Coming Home

Coming Home is something I have anticipated and dreamed about. I was on my last connecting flight from Kuwait to JFK and by luck of the draw got an entire row to myself for a 13 hour flight. As I was dozing off watching the landscape outside my window, a woman taps me and asks me if I’m from India. Her English was good, still had a strong accent and she was dressed traditionally. I turned to her and I said No. So she asked Where are you from? I said I’m from NY. She smiled unbelievingly at me and said Oh Yes, I am also from NY. Then she proceeds to ask me if she can switch seats with me, so that she can have my whole row to herself. “So will you switch with me?” I turned to her and I said “I just spent more than 2 years serving my country in Indonesia, and I was looking forward to a nice flight home, so No.” She was a bit confused and eventually got up and walked away. I was still somewhat offended that she had assumed I was from India even though I was wearing my high school track sweatshirt that had SILVA across the back and a very American accent but then again who could blame her. 

She thought that my brown skin complexion or finding a common ground with me automatically meant that I would be kind enough to give away my row. I continued to reflect and daydream out the window and I couldn’t help but be offended at that whole interaction with her. In general, I hate when people call me Indian but this time this felt like more. I realized that all the sacrifices I had made for the past 27 months for America, all the struggles, obstacles, victories, memories no one could fathom what I have gone through. Tears began streaming down my face, my nose stuffy and my chest tight as everything I had experienced these past 27 months came rushing all at once from joy to sadness, the people I was leaving behind and the mixed emotions of happiness and confusion I felt about returning to America. 

I spent more than 2 years of my life away from family and friends and very few people stayed in touch and I know that a lot of what I have experienced in my young life is very hard for a lot of people to relate to. Just now I turned and started speaking Indonesian to the man who took the seat at the end of my row and then had to check myself to realize where I’m going only few people will understand what I’m saying. Leaving Indonesia is very difficult for me, but I know I will be back and the people who I love there will be living just as they always have and some things will change and others will remain the same but one thing is for sure: I will have changed a bit more and they will have changed a bit more. We both will have gotten older and there will be a feeling of happiness at our reunion and a new feeling of foreignness from the absence. Indonesia has changed me forever and the people have left an impression in my heart and I hope to keep their kindness, generosity, simplicity and love of life present in my American life.

It’s still the first week back and I’m taking things very slowly. Readjusting and reverse culture shock are difficult but I guess there’s no better time than Summer to deal with it.

I finished the Peace Corps. Processing that concept is taking time to set in. Now I guess it’s onto the next dream. J