I am writing this on the bank of the river Taff, which flows through Cardiff, the capital of Wales, where I am presently on a three-month journalism scholarship with 34 other coursemates from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
I gaze at the Taff's mirror-clear waters and then up at the thick green canopy of long-rooted trees pierced here, there and everywhere by the summer sun, and continue to bask in the memory of my first weekend here.
It began, inauspiciously enough, two Saturdays ago in a laundrette opposite my shabby-genteel university apartment block, which is beside the Taff and houses up to 36 people.
There I stood, rubbing Persil powder into the shirt collars and cuffs of my coursemates, John Paul from Uganda and Indra from Nepal, who did not quite know their way around the coin-operated machines and dryers then.
No matter. They certainly knew their way around their apartment kitchen - which was spotless - and, two hours later, put before me a spread made up of the maize pudding that Ugandans call ugali, eaten with the peanut-and-tomato stew they call binyebwa soup, as well as rice, roast chicken from the hypermarket down the road and bananas for afters. Also on the table was an Italian bread salad I had tossed in the apartment kitchen which I shared with Sunetra from India, Mabel from Uganda and Joyce from Tanzania.
When I mixed into my rice the salty-peppery-citrusy condiment which Nepalis call timur and tasted the grains, it seemed as if a thousand tiny butterflies with sour plum-dusted wings were fluttering on my tongue. What bliss.
As I reached for a slice of banana, I was reminded again of how lucky I was to be coming from a young country of promise and plenty, where most things worked. In our half-hour walks to and from class every day, I have come to know just how hard some among my coursemates had saved and sacrificed to get here, and were all the stronger for it.
The starkest reminder, perhaps, came from Indra at lunch one day, when I was about to leave a quarter of my salad bowl uneaten because the yogurt dressing smelt a bit off to me.
He pointed out, not unkindly: 'You can have it later, no?'
That put me in my place, I thought that evening, spearing the lone new potato and straggly bits of lettuce from that same salad bowl that was now my dinner. And it filled me up too.
With coursemates who are mostly married and missing home, you learn quickly to help make everyone's life easier, and leaven each waking moment with joy.
And so it was that Jiang Wei, a reporter with the China Daily newspaper, brought over kale congee and an omelette to soothe me when a draught blowing through my dormitory a few evenings ago left me wincing in pain as my recent surgical wound was acting up from the cold.
I was able to return her kindness the next day when it was her turn to get the tummy twinges, by making her a soup of corn, carrots, mushrooms and sugar snap peas.
As I was telling Jiang Wei that she could throw out the whole onion I had put in the broth to sweeten it, she gasped: 'Such pretty colours in this soup! I like.'
Doubtless, it is early days yet and doubtless, like peeling the layers of an onion, there will be tears and ennui from getting along in such cheek-by-jowl circumstances.
But the day after my United Nations lunch, I found myself on assignment in London, SMS-ing John Paul and Indra thus: 'Hey guys, Suk here. Had a nice ride into the city, but just walked right into a bomb scare in Parliament Sq. No escaping newsbreaks I guess heh. Have a great day and hope it is sunny over there too.'
I have to close now, as I have just returned from my walk along the river and Joyce is asking if I have some onions to spare for her pork stew.
This article was first published in The Sunday Times on July 6, 2008.
