I couldn’t figure out what the flight attendant said. I was given a menu and I was supposed to place an order. Since when? I turned to the person sitting next to me and said something about it being a while since I had flown anywhere. I was slightly embarrassed. As if I had admitted to a personal failing, a weakness of the highest order. But the truth is I was grounded. Not unlike a misbehaving teenager who got caught committing the gravest of sins. I couldn’t remember the last time I boarded a flight bound for somewhere, anywhere. But I pushed through the shackles binding me to my gilded cage. I had to get to Mexico. My bluff was called and I am not one to back down without a fight. You see, for a while now, I have been ruminating the idea of finally doing an experimental treatment. I tried everything conventional medicine threw at me and it came up short. Modern medicine always comes up short when it comes to matters of the mind. I had experienced incredible trauma at the hands of my family who have reputations to uphold and religions to appease. I was the eldest, the standard bearer and I kept going for as long as was humanly possible. I am not a “woe is me” kind of person but it is a miracle I survived. But I am not thriving. Now what? Ibogaine had to be the answer. After hearing Tuur’s terrifying ordeal during his first treatment, I wondered what would make someone go to such lengths. At this point in the journey, I had no idea what was to come for me. As far as I was concerned, I was just killing time watching another Bitcoin podcast. Maybe if I had known what will happen next, I would have run the other way. But instead I ran towards the obstacle, the storm, the unknown. Getting to Mexico from Washington DC was itself a feat. I was advised to land in California. San Diego, to be exact. A driver will be sent from the clinic on the other side of the border to pick me up. How compelling. I had never crossed the American border via a car. Not from Canada and certainly not from Mexico, ever. The only border I crossed while driving is the Ivory Coast/Ghana border. But that was ages ago, in another life. I landed in Denver and waited for my next flight to California. Because of Murphy’s Law, there was the inevitable mix-up to race the heart and speed the blood. Not to deviate from the story too much, as I tend to do, but I have this working theory that getting my nerves on edge and instigating stress responses has been some sort of attack levied upon my person for a while now. It is as if when my senses are heightened in a fight or flight reaction, someone, somewhere benefits monetarily at my expense. But for some reasons, good people stand aside or avert their gaze. They do not act or come to my aid. I am left defending myself by myself every time. Why is that? But I digress. The driver from the Mexican clinic got the time wrong and showed up in San Diego several hours early, coinciding with my arrival in Denver. Later I would find out it was not my fault and the clinic’s head office sent the driver an airbrushed itinerary, one that mistakenly showed the wrong arrival details. Instead of forwarding the complete itinerary I sent them in the first place, they opted to rework the information in such a way that was delibrately misleading. I became the chief suspect before I even landed in Colorado. A recurring theme in my life has been taking blame for things that are patently not my doing. Ironic given that I was on a journey to find healing exactly for this type of blatant and brazen setup, during this latest “mix-up”. I was exonerate from this charge thanks to hard electronic evidence. But I wonder how many trumped up charges were sustained conveniently, incorrectly by me in my lifetime. Back to the story. In case you didn’t know, Ibogaine is considered a psychedelic medication and is banned in America even though the Biwi tribe of Gabon have been using it for rites of passage for eons. Leave it to Big Pharma to ban anything truly healing through aggressive lobbying. Exorbitant privilege indeed Monsieur Charles De Gaulle. Except this time it is the global corporatocracy and not America. Thanks to “backwards” Mexico, we Americans with means, modest even, can afford to go to Mexico for these healing modalities whether it is magic mushrooms, or as in my case, Ibogaine. There is much to say about Mexico. If I start, I will write a short novel, a novella that is, just on the trip from the airport to the clinic. My heart broke a million times seeing the extreme poverty on display by the roadside and babies in mother’s arms late at night as the father panhandled for money. Of course, the baby has to be there, in plain view. The baby is the object that pulls our heart strings and compel us rich Americans to give generously for the baby. I said a silent prayer to God. I always do when I feel helpless in the face of complex misery and divine mysteries. Hardly a minute passed by when I forgot all about my sadness and instead focused on the beauty of nature. There were dramatic cliffs and the valley drops that take the breath away, on the way to Rosarito Beach. Later, as we were making our way back to America, with the sun shining, I could see the horizon beyond the ocean with waters so pristine, grand and majestic. I am convinced Mexico is God’s country and not Scotland. Upon arriving to the clinic, I joined the conveyor belt of Ibogaine patients. I got checked inside and out. The doctor on scene insists on an EKG analysis to see into my heart. I have never done one before but I passed with flying colors. I reinterpreted the blood panel results showing numbers being slightly high. Contrary to the common wisdom of using a flawed normal distribution with arbitrary thresholds, a simple ratio proved definitively that my internal motorways, were in fact within the narrow margin of ideal health. Not that it was an issue. I was cleared for Ibogaine. It started the following day, at night. I was informed about what to expect. Apparently while “under”, the eyes become extremely sensitive to light so the room needs to be blacked out. Unluckily for me, the windows in the room I picked, had no shutters. The staff used black trash bags to cover the windows instead. What ingenuity people display in a pinch, I thought. My aunt, now deceased, pointed out this truism when she visited us in Ivory Coast years earlier. She saw how people in the west have it so easy compared to those who constantly had to make-do. And make-do they do. Doctor Silva gave me a test dose to check how my body will react when it kicks in. Everyone is different. I was encouraged to go on my own pace. To take charge of the experience and direct the trip. I am my own pilot on this flight; I am no longer a passenger. I was also reassured that there are medical professionals just downstairs, monitoring my heartbeats. I am not to get up and go anywhere on my own. The Ibogaine treatment renders you both aware and alert but also in an altered state that you cannot escape from. There is an emergency treatment, an antidote if you will, in case it all becomes too much, or unbearably intense. But I promised myself strength and fortitude so I refused to pull the trigger when the trip hit a crescendo. The images I saw were so crystal clear and cinematic that I am half-expecting TV screen manufacturer to reach out to recreate the technology. The story line of my trip was wrapped up in old wounds but they were lighter and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I saw myself reflected in a window and I was at once both a child and a young woman. All around me were the most beautiful toys I have ever seen in my life, reflecting indulgent vivid colors, mainly yellow, white and black. They were to die for. I wanted them, even now. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I was also given a window into the future. You can call it a fortune-telling of sorts. Trump was ever-present and he is a clear winner. This part is interesting since it was still August and I had decided I wasn’t going to vote. Why should I when all the previous times I voted, my life got progressively worse, not better. We are told the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. During the actual trip, I did not shy away from the patriotic images of the American flags flying and people pouring into the street. The sounds were ethereal. There were also a marked reference to games, maybe even video games. A man in a red jet plane or rocket-ship smiled at me as he taxied off into the heavens. I started to wake up and survey the room. Remnants of the drug was still in my system. Random patterns like an Indian fabric meant for a ornate sari, showed up as other-worldly visions, suspended between dreams and reality. I clung on to this magical feeling as I made my way downstairs to the kitchen for my first meal, post-treatment. Next came another ordeal, Rap-eh. Rap-eh is medicinal tobacco snorted up the nose, with the help of a shaman, during a full shamanic ceremony held up high on a hill. The shaman swore me to secrecy because this part gets really dark and intimate. It is a type of soul cleansing, a clearing of the consciousness. Suffice it to say, I discovered I am a warrior. A real one, not just empty words. Nothing is hard now. I take ice showers and ice baths everyday to remind myself how strong I am. I say Rap-eh, lest I forget. In the end, I left Mexico a whole new person. I am not the same Noha who came to Mexico. That Noha died. She had to. It is part of the healing. To stop fighting and let go finally. To give in to the other side whose phone calls have fallen on deaf ears. I decided to grab life by the horn, I decided to vote, contrary to what I had said. Perhaps for the first time, I actually voted in accordance with my true self. I voted to free Ross day one. I put an end to my misery and said goodbye to past adventures that led nowhere. I surveyed the world and stepped into the future. But there is something I am missing in this story. Something important. The music. It is by far the best part of the Ibogaine treatment. Before diving headlong into the colorful, murky, ever-changing realm of the psychedelic world, the clinic staff performs a cleansing ceremony using sage to honor the Biwi tribe. They play their tribal music full of African talking drums which hypnotize and mesmerize. The drums guide you to another dimension. They help you find your true being, the one animating your presence here on earth. The music acts like a beacon to find the way home. A cosmic place that exists outside reality. It has enough space to house the world. But small enough to be fully embodied by my spirit. It is somewhere beyond the beyond. I left bread crumbs so that I can find it again. One day I plan to go back. This time I will just stay there. That’s when I’ll finally be home.