Back Story…

I have always been in awe of the deep ocean.  It is no wonder that I have volunteered to become a facilitator for a beach clean -up class in college. Whenever I pass Cawa-Cawa Boulevard in Zamboanga City, I remember cleaning up the shore with my students and it felt like I have somehow given something back to nature.

Most of my poems reflect the sea and the mere sight of it evoked feelings of admiration. Sea water sums up my view in learning that is to be open to new things including other people’s cultures in tune with other communities. I can only do that by their traditions and if need be, how they speak. I take something with me like a tinge of salt in my hair as I swim, with this I speak to the ocean in fish language.

Removing all pride to ideas that do not serve the power to do good. All eyes that stare the sea are through a baby’s, always new in a lens full of goodness. Man can actually make an island but cannot invent a body of water like the sea or the ocean.

The seas of the world are all brothers coming from one source and meeting in a space of wonder. If we see it that way we are not totally crossing borders, but actually stepping on the soil that water embraces holding it in place. Our movement is a reflection of Bedouin waters flowing to a great purpose.

Linda Elouali Bansil is a Muslima Ambassador.