Roots

I feel rootless.
When the grown ups talk about running willy nilly through the streets of Pakistan under the watchful eye of neighbors, of waking up for suhoor to the sounds of parathas being made, of making mischief in their neighborhoods, playing cricket in the morining, swimming in the shallow well, playing tricks on thier girl cousins, Eid visits that would last three days, enduring the teasing and taunts, the ghost stories, the weddings and parties, when they talk about the foods they ate and the clothes they wore and they talk about going back. That's when I feel rootless.
I've been living in the gulf all my life and the yearly visits just arn't enough. They're too formal, too much to do in too little time. Too many people to see and catch up with. Clothes to buy, bank work to handle and then before you know it you're back home. And even though you've had a blast, you're happy to be home. You miss it like crazy, but then you're home. Home.
The only home I've ever known is this.
Here.
Sand dunes and forced greenery, construction sites and school, shopping malls and parks. Here home is home becuase its where the immediate family is. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Its a wonderful life we live. You may disagree but I do not resent living here. Its become home, the afternoon heat, the traffic jams, the shopping in malls or on the streets, the having to drive everywhere, DSF, the abayah clad women with enough makeup on last the rest of us a year...
Coming back to the point -
Its not that living here is bad, its just that when you leave will you be missed? Is there going to be any memory of your passing? Someone to say "Hey her, she lived here, we miss her." Someone that you come back to visit, or something you come back to see.
Everybody is leaving to study. Everyone I know will not be here for more than two more years.
Two years.
In Two years Dubai will be completely different. One of my firends left for a year, she came back and couldn't recognise the roads. I remember standing in the sports hall and looking out beyond the field a mere two years ago and you couldn't see anyhting but open ground. I was just standing there agian last week and there are so many buildings! It looks nothing like it used to.
With that much change going on its only your home as long as you're here. To see it change, to keep up with it. I thought - you know everything else aside at least I'll have the school if nothing else. Something solid and unchanging in this fickle world. With the people gone at least the bulidings will remember me. Its stupid, but I felt a link.
Hunh.
They're planning to breakdown the current school buildings and reconstruct over the field.
...
And it doesnt help that everyone just wants to get away. Leave as fast as possible, go as far away as possible. And I'm not trying to stop the inevitable, I know everyone was bound to leave some time. Its just that that is what we are. That is why this is home. The people we know and the world we have created for ourselves here, and instead of slowly erasing away the broken lines part by part, repairing them and drawing fresh lines so as not to spoil the picture, soemone will have just wiped the slate clean and left us with nothing...
I guess what I'm trying to say is:
This IS home, for now, but with your family and friends moved on and nothing that you recognise for miles, will it still be home?
If not then where is home?