We were talking with my mom on Skype last week and Elio burst into tears… ‘I want to go to the or-port… I want to go to the or-port.’ Orport is airport. We have tried to correct him, but in true Elio style, he refuses to accept the correct version and stays with the Elio version. I sunk back in my chair. This was happening because of me…because I have been counting the days until I get to go home for a real vacation. I have been counting since day 89.
‘Don’t you think you’re building this up a little too much?’ my mom commented. My mother is the world record holder for number of diplomatic understatements in a lifetime. Yes, she was totally right and I needed to stop. Nalia and Elio, especially Elio, are going to be disappointed when they arrive in the U.S. and find out it’s not a wonderland with chocolate rivers and candy cane trees everywhere.
But I guess, to my own credit, it’s easy to forget sometimes how our own behavior affects our kids. I remember when I was driving down University Blvd once in Silver Spring. Nalia was 3. This guy in another car cut me off. Nalia sat up in her car seat, and said so sweetly, ´He’s a jerk, isn’t he mommy?’
I have been counting and counting because I really do need a break. Work has been non-stop, so the counting is what keeps me going. But I’m trying to keep it more to myself. And I know that I’m building it up because when I get to the airport in Johannesburg and hear and see my first wiffs of Americana, it’s always a little bittersweet. I mean, I love my country and am proud to be an American, but when you’re away for a long time, some things become so apparent.
So this is how it goes at the Johannesburg airport… as you approach the gate for the flight to JFK or Atlanta, you first know you’re close because of the noise. It’s not the cacophony of all the voices talking at once like Italians, but it’s several LOUD voices wanting to be heard. And our accent is distinct. Nalia and I were in the grocery store the other day and there were some Peace Corps volunteers there. We walked into the Super Mohammed, and even before these girls opened their mouths, I knew they were Americans. When you live overseas, you learn to spot your own people without words, at a distance. It’s like an instinct we’re born with. Matias could spot people from Southern Africa a mile away when we lived in Maryland. So the PC volunteers start talking, and then Nalia says, ‘Where are they from? That accent is really annoying?’ This shocked me a bit because, a) they could understand exactly what she was saying (English has become our secret language!), and b) because she couldn’t hear the similarities between their accents and mine or hers. We don’t socialize with many Americans though, so other than me, she doesn’t hear an American accent on a daily basis.
But back to the gate at the Joburg airport. After you hear the loud voices and distinct accents, you go around the corner and there is the gate. Then you KNOW you are at the flight to the U.S. The cues switch from auditory to visual. You notice the girth. I have to say it because it’s true. Every time I go back to the U.S., I can’t help but notice how many of my countrymen are overweight. And then you notice the shorts or zip-off pants and white sneakers. We love these things more than anyone else in the whole world. And then you notice people carrying what look like trees trunks covered in bubble wrap, bobbing like buoys in a sea of people. These are all the wooden giraffes that our fellow passengers have purchased on their expeditions to Africa, safely encapsulated in bubble wrap for the trip back to Minnesota or wherever. This is when I go sit with the kids in an unpopulated corner and take a deep breath.
So when I finally get on the plane and settle in, someone will usually start a conversation. I don’t think this happens much on domestic flights anymore, but on the flights from Africa, people are curious. We are usually in the middle of the plane, and the conversation starts like this. The lady next to us is a baby boomer from middle-America wearing a polo shirt that says something like Glendale Bible Church 2011 Mission Trip, Zambia. She smiles sweetly and asks, ‘So, was this your first time?’ The first time someone asked me this, it seemed totally normal, because it WAS my first or second time in Africa. But now, after ten years of it, and coming from the ladies that usually sit next me, I almost always burst out laughing. She is asking if this is my first time in Africa. No, I politely tell her. This is not our first time… and then I give her an abbreviated version of the story.
