating with their right hands, and I realised I was eating with my left hand and they were sort of offended and told me to eat with my right hand, as this is their tradition and I should do as they do. I found out later that the reason for this is to do with using your left hand in the bathroom and it is not good to use the same hand for eating, you must always use the right hand and never mind how much dirt you might have under your right hand finger nails! There was no sign of any spoon or fork, so I got on with it and ate as much as I could and thanked them for the food.

The authorities made a copy of all the pages of my passport and of my Arabic letter and my letter of support from Occupy. The news quickly went around that the Israelis had refused to let me into Palestine. After another hour or so (by this time it was about 5:30 pm) they asked me to get into a car and they were going to take me back to Jordan. I refused and walked to the first checkpoint of the KSA border and told them “I don’t go anywhere unless I hear a refusal from the manager of the border or the governor of the town” and I told them I wanted to see the manager and the governor before doing anything more, so they asked the guard at the border to make sure I didn’t go anywhere until Saturday or Sunday, by which time they thought they could get some official letters ordering me to go back to Jordan.

So it was over this weekend that I managed to get friendly with the border police and one of them kindly lent me his ipad so I could briefly go online and tell people what was happening. It was around this time that I found out my weblog was not accessible.

I stayed in the border building until Sunday and in the morning some police officers in civilian clothes arrived and they were telling me “we are like the FBI in America” and “we are just here to find out that you are ok and you are eating well and being looked after.” I told them I was ok and again I reiterated that I would like to see the border manager or the town governor and I showed them my Arabic letter again. Surprisingly they all said it was a great letter but soon after they left, at about 2pm, the same officer who had tried to take me back to Jordan on Friday came along with a letter written in Arabic to say both the governor and the manager of the border wanted me to be deported.

I went to look at the time on my phone and realised my phone was missing, so I said “I am not going anywhere without my phone.” I decided to leave the border buildings and walk about 150 yards towards Jordan and set up my peace camp. I told the officials that I wasn’t going to leave without first seeing the manager or governor. In the area I moved to people were coming and going and seeing me and seeing the board that explained about my peace mission. I was talking to people about why I was there and I found a good person who passed some messages to friends in England who were worried about me and he also took the photo that is now on my weblog. My camp survived only a day due to heavy sandstorms that came every day, so I move my camp into an abandoned car beside the main dual carriageway.

I have managed to stay on the dual carriageway for a little more than a week (from 31.03.13 to 07.04.13). It was on 31.03.13 – the day the Saudi authorities wanted to deport me back to Jordan – that I lost (or, I believe, had taken away by border police) my dual sim card mobile phone, which had all my contacts on it and other data. The border guards were telling me that truck drivers might have taken my phone to sell, so “we can’t do much about it,” and I told them “you can’t hold me in a place like you did, with all my stuff there, and just let truck drivers come and look at all my stuff and anyway, why would they just take my phone and nothing else, when I have other stuff with me which is more expensive than the phone?” After this I didn’t want to talk with them anymore so that was why I decided to go and camp about 150 yards away from their building. They were not allowed to come out to me but I wasn’t far from them, so I could have called upon them if I ever got into any trouble on the dual carriageway.

So, this stretch of road was about a mile long and I was camped at the far end of it near the Saudi side and not near the Jordanian side. On one side of the road, the side going towards Jordan, it was mostly trucks with Lebanese number plates waiting for the war in the part of Syria close to Lebanon to stop, so that these trucks could set off to go back to Lebanon. Some of the drivers were there on the road and some had flown back from Jordan to see their families and then were coming and going, waiting hopefully until they could all go back through Jordan and Syria and back to Lebanon (and some to Turkey as well). My message of peace and saying the war in Syria has to stopped immediately was well received and the truckers were telling me “you are welcome to come and have your food and drink with us for as long as you are here.”

On the other side of the dual carriageway it was mainly vehicles coming from Jordan and going back to KSA and it was on this side where I put all my stuff into an abandoned, broken windowed car to shelter there after my tent was blown away by strong winds on 01.04.13. I was based in the car until 06.04.13 and it was on 05.04.13 that all my belongings were stolen while I was away having some food at the other end (Jordanian end) of the road. I was away between 8pm and 11pm, mostly talking with the different truck drivers, and when I came back, I found myself in my shelter place with nothing left, almost everything had been taken away from me. It was too late for me to go out and enquire about what had happened so I waited until the next day and then I started to look for my stuff. I found some of my clothes, papers and food, they had been taken and then abandoned, but there wasn’t any sign of my passport, driving licence, Samsung Galaxy note 2 and -16 degree sleeping bag, nor my rucksacks and many more items (later on I did list them and discovered that more than 25 major items were missing). I spoke to the British Embassy in Riyadh about the theft and they told me they would make an official enquiry with the Saudis and get back to me, but before I heard anything about my stolen stuff, the Saudis decided to deport me back over the Al Omari border into Jordan.

The day before I lost everything in my shelter place, a Saudi policeman and a civilian came in the early morning to my place and said “so you are sheltering here overnight, are you ok here?” and I told them “it is better than your place, where my phone went missing.” The next day the incident of my stuff going missing happened, so I had a feeling that I better had move out before they did any harm to me. That’s why this time I didn’t resist going back to Jordan, because I just told myself “they can easily get rid of me, as they did to my stuff.” I really didn’t feel at all safe in that place any more.

I have to say, there was so much going on at this mile stretch of land between Saudi and Jordan; I heard from Saudi people that this was the busiest route in their country, linking India, Pakistan and all the other Gulf states to Jordan Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Europe as a whole. People in this border land were consuming alcohol and drugs and doing business with petrol. In Saudi petrol apparently is cheaper and in Jordan more expensive, so there were many locals trying to go to Jordan to sell petrol every day, and some of these people were helping me with food and water.

On the 07.04.13, my last day on this border, I did finally meet the manager of the border and I spoke to him about my ordeal and he told me “we will sort things out before end of the day.” I really thought he was going to help me go through, but by 3pm three officers turned up to take me back to the Jordanian side of the border – that as what the manager meant by “sort things out” – and my 10 days in hell finished without me get hurt, at least the not getting hurt was a good thing.

I call it ten days in hell because I really didn’t enjoy my time there on the Saudi border. After me losing everything, the authorities were still just saying “where is your passport?” and not taking into account my losses; they were talking to me as if they didn’t know anything about what had happened or about peace or my pilgrimage, all they cared about was a passport and a visa. When I had the conversation with the manager of the border he was telling me, “you know this is Saudi Arabia and everyone needs a visa if they want to come here and it really doesn’t matter whether you do a peace pilgrimage or anything else.” I even told the three guards, when they were taking me back, “wherever you are taking me to is better than this hell,” and they were laughing and saying “we are taking you back to Jordan.”

So, that was how I lost everything, and had to come back with nothing. After going back into the hands of the Jordanians I was questioned by their intelligence agency, as happened before at the Jordanian-Israeli border when I was deported back from Israel. I told them what I had lost and gave them a copy of my list of lost items and they kindly arranged for me to get to Amman, the capital of Jordan.

I got into Amman about midnight and went to the British Embassy with a copy of my stolen passport and the security people at the embassy told me go back the next day because they were closed for the night, so I stayed around a busy area near the embassy until morning. It was busy all night until about 4am, so I went into a 24 hour shop and I told them my story and said that if I had a razor I could have shave, so if the embassy needed a photo I wouldn’t look like I had come back from hell. As soon as the person working there saw my Arabic letter he provided me with a razor and so I went to another place to ask if I could use their bathroom to shave and they were happy and even brought me a cup of coffee as well. That was the last time I was doing my peace mission without money.

The next day, 08.04.13, I went back to the British Embassy and explained to them what had happened. I was given 20JD which is about £20 and I went out and I started to eat by buying food, rather than by talking to people, for the first time in very nearly six months (five months, 16 days and 10 hours to be exact).

This peace mission without money was the greatest challenge of my life so far. I am sure it has prepared me to do more and next time with different ways of looking at things and with more experience in hand.

One thing I realised on my journey was that a lot of problematic things to do with money can be escaped from and it is good to be away from these things but I missed many things too and had cravings for things that I couldn’t often get with my talking! I learned I have to just be more patient and wait until those things come later. That last day in Amman I realised that I wanted to have a lot of icecreams and mixed juices which throughout my journey I didn’t have. In Amman with the embassy money I had plenty of it and now I don’t crave it any more.

I have to say I was a bit demoralised after that ten days in the Saudi border land but I managed to get in touch with some good people back in the UK and they kindly helped me to get an emergency travel passport and a plane ticket from Amman back to the UK and now am I back in England, reflecting on the journey.

Before I finish up this chapter of my journey, I would like to go back to Al Arish in Egypt and say some more about my travel from there all the way to the Jordanian-Saudi border.

In Al Arish, as I mentioned before, I met Mr Mohamed Abu Eta, a journalist from AA Egypt-Sinai and he interviewed me and told me the interview would be published in the local newspaper (their Turkish branch already had an interview with me back in November).

I travelled down from the north east of Egypt to the south east and in the town of Nuweiba Mr Ramdan Mohamed, director of Canal shipping agencies, kindly helped me and managed to safely secure my passage to Al Aqaba.

On board the ship I met my third round-the-world cyclist, Mr Somen Debnath, who has spent almost 10 years of his life doing a bicycle tour for an HIV/AIDS awareness programme and also seminars on Indian culture (www.somen2020world.com, www.somen2020world.org and somen_debnath.livejournal.com). He was very impressed by what I had managed to do in just less than six months and surprised that I am speaking on so many different topics. He suggested I should be sending an email to many different organisations, companies and government bodies which might be agreeing on my peace mission and any of my main points, to ask them for support and to raise awareness about what I am doing; he said just letting people know about my mission in every place that I was heading towards could have helped greatly, but he was also saying “it is amazing that you have done all this yourself without any sponsor!” He said people will help you greatly so long as money is not involved. And he was so happy about what I was doing that he was almost talking more to people about my journey than about his own, which has been going on for a decade. I think our meeting had a good impact and I believe Somen will probably advocate more than just one cause now that he has seen me doing that!

After finding a tour manager at the Al Aqaba border who was willing to pay for my exit tax out of Jordan, and after convincing the Jordanians to let me pass, I crossed the border and was heading towards Eilat. As soon as I got near to the entrance for Eilat I was asked for my passport by an Israeli woman while being studied and monitored by a policeman in civilian dress but with an automatic weapon. Before I could go anywhere I was asked to take off everything apart from my shirt and trousers. Another two women joined us and questioned me. After a bit more than half an hour, I and all my stuff went through a scanning machine and I was taken about 100 yards further for more elaborate investigation and scanning. This time six more officers joined in and got busy with my stuff and I was undressed almost totally and checked with electronic devices to see whether I am carrying anything harmful. I realised the word peace has lost its meaning here a long time ago. They were not at all convinced I am on a peace pilgrimage.

After more than an hour of investigation of my physical body and my stuff and then waiting some more, maybe 2-3 hours, I was told I had passed all the security checks but they still wanted to know what was my intention of taking peace into Eilat? They also wanted to know how many other places was I going to visit on my peace journey, how many places had I visited so far, how long had I stayed there, and what have I been doing for the more than 40 years of my life? Also, where are my family members and what are they doing, what are their contact numbers? What organisations and governments are supporting me on this peace mission and who has given me the Samsung Galaxy note 2, and what are their contact details? It was like more than 16 years ago when I landed in the UK and asked for asylum, except this time it was just a visit and a peace visit at that, to a land that has had so many troubles since the Roman times.

When I approached the border and saw the man in civilian clothes with the automatic weapon I had a bad feeling but I said to myself “just hope to get through and meet some of the people of this land.” Despite the bad feeling I patiently waited for all these procedures to go through and let them check every single item that I had and then I was deported back to Jordan. After more than 7 hours of questioning and searching, I was told “we will take you back to Jordan” and they put two big red stamps on a page of my passport, saying in big letters “entry denied.” It was sad that, just like this, the Israeli border guards could get everything out of you and then not let you go anywhere.

Later, I realised that as soon as I had entered the border area near Eilat, security guards were checking the address for my weblog on my information board. I think they looked at the blog and read all about my journey and possibly they found something that they didn’t like and possibly they thought I might see something to write about in their country that they wouldn’t like me to write about. When I heard from the Saudi police “here is going to be your last place of peace, it is a good time now for you to go back to UK”, and then all my stuff went missing, I wondered whether they got advice from the Israelis to take everything I own and so force me to go back that way.

As soon as I got my first refusal of entering a land, I was expecting more refusals to come. The Saudi refusal was an expected one. I could have continued but once everything was taken, I didn’t have any room to manoeuvre and finding an alternative route to India and then the rest of the world was just too hard to plan and cope with. The Jordanians were kind to me, but I think that was because of my status as a British national, not as a stateless Earthian. And so, I decided to call off my mission, after visiting more than 15 countries and over 80 towns, cities and villages during the first (to Iraq) and second (to Saudi) legs of my peace journey. The mission is definitely not finished yet and with the help of many good people all over the world, I aim to complete it one day – sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, I was thinking to prepare something for seminars and suchlike, so I can go to places and talk about what we can achieve as human beings, if we don’t look at each other as tools within a broken capitalist system in which life is good for a few and the rest are their slaves, but try to truly see each other, as human beings with hearts full of joy and no limiting fear or hatred.

No Man’s Land

This is a friend of Earthian’s, updating his blog at his request.

Earthian’s passport and phone have gone missing, however, he is ok!

He is still near Al Hadithah and is camping in no man’s land between Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He managed to make a phone call from the phone of “a kind passing taxi driver.”

I will try to add a photo of him taken by another friend.

on the road

Saudi Arabian custody

I last tried to update this blog yesterday while in Saudi Arabian police custody at the border between Saudi Arabia and Jordan, near the town of Al Hadithah. They were trying to send me back to Jordan and I was saying “No, I have to speak to the governor of Al Hadithah, or the manager of the border, and explain my case to them.” I wrote, describing what had happened in the previous week, while waiting for their reply.

The update loaded onto my weblog. Soon after, friends reported that it had disappeared. We don’t know if this happened because of an internet hiccup or because someone in authority somewhere didn’t like what I had written and decided to take it offline. My good friends became worried but luckily today I was able to email and reassure them.

I am ok here in the hands of the Saudis. The authorities here are not trying to help me but I am still trying to communicate with them through the kind people in the border security guard.

 

Going back almost a week to carry on from my last blog post:

In Al Arish, in Egypt, the security people checked all my stuff and even went through my Samsung Galaxy, keeping my stuff in their custody for a day. Then I was given it back but found out that I wasn’t going to be getting any help from the governor of Al Arish or the security forces, so I headed down towards the cities of Ismailia and Suez. People were, as usual, very helpful. From there I went to the Gulf of Aqaba and managed to enter the port of Al Aqaba in Jordan. Then I tried to cross the border towards Eilat, which is controlled by the Israeli people, who looked at me as a very dangerous man. I was searched and questioned. After about a day in custody I was asked to go back to Jordan and my entry to Israel/Palestine was denied. Then I headed back north and tried other borders but with no luck.

This is just a brief explanation of what has happened with a few bits missed out.

Life in Egypt

I have been remembering the OccupyLSX camp in London and that made me want to share what I am seeing here, as a man of peace, from the heart of Egypt, which is different from what I have seen on TV and what tourists see when they come to Egypt for a week or two.

I am in the dusty and windy city of Al Arish, 40km from Gaza in Palestine.

Life here is definitely a hundred times worse than the Occupy camp we lived in.

I have to eat bread which is picked up from the ground and more than 10 flys have mated on top of it. At all times 5-10 flys are on you and you have to keep trying to make them go away, and after a while you give up and let them eat whatever they have found on you, and then maybe they will go away.

Donkeys and horses pull carts and are used for every kind of transportation, the sound of them is everywhere and the smell of their poo and urine is almost unbearable. The dust is on everything you pick up, so if you wash your clothes by the time you bring them back to wear, they need washing again and you will give up washing them after a while.

Many people here are using cars and other motor vehicles very little, even if they own one. The other day at the terminal I was speaking to an old man who offered to help me get to Nakhal in South Sinai and I asked him “How old is your car?” and he couldn’t remember, and after looking at his papers we found out it is more than 40 years old. It was still going.

As I entered Egypt at the port of Damietta I founded myself going back in time to around 30 years ago. What I saw reminded me of very remote villages in Iran, which when I was young I visited with others to see how we could improve the lives of villagers. Here in the cities of Egypt, rubbish is everywhere and flys and smells and dust are everywhere. When cars do pass you need a shower straight afterwards, that is how much dust is going to land on you. I found it is unbearable to walk on the roads because of this, also car drivers and motorcycle riders use their horns all the time to avoid colliding with each other, so where there is traffic it is very noisy. I saw a glimpse of this in Romania and Bulgaria, but not to this extreme.

When people talk about ‘third world’ maybe they don’t know these bitter realities, it hit me hard after being away from it for more than three decades. And Egypt is way ahead compared with some other African countries, which makes me imagine that in those countries life is totally broken, and no wonder people hope they will get a better life after their life on this planet.

With the connections of the internet people have seen the western world – no wonder many want to go there and have and see and enjoy some of it before they die.

The only book I have seen here is the Koran, and the only music is Muslim. I have met a lot of people who want me to find them a Muslim woman from England for them to marry, so they can live in England. Some men here have four wives or even more and sometimes they make a joke saying that they would swap them for just one in England.

This is just a little of what I can describe and let you know.

Spring, and hopes

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the arrival of Spring across many nations and send good wishes from here in the Middle East to all the people who are celebrating this festive season of Nawroz, or the Spring Equinox. I also would like to say that tomorrow I will have been on my peace walk for five months. Hopefully this year is going to be a year of peaceful solutions to the world’s many problems, here in the Middle East and across the rest of the world.

Today I went out with my good contact Mr Shokar Abdolaziz, who I met by chance a few days ago near to the Al Arish bus terminal (when he offered to let me go to his place for a shower and refreshments). Now I am staying with him again and we went together to see the governor of the city of Al Arish.

We walked for about 15 minutes, with Shokar showing me different places in the city, then arrived at the office of the governor and spoke to some people in the office, talking about why I am here and how the governor might be able to help me to cross from Rafah to Gaza.

After a short wait I managed to see the secretary general of the governor’s office and he was quite happy to see me. I showed my British passport (I prefer not, but have learned that sometimes there will be no progress if I refuse) as well as my Arabic translated message and the letter of support from Occupy London. Copies were made of these things and the copies were passed around different people to see what they can make of my journey, and my message. Someone named Faried spoke to me in English, telling me “This is a bit odd,” and “We haven’t seen anything like this before” and “Your message is great, the security forces here might be able to help,” then he told me wait until I speak to the governor himself and see what we can do.

While I was waiting, I spoke to a journalist to say why I am here and he took some photos and another person who said he was from Aljazeera (English and Arabic section) filmed me with a camcorder as well, and I told my story in English outside the governor’s office.

After about 20 minutes Faried and another guy from the office of the governor came out and there was a car waiting outside for us. Me and Shokar were taken to the internal security forces office, and after more questions and making copies of my passport and my translated message in Arabic and the Occupy London letter, the person who was in charge in the office told the people from the governor’s office (Faried and the other guy) to go, and it was just me and Shokar. Then there was some more questioning about the places I stayed in Rafah and people who I talked to and so on. Meanwhile Shokar told the security officer that I have a device on which I write about what I see and the was a bit worried about what I am writing (on my Samsung Galaxy note 2, a kind donation), and I told him “All I do is write what I see, I write it for my blog so people can follow what I do and know where I am and they can stay in touch with me, nothing else”.

After this the officer asked us to leave the office to and stay in the reception area while they had a look at my passport, my notebook, the letter from Occupy London and the card of the kind person who paid for my visa at the port of Damietta.

After about 20 minutes my notebook was returned and a little afterwards Shokar was called back. He came back after about five minutes and said we can go back to his place, leaving my passport and the Occupy letter and the kind port person’s card with the security office.

So we headed back to his place and on the way we visited an office which gives licences to charities and NGOs and I spoke to people there, and then we headed back to Shokar’s place.

At Rafah Crossing

On March 18 I went straight to the manager of the main terminal for transport between Al Arish and Rafah and explained to him what I am doing, and that locals had told me it’s not a good idea to hitch hike in North Sinai. He kindly provided me with transportation to Rafah.

After getting to Rafah Crossing safely I explained to the Egyptian border guards what I am doing. They refused to let me cross. They asked me to go back to Cairo and the British embassy, to get a special visa to go to Gaza. This would involve getting in touch with an organisation with an interest in Gaza, to see if they can appprove my peace pilgrimage. With this approval and permission from the embassy, the border guards said I would be able to depart Egypt for the Gaza strips in the land of Palestine.

My reply to them was simple and clear, I said “This border has been created by our hands. Let me, ‘the man of peace’, go through this land, it is a way to say yes to peace which we all desperately need, especially here and now in the land known as Palestine”.

As I was speaking to the guards some people who were working at the gate heard what I am all about and spread the word around that “This man wants to abolish all the artificially created borders, including this one here, he is doing this peace mission alone and not for any organisation or government!” So then I had to sit down and explain to the people more about what I am doing, especially the younger generation were interested and quite happy to hear what I had to say. They offered to write me a letter of support in my notepad and some of them even offered to get me to Gaza through a secret tunnel. I thanked them and said “We have to get rid of this border so that everything which is necessary to life can go through here and not through dangerous tunnels.”

At 4:30pm the border officially closes and the army moves in and takes everyone out of the area, and if anyone refuses they take them out by force. So I had to explain again what I am doing and asked if would be okay for me to set up my camp there. The soldiers made contact with their superior and after about half an hour another pick-up full of military personnel turned up and they told me I have to go all the way outside the area, even outside the UN camp area as well. They seemed quite scared.

After leaving Port Said in the north of Egypt I had found that the area from Al Kantara towards Al Arish is very military. It even reminded me of Iraq, especially in Al Arish and then out towards Rafah and the surrounding area. Apparently this has happened after about 16 Egyptian military personnel were killed by insurgents last year.

Anyway, after a few hours scouting about I managed to speak to a coffee shop owner and he kindly let me to sleep inside overnight and even offered me some basic dinner and breakfast,  which I want to thank him for here.

Next day I went straight back to the gate again, this time to speak to the manager and show them my translated message in Arabic and the Occupy support letter, which together I hoped would ease my passage. Unfortunately after about an hour in the queue, and even though everyone was showing me support,  they said that I am not going anywhere with just this.

While in the queue I was speaking to a kind young person who was very supportive and he asked me to stay at his place for the night so he could show me around the area and see the life of the Bedouin, which is similar here and in Gaza on the other side of the Rafah gate. I accepted his kind offer to stay and decided that next day I’d travel back to Al Arish.

I really enjoyed staying with the Bedouin and seeing their way of life and their places for gathering and socialising after work. The young guy even took me to near where the Egyptian, Israeli and Gaza areas meet, with his motorcycle. After I’d enjoyed their good hospitality and had thanked them, he also helped me to get back to Al Arish.

From Al Arish I tried to go to the next gate into Palestine, in the south east of Egypt, but I was told by some people at the bus terminal that I have to find a different route and it will take me more than a day, so I decided to go back to the kind person I met on my first day in Al Arish, which is where I am now writing this.

I hope tomorrow I’ll find some alternative way to meet the next challenge of my peace mission.