The girl in the documentary had a lost look on her face, it was a Sunday morning and she was sitting on the road side near the church, just across the border of the foreign country. She looked as if she was searching for words, language, meaning, a place, beyond the camera, not seeing the photographer at all. That was all that I could think of, standing in front of my five-doors wardrobe, thinking what to fit in a single rucksack. Seven months later, I would be sitting next a woman who would bring out her precious set of albums in a special well-preserved box. She would be showing me all the memories captured in distant pictures, and I would sigh, and say that I wished I had taken some photo albums with me. She would reply that people are gone, and so are the albums.
But now, I am standing thinking about the summary of a lifetime, what can it be? The certificates? Food for the road? Official stamps? The laptop? A book? Which book? Clothes? Money? I remembered the look of the girl’s face; did she remember a non-summarised item?
Two days passed by; I was praying for a sip of water. I tried to apply a negative suction pressure on the main water outlet. People across the river are digging out the abandoned water wells. Disease or thirst, that’s the choice they had. Two months later, I would pass by a woman in a village, carrying a dirty plastic bottle, which used to be of a yellow colour, filled with water. The look of her clothes, feet and features implied that she came a long distance, and yet more awaits her. I remembered the girl in the documentary, was she thinking about the long queue by the water well?
But now I am thinking if I should fit in my water bottle in the rucksack that should summarise my life. Five months later I will be trying to capture rainfall into a dirty plastic shell, I will be waiting by the water outlet, and I will be having ashy feet and smelly clothes, I will then flash back to the woman with the yellow water sack. The only difference between us is the distance we travelled, we fled, to get here. But now, I am trying to fit in my past, present, and survival into a rucksack. I became the girl in the picture.
