Back in the USA

I walked off the airplane into Dallas, Texas, instantly smothered by the veil of humidity that draped between the air-conditioned airplane and the air-conditioned tunnel leading to the airport. I was wearing a heavier hoodie and carrying a 40 lb backpack, an over-sized woven basket with clothes, and an unbreakable smile. It was the first time setting foot in the connected 48 states of the northern hemisphere for exactly two years, two months, two weeks, and two days, not that I was counting.

Besides the humidity, the first thing that struck me about being in my homeland was the wall sockets. How funny they look! Two little sockets in a standing rectangular box, and the airport walls were covered in them. I stood for a minute just staring at these sockets, and it seemed they were staring back at me with their two eye slits and small O-shaped mouths, mirroring my expressed bewilderment. It was funny to me that I had forgotten what the wall sockets looked like. The ones in Kenya are mounted on a square-like piece and are accompanied by a switch, and there are three holes of the same size and shape, forming an equilateral triangle. One could consider themselves exceptionally lucky to have more than one wall socket in a room. Since I have been back, I have not yet seen a singular wall socket all by itself. They always come in pairs in a standing rectangle.

Being back, I do notice many curious things about my culture that I would otherwise not consider worthy of attention. For example, the sterility (some may use the word “cleanliness”) of where we live. My parents’ home, despite the layers of dust on some of the unused appliances and some cobwebs in hard to reach corners, is unnervingly sterile. I have not once heard the skittering of a cockroach across the hardwood floors, or detected the movement of any living thing traversing by ground or air. And there is no dirt, anywhere. Even in children’s playgrounds, there is a designated spot where the dirt is centralized, called the sandbox, and even then mothers discourage their children from playing there for fear their children should get “dirty.”

America has such a vast selection of everything as well. At a Vietnamese grocery store, I saw “Quail eggs in water” in a tin can on the shelf. I couldn’t help but laugh a bit to myself. Only in America could one find quail eggs in water. And apparently in Vietnam.

Also, everything is in packaging. It is strange to think that it is cheaper to purchase pineapple in a can that was grown in India than it is to purchase equal quantities of it whole and locally grown. A whole pineapple is around $3.00; with that money one could buy three cans of the stuff. Everything else is bottled, wrapped, sealed, vacuum packed or all of them at once. It seriously frightens me how much waste can be generated by being American, and I simultaneously have a new-found respect for America’s waste management infrastructure.

Though it may take my mind some time to adjust, my body seems to remember everything. Getting behind the wheel of a car again did not feel foreign by any means, and only twice did I unnecessarily jolt the car forward from being unused to the sensitivity of the gas pedal. I have been filling my days with all the sports I have missed playing as well, and though my basketball shots were short, my tennis strikes inconsistent, and my flip turns dizzying in the swim pool, it all seemed to come back to me in no time at all. The only exception, my 10 lb road bike took some time to get used to; it felt much different than the 50 lb steel framed beach cruiser I rode daily on the dirt roads in my village. It wobbled insecurely between my legs, and it took nearly 20 miles of riding before I got the hang of it again.

It is surreal to be back. It feels like I never left or that I went into a vacuum for two years as all my friends and family continued with their lives. My sister’s baby boy is huge now compared to when I left, and she has another little girl who is one and a half years old yet does not even know me.

The strangest thing about returning to the US after spending nearly 10% of my life in another country is that it is not really strange to be here. The second strangest thing about being back is realizing you could have quail eggs in water any time you want.