Scraps of a Traveller

Ali Al-Saad

Certainly, and without preamble, I am someone who adores traveling. I cherish it in a manner that might be deemed eccentric, a disposition that could be regarded as an ailment, yet it is a splendid malady. I relish its symptoms, which nourish me with wellness, or as the poet penned: "Cure me with what was the ailment". My fondness for traveling and traversing began in my youth, though circumstances were not as facile back then, and my family did not partake in annual voyages. Traveling for leisure was an extravagance beyond our reach, a dream we harbored but did not actualize. Consequently, for eighteen years, my excursions were confined to the Gulf countries, for familial visits or pilgrimages.