For one lurching moment Tarek shook with an impulse to get back onto the plane. The hot dry air was like a wall. The hot dry earth under his feet. Then. Shouting and his mother's tears washing his face. Now. Fingers teasing the cuff of his suit. Tarek Fathi, UNFPA Assistant Investment Officer. From Manchester, England. Not from not Al-Kufra, Libya. Not anymore.

The giant blue sky loomed over the airport building and everything else around. Uncle Adel stood by a Toyota pickup talking to a couple of soldiers. Chatting online hadn't shown Tarek the size of his uncle, Adel was a big man, able to swallow up the two soldiers with room to spare. One of the soldiers lazily held an AK-47, the other had his weapon slung round his back. Tarek ignored the thoughts of NGO workers kidnapped and held for ransom by one of the warring tribes. Only at the last did he look up into his uncle's eyes to check they were smiling. Their hands clasped, skin thick and hard as leather gripped him

"Peace be upon you Tarek, you are a grown boy!"

"Peace be upon you Uncle"

"You left when everything was falling apart, twenty years?"

"It is twenty years, I'm glad to be back and to see you and your family"

"And my nephew working for the United Nations, a big man!", Adel laughed, releasing his hand and turning to the soldiers, "and from Manchester"

"Manchester City!", the soldier not holding the AK-47 cheered and rattled off player names. They swapped predictions on the coming match with Liverpool, and lamented injuries and referees. Then Adel was motioning for Tarek to get in the pickup as the soldiers sauntered away

"So nephew, you have money to invest in my farm?", Adel's big hands moved on the wheel as they drove away from the airport. The pickup passed by a tumble of tents and shacks, a child with impossibly dark skin running naked alongside them, waving and laughing, a shadow

"The investment is in infrastructure, we have a report recommending transport investment, healthcare, but water networks are a priority", Tarek looked at the shopfronts and had a dizzying sense of being back in England. Bright signs and well-dressed people. A tall young woman with a small dog. Two soldiers stood on a street corner looking at her. Some more tents and shacks tucked between buildings. The spell was broken.

"Water, everyone wants it and only so much to go around, we need it, they need it, but investment is good", Adel waved to the thriving street, "Al Kufra is good, no fighting now, people with money, but I want more money for my farm", his big face looking at Tarek and laughing loud

"I can only make recommendations to the team”, Tarek straightened, “but agriculture is a priority"

"Good", Adel swung onto a rougher road, away from the whitewashed buildings.

"These are all migrants, workers?", Tarek looked out over a field of breezeblock built huts covered in corrugated metal

"Migrants, refugees, escapees, they all pass through Al Kufra", Adel gestured around them, "but we give them houses, food, water"

"You give them aid?", the next field was the same, knots of people dotted between shacks, a group of soldiers walking through.

"For a price", Adel laughed, "this is my agriculture now", the car bumped around an old crater mark.

Tarek tried to find words. He was to help bring investment, increased living standards, and then peace and democracy would surely follow. His contacts in Al Kufra would ensure money flowing to the right pockets. Criminality would wither on the vine. A bitter taste twisted in his mouth.

Adel laughed again "they have money, they pay the soldiers of Subul Al-Salam, they pay others to take them on, and they pay Adel for a room, that is the real world boy, don't listen to what they tell you at the United Nations, and we treat them good, a nice room, not like some others, not like other places, if they are no trouble"

A few men were putting up yet more breezeblock huts, they raised their hands as the pickup drove by. "Abdul, you remember? My second son, you remember, you always were playing in the irrigation channels, my precious water, splash splash splash, all day, ha!” Tarek looked at the faces, trying to guess which one was Abdul. A memory of a stream in the sand, running with the cool feel of wet clothes, waving.

"A traffiker", Tarek barely spoke the word

"Yes, yes, a trafficker. We are all traffickers now, better business, better wages, and always more trade", Adel gestures to the house in front of them. Big metal gates swing open, a man dressed in black salutes. Private security. The house is new, big, big windows, big doors, the pickup slewed to a stop just short of the entrance.

Adel shrugs and sighs, clasping his hands together, "after you left, maybe we live, maybe we die, we are on the edge, one tribe wants this, one tribe wants that, bombs land on my farm, guns at my head, at my sons, my wife, but then when the refugees came, we are builders, we can take care of people as well as crops, we can do business, we are useful and now we live", Adel gestures to the house and then behind them to the fields of refugees and migrants, to the town and the airport

"You can come in and pray and then we talk agriculture" Adel looks at him and smiles his broad smile, "or you can go back, it's ok, the hotel always has a room for my friends, there are many flights now"

Tarek looked at the house, built with the profits of everything he had come to destroy. All Tarek’s dreams became fractured, blown around with the dust. Then images came, of running alongside a car, waving, clothes cool with the water. A shadow. Then he knew. He would bring them water. He would help them grow. And maybe good could still bloom. Tarek opened the door and stepped onto the hot dry earth, walking through the gates.