11Six months after Ghassan’s first phone call, and after months of bureaucracy, I finally picked up my passport from the Kuwaiti embassy in Manila. I went straight from the embassy to the cathedral. Now that I was certain to be travelling, I felt confused and afraid of the unknown.
In the cathedral I sat in the front row. I put my hand on the cross hanging round my neck, the one Mama Aida had given me after my confirmation ceremony years earlier. I started to pray: ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen.
‘Our Father, I am going back to whe
