There
are not many of us that can call more than one place “home,” yet
I feel that I am able to count myself one of the lucky ones in this
respect. Last week, I made a trip home-yet it was to a place I have
never called home: the eastern US. I have to confess that as I
exited the Royal Air Maroc flight at JFK, it didn't really feel much
like home. Although I could understand pretty much everything that
was being said, I have become used to a sort of polite greeting
custom in Morocco that just doesn't exist in the States. I looked
rather questioningly at the passport checker-surely he would ask me what
I was doing in the States, why I left to live in Morocco, which one I
liked better, if I lived with my family and what my marital status
was-but no, he barely looked at me and waved me through. I clung to
the Moroccans around me, preferring to ask them to borrow a cell
phone, knowing it would be given with a smile, rather than ask any of
the Americans crowding around the baggage claim...I figured I'd
probably just get a weird look and lame excuse. That was probably an
overly harsh judgment of the Americans, but I just didn't really know
what to expect from them...I just felt more comfortable with and
knew what to expect from the Moroccans (who did, by the way, ask me
all of those questions I was expecting from the passport guy).
After
sitting on a bus for three hours in NYC (at 5 on a Saturday
afternoon?) traffic and asking many strangers how to find the way to
Penn Station (really, who thought it was a good idea to put a train
station under a stadium...talk about confusing any person not from
New York), I found myself at the ticket line. I thought maybe I
would just go talk to someone to buy a ticket, but realized there
were electronic ticket machines right in front of me. I put my card
in, bought the ticket for the next train to Philly and, amazingly
enough, out came a ticket with my name and everything...I didn't even
have to type it in. I was very impressed. The train itself was even
better. There was WiFi and an outlet for every seat....I even
updated my Facebook from the train. It was at that moment that I
really began to enjoy myself. Although it had been more than a year
since I had stepped foot on American soil, I could still navigate my
way pretty well and nothing had changed so drastically that I didn't
recognize it. It was pretty easy to just fall back into things, to
remember how things were and to expect things to be a certain way. I
was home!
My
first stop was Philadelphia for a Mother's Day/graduation celebration
with my mother, aunts, grandmother, cousins, uncles and friends.
There's nothing to make a place feel more like home than a gathering
of family. So it wasn't really home, but they certainly had good
food. Whoever thought of serving a plate of many bite-sized desserts
to each person deserves a prize. After the party, I had a few days
of hanging out. It was great-I got to lounge and flip threw TV
channels. Somehow, even after being gone for a year, I still have
seen every Law and Order that they rerun on TNT. I rediscovered the
existence of bagels (perhaps forgotten after my own disastrous
attempt at making them in my Moroccan oven) and hummus, of going out
at night and looking at old family pictures.
My
mom and I headed to Boston next for my sister's graduation, to be
joined later by much of the rest of the family. Boston has not
always been my favorite city, but I certainly got a lot out of it
this time, including Thai, Indian and Mexican food (didn't quite
measure up to SoCal Mexican, but that would be pretty hard to do). I
managed to physically get on every “T” car that my sister did and
enjoyed my fair share of tastings at Harpoon Brewery. Best of all, I
got to hang out with my sister and her roommates at their super-zwin
apartment (thanks ladies!). We got to have some girls' nights out
with many (rather embarrassing) videos and pictures. My dad and I
got to check out Bukowski's Tavern and my mom and sister were
champions with helping me get all my shopping done (I need just a
few...ok, more than a few things to keep me going in my last year in
Morocco). So as much as staying in a hotel on an extended vacation
can feel like home, Boston did.
Before
my trip back to the States, I had told my sister that I wanted to
visit a Moroccan restaurant. In my mind, I would walk into this
restaurant, start speaking Darija and the owners would clap and smile
and give me tea and misimin (a delicious fried bread kind of like a
tortilla). My first encounter with a Moroccan outside of the airport
in the States was, to say the least, a little disappointing. I was
getting my hair cut and my hair dresser informed me the the hair
dresser next to us was Moroccan. After my haircut, I greeted him in
Darija and told him my story. He answered in English, and while he
was nice and told me that I was doing good work, it wasn't really
what I was expecting and hoping for. As I walked into the hotel
later, I heard one of the doorman speaking Arabic. I only caught a
little bit, but I actually thought it was Arabic from a different
country because it sounded kind of strange. However, later on, I
greeted the man in Arabic and he stared at me. “How did you know I
was Moroccan,” he asked me in Arabic. I laughed since I hadn't
actually known but continued the conversation. He was amazed...well,
maybe baffled is a better word. He stopped me and asked in English
if I was Moroccan (he added that I looked like I was....score). I
told him I wasn't but that I was living and working there. As we
talked, he brought over another doorman who was also Moroccan and was
from and area near my site. They were both so happy to be able to
speak to me, some random American woman, in Arabic. And I was happy
to bring a little bit of home to these men who were so far from their
own.
Sadly,
my trip came to an end, as all good things do. I flew from Boston
back to JFK. Although my bag was 11 lbs. overweight, the woman at
the JetBlue counter told me to keep up the good work and that she
wouldn't charge me for it (this Peace Corps thing is starting to pay
off). I learned that you can check into international flights 4
hours before the flight leaves. I was there with 6 hours before the
flight so killed some time catching up on my shows and drinking my
last corn-syrup coke for a year. Once the counter opened, I checked
in. Not surprisingly, the Royal Air Maroc people didn't say a thing
about my overweight bag...many of their customers are from countries
where rules and regulations don't matter in the same way that they do
in the States so I guess they figure they'll pick their battles (aka
the 100 lbs bag, not the 60 lbs. Bag). I enjoyed my last hours in
America eating pizza and drinking blue moon while watching CNN. The
boarding of the plane ended up being chaos. I thought since we were
still Stateside that there would be lines and orderly boarding. Not
so.
Even this passenger: (yes
she was on my flight and I was super excited)
had
to wait in the crowd around the gate. After a long and loud
(somehow, it is possible for babies to cry for 5 hours non-stop)
flight, we finally landed. I chose the passport line with 7 people
that took longer than the line with 15 (welcome back me). I did
finally manage to make it through, retrieve my bag and get on the
train. I was on a bus back to my site by 9am (pretty much the only
benefit to a flight landed at 6:30 am) and arrived home by
mid-afternoon. I hadn't had much sleep or much food and my house was
covered in dust. But it felt wonderful to be home.