So what now?  My race is run.  For the moment I'm enjoying the simple pleasures of being at home. Busying myself training in the gym and going for lengthy wintry walks through the countryside with our two German pointers, Struppi and Poppy, and playing cards in the evening with my parents.  But even if I win every single game of Ri-Ki-Ki, I'll be a long time earning enough to support myself!  So after all the welcome backs and telling of tall tales; once all the souvenirs have been assembled, the stories penned and the photos neatly stored in albums; what will I do? Some have said to me that I should write a book. Isn't that what the web page business was all about anyway?  Truth be told, I'm not quite sure just why I chose to keep an online diary.  In part out of egoism, partly in order to keep in contact with family, at times in order to convey a sense of what I was seeing, feeling and doing on the road.  Sharing the highs and lows.  Lessening the burden.  But to act as notes for a travel book or some exotic novel was not something I had originally contemplated.  I was asked this very question when travelling through West Africa and I remember the sheer bafflement on my inquisitor's face when he began to comprehend that I would make no financial gain from my endeavour.

At the moment I am reading an excellent piece of travel literature that I bought in Wellington, the kind of book that justifies this very genre of writing.  It is called "An Unexpected Light - Travels in Afghanistan" by a first time English author, Jason Elliot.  There is a passage in it where he has a similar conversation with a bewildered local.  It reads thus:

<Gradually the cold receded, and we talked.  Ali Khan asked me what it was I was always writing in my little notebook.  I told him if I didn't write a diary I would forget the details of my trip, and be unable to write a book from memory alone.  As we talked I could see the expression "a book about Afghanistan" meant something quite different to him, or perhaps, more likely, nothing at all.

"And then you will give this book to the government?" he asked.

"No.  It has nothing to do with the government." "Then what is your wazifeh?"

Books, to Ali Khan, were something to do with governments, it was no good trying to get into the idea of the genre.  Rural Afghanistan was populated by unlettered poets, not bookworms, whose cultural history flowed down the generations through verse and stories, not in the classroom.  I could tell from Ali Khan's mute expression that the idea of writing a book was something alien to his world, as mysterious as a wandering Afghan bard in a London suburb.  As far as my Persian would allow I persisted with an explanation.

"Well, in my watan people have heard little about Afghanistan.  Sometimes they have heard bad things about its people."  I thought back to the newspaper editor I had offered my first story about the war: he had asked me how I could have lived among such "barbarians".

"And some, " I told him, "think Afghans are wakshi people, wild men, killers, hashish-smokers, and lovers of war."

Afghans love being told this: he roared with laughter. "And they may not have heard anything else about Afghanistan."

"But they know we beat the Russians, don't they?" he asked, looking serious again.  I wished I could say yes; that the ten years of continuous warfare at the cost of a million Afghan dead, which Afghans today look upon as an unrewarded gift to the West, were remembered more vividly.

"Some do.  But I would like to write about your country and its people, something about the Afghan character; their hospitality, for example."

"That's right, we treat our guests very seriously." He nodded.  And after some time - we were near the valley floor now - and much mangled Persian on my part, I felt I had succeeded in sharing with him a rough idea of my goals.  But by his response I could tell he had no idea what the point of such an endeavour might be.

"So how much does your government pay you to write such a book?" he asked.

The sun was almost overhead now, and the air had grown thicker as we had lost height.  Suddenly I realised the wind had stopped completely, and I felt a caress of warmth on my face for the first time since we had left Qoriye together.

"Not a penny, Ali Khan, I swear."

"So you have come her out of your own pocket?"

"Exactly."

In my own language this was generally understood to mean I was forking out money on a horribly tight budget.  But to Ali Khan the notion of a man paying his own way for a journey suggested almost limitless resources of wealth and leisure.  Nobody short of money would undertake such a thing.  Again I was reminded of what a very Western pursuit is the business of travel - what a strange and improbable liberty it really is to be able to wander about a country halfway across the world from one's own.  I tried to remind him that my government had nothing to do with it, and that the outcome was far from certain.  I think perhaps he was disappointed by the news, or felt there was something I was not telling him.  I tried to convey the notion that the writing of a book was a personal endeavour with an equally uncertain outcome, and this too seemed to disagree with him (it began to sound disagreeable to me too).  A farmer, perhaps, was dependent on the seasons, and obliged to put his hands into Fate's - that was a farmer's lot. But a foreign lord?

"So when it's over with, and you have written your book," he said, with the confident air of having understood all this, "then how much will your government pay you?">

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Maybe that's why travel is such a Western pursuit. The reasons behind one's up and leaving all that is familiar to jet off to foreign shores may be manifold.  But they are rarely, if ever, in the hope of financial betterment.  We in the West have access to more liquid funds than most of the world could ever dream possible.  But there has been a price to pay. Somewhere along the way we have lost something of ourselves.  A sense of our place in the world.  In a rush to see if greed is actually good, we are losing our traditions, our religions, our customs; that part of us that make us a unique part of the fading global tapestry.

Specifically I see it in Celtic Tiger Ireland.  It is no longer the land in which I grew up.  The richer we have become in financial terms, the poorer in generosity of spirit.  When Ireland was in the economic doldrums in the mid '80s, we gave to goodwill projects such as Live Aid with a generosity unmatched by any other country in the developed world.  Now that we are part of the club of rich nations, charities lack funds and racist attacks occur against those of a different skin colour who wish to rise with us in the tide of prosperity.  The land of emigrants has made a unhappy home for many immigrants.  Was Phil Lynott white?  What ever happened to "oooh aaah Paul McGrath"?  Before our wallets swelled, our heads never were.  We regarded ourselves (however correct or incorrect the reality) as being different - a land that fought against imperialism.  The "blacks of Europe" was our less than politically correct mantra. This positive reputation of ours still exists in many parts of the globe.  My lack of visa costs in East and southern Africa, while other Westerners were blitzed for dollars testifies to this.  Alas I find that in Ireland that this is no longer always the case.  The land of a thousand welcomes is, if not already dead and gone, at least dying a death.  Maybe that is where I can make a difference.  To try to fight against this materialist onslaught.  Perhaps volunteer some of my time to help the newly arrived.  Payback for the kindness that was shown to me when I wandered around the dusty streets of Ziguinchor looking aimlessly for somewhere to watch an Irish rugby game.  Maybe even just by arguing with racists in pubs.  Who knows?

For I am not a new person.  One year cannot erase 27. Fundamentally all my old traits are there.  I don't preach world peace, smoke hashish, wear Greenpeace T-shirts or have dreadlocks.  I like having creature comforts, the nice things in life that ease our path through the rat race.  My CD collection continues to grow exponentially.  It's just that now I know that these things, these material possessions, are not the be all and end all of life.  In that modest way I have changed.  I realise that one doesn't, I don't, need to have a fancy car or a mortgage on a swish house to feel complete.  I saw more happy people in the grimy shantytowns of Africa than I have seen in my life. Children whose eyes would light up if you showed them a balloon.  No Nintendos or Playstations required. For these are bad lessons that our young learn at an early age.  Often it's only in our later years or on our deathbeds that we realise that you can't take the money with you.  Show me the money?  Yeah perhaps, but show me what is really important when I get bored of the money.

So I'm a much poorer man than I was when I walked down the gangway in Dublin airport over 12 months ago. Cash has slipped through my palms like quicksilver. But in countless other ways, non-measurable ways, I'm all the richer.  I have met many interesting and entertaining characters along the way that I now hope to count among my friends.  Plus I'm now an uncle.  So I trust that at least some of you can make even the smallest sense of the point I'm making thanks to having read some of my travel stories.  True, many were fun-filled, flippant, throwaway pieces.  It was a holiday after all - albeit a bloody long one.  But several yarns came from the heart.  And after all isn't that what it's all about?  If that is indeed the case, that some lines I have penned have raised questions in your head or dislodged long held assumptions, then "Guinness on my Compass" has been a roaring success; for me at any rate.

So take care of yourselves and your kin.  I hope our paths cross in the not too distant future.  Thanks for having tuned in.  And don't worry, I'll keep you informed about the novel!  Hakuna Matata.

Gav (1 March 2001)