What it was like

Part 2

In retrospect, I'm wondering how to describe the feeling of being at home. It's hard come up with words adequate enough for the sense of love, fun, familiarity, comfort, peace and beauty that I was surrounded by. My time in Ecuador was something so special that it can only be a gift from God for me and my family. The time was short, so we wanted to make the most of every moment we had.

We spent everyday doing something. Once my luggage finally arrived, we headed down to Shell, which is the small town on the edge of the jungle where I spent 12 years of my life. To get to it, you have to travel five hours through the Andes and the plateaus that give way to the tropical rainforests, past ash-spewing volcanoes, a tourist-trap town full of great memories, winding and bumpy dirt roads and countless other landmarks that are very familiar. One of the highlights was eating a trout lunch that my friend Juan Carlos prepared for my family before we had to head back to the capital.

We visited the teachers of the high school we graduated from, ate excellent Ecuadorian food with family friends and shopped at various locales for those things we miss when we are away. We hiked Guagua (pronounced "wawa," which means "baby" in Quichua) Pichincha, a volcano that has exploded with ash twice in the last six years. The day we hiked it was clear and beautiful, which allowed us a glimpse of the crater and the mountainous terrain around us.

I could go on and on about little details and things, but the greatest joy was just to sit in the same car with my parents and sister, to enjoy a cup of coffee with them, or share breakfast. It was fun to just loll around and talk about the last year and a half since we saw each other (which really is just too long!) or stay up late laughing at a Bollywood movie. And before I packed my suitcase for the return, I went through my sister's and mum's clothes to see what I would take with me with promises to swap again at Christmas!

And now, here I sit in a very cold and rainy Helsinki. I am tired from the projects I had due for class today, so I am debating a midday nap. And while the weather and the atmosphere of Finland make me wish I could once again bask in the heat along the Equator and enjoy the affectionate and familiar culture, I am here with a thankful heart for the week-long gift I just experienced!

A Story about Home

The Secret: Part 1

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, your flight is cancelled,” the blonde lady in navy blue looked at my stunned expression sympathetically from behind the airline counter. I was at the Helsinki airport at five a.m. last Friday.

“But they told me yesterday at the ticket office that it was still flying,” I reported inanely, remembering my visit to the office prompted by a sudden strike by Finnair flight crew and the accompanying feeling of panic that I would not make it out of the country the next morning.

I ended up at the ticket office of the airport with dozens of others in a similar plight, distraught and on the brink of tears. A flight to Paris was available, but would cause me miss my connections to Miami and Quito with no guarantee of rebooking. I took the chance, because the thought of getting stranded at the Charles de Gaulle airport was less daunting than the thought of not going home.

Home. I have kept a secret from my mother for six months. You see, she has a birthday marking a half-century of life, and with my dad and sister we concocted the idea to surprise her by showing up on the morning of her birthday and singing to her in our traditional family way. We’ve been working hard to throw her off the scent of our scheming.

“Please, I need to get home tonight,” I told the lady behind the counter in Paris hours later. I wasted no time in getting to the ticket office, praying all the way with a quiet confidence that God had something prepared for me.

“I’m sorry, there is no way you can get to Ecuador tonight.”

“Please, anything, any routing.” I waited with baited breath as she searched.

Not an hour later I was boarding the American Airlines flight to Boston, with a connection to Miami, and a next morning flight to Quito, Ecuador. It was the best she could do, and I was just thankful to know that I would be able to arrive at my final destination.

I arrived so tired I couldn’t even sleep. But as I walked toward the customs gate in Ecuador, I saw my parents and my sister waiting for me beyond the glass walls. My mum was crying. It turns out, she spent the whole day crying from sheer happiness and shock. We succeeded in completely surprising her!!! I think if we had both arrived to sing to her in the morning, she may have had a heart attack, so this way was better!

“I can’t believe this!” is a frequent phrase we have repeated in the last days as we have sat together at coffee or driven around the city. It does seem like a dream. But God is good like that.

(Part 2 still to come...)

Moments on another continent...

...it's five thirty in the afternoon on Friday, and I am in the middle of my Egyptian family's living room in Giza, sitting down at the low wooden table covered with newspapers and numerous bowls of incredibly good food: camel meat, mahshi, salad and kofta. As we break the fast of Ramadan with the first meal of the day, I look at the dear faces around me, and something inside me just wants to sing or even cry from happiness! A TV show like candid camera comes on and we laugh at the unsuspecting customer that gets his foot tied to the shoe polishing stand and can't get it off to chase the polisher that leaves in a huff.

...it's Saturday afternoon, and we are driving through the old section of Cairo, a place that makes my imagination create stories about the people I see sitting in front of their shops and wonder what they think about the life they live. Surprisingly easily, we maneuver through a honking traffic jam of black and white taxis, buses and cars that crowds an intersection. We drive past an old mosque that is hundreds of years old and then past the Islamic history museum that looks like it is hundreds of years old, but is actually just being constructed. Men on bicycles fearlessly weave their way through the laneless traffic with racks of bread balanced on their heads, and near the Nile, the benches on the sidewalk are occupied by courting couples and those seeking a shady rest under the trees.

...I sit with a steaming glass of tea in my hand, with Justin to my left drinking the same. In front of me Asmaa's grandma sits spread out on her dusty rug in the boxy entryway room with green walls, and she is wearing the same black dress with polka dots and two braids under a black head covering that she wore six months ago when I last saw her. Her eyes are cloudy and she has a hard time moving. But she still makes "the best tea in the world," as Justin says, over a little gas burner and with lots of sugar, and she still gives me those small little kisses on my cheek in greeting as she pulls me close. Asmaa talks to her about happenings at the house as her aunt nurses her month-old baby by the door.

...later that night, I look out from the second-floor balcony because I want to see the colorful lights hung up above the street for Ramadan. Over the grape vines and past the parked car and the patchy garden plot, the neighbor is painting the brick façade of his house in white and brown. Down to the right I can barely see into the neighbor's hole-in-the-wall store where Tita and Bilel daily buy bags of chips. I can feel dust everywhere, under my feet on the tile floor and on the wooden railing under my fingers; I know it's in my hair from a day spent driving with the windows open and children playing with it. And I really don't care. Dust and dirt are a part of Cairo life. Just like heat and insane traffic and mosques and sitting around drinking tea!

Going...

There is a place
dear to my heart
that beckons me
from my northern
perch to journey
south, and so I
shall go and rest a
spell in that land
where the sun is
red and the roads
are congested
with sights and
sounds unlike the
ones in my calm
and orderly world.
I will sit with my
loved ones and
soak in the feeling
of sitting on an
oriental carpet with
a glass of shay and
black button eyes
smiling back at me.

In shaa Allah!

A National Habit?

My daily trajectory to work was temporarily jolted from its routine scenery as I saw a kid reading one of the free circulation newspapers in the metro the other morning. And then I discovered it wasn't such an earth-shattering thing when it happened again yesterday! I must admit that I am always quite stunned when I see this phenomenon, because I have not been in another country where a youth (I'd guess around 12 years old) would pick up a newspaper and read more than the comic strips at the back!

But such is Finland. I have a friend here who tells me she thinks her day is incomplete unless she reads the newspaper! And my roommate is subscribed to the daily pape, (which means we have an ever-spreading pile of newspapers by our shoe rack, waiting for their trip to the recycling bin) and she actually reads it! I do too, as part of my work. But the "essential" newspaper didn't enter into any realm of my life until I moved here and started working in an arena that requires up-to-date information about the political and economical happenings of various European countries.

I remember last year in my first few months of culture shock, I was amazed to hear only the rustle of newspapers on the train every morning as commuters headed to their jobs in the city; just the "crinkle, crinkle" of pages and the "swoosh" of them turning. I guess I just haven't been here long enough to have gotten used to the sight of kids keeping up on current events or people habitually hiding behind pages of print!