The Nerd's Eye View

In 1987 my Dad was finally transferred back to the Sudan, from his posting in NY city. For 8 years he had worked at the UN representing the Sudan, and we lived and grew up in NY. It made perfect sense to have a subway, to not have a front yard, to only be allowed out of the apartment in the company of your parents and to eat hot dogs out of a cart that had dubious standards of health to say the least. This was the world I knew best, with its filth, its crime, it's muggy summers and slushy winters. So when the transfer came it was hard to wrap my mind around. We went to an airport that we had seen countless families away from, at the edge of the city that was home.

From there we flew across an ocean and a continent, and a sea and a desert to homeland we had been to only twice (and in the case of my little sister, never). It was hours before dawn on a July day when the plane landed, but we were wide awake. Our minds were reeling with apprehension at this new place; would they have GI Joe here, or McDonald's, and what cartoons would be on television? Even before we stepped out of the plane's doorway I felt the furnace heat of the desert outside elbow aside the air conditioned cool as it embraced us. At the threshold I looked down the stairs - no jetway - and then around, the sodium lights of the airport making everything a sickly orange. My parents rushed down the stairs and at the bottom a man (my mother's brother, who worked for the national airline) hugged my parents, then my brother and me. his beard bristled against my cheek and I felt overwhelmed by the moment. My mother started crying in what had to be joy, my father beamed and I stood there somewhat awkwardly and confused.

I wish I could say that the rest of the arrival was a blur, but it wasn't. The arrivals hall was dimly lit and had the air of an open air market. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the lines at passport control, with their desultory officers glancing up from bare, ink-stained desks. The people crowded around and pushed forward when a counter was vacated by the previous traveler. A scrawny cat walked across the baggage claim area where our bags took forever to arrive. The hall was lit by fluorescent lights that made everyone darker, but more washed out and more tired, exhausted as they waited for their turn through customs. There our belongings were removed one by one from our bags and a disinterested customs agent undid the packing that my mother had done over the past month. We managed to escape with some dignity and were out at my uncle's beat up red station wagon as the heat broke finally.

His house at the time was actually quite close to the airport as the crow flies, but getting there was an ordeal. The airport road was paved but one had to turn off at what seemed like a random point in the darkness and drive through a broad open field, following trails carved out by other cars - or perhaps this same car over many weeks and months. The house itself stood almost solitary, with the nearest neighbor visible about 30 meters away. It was surrounded by a wall taller than my father, it's formerly gray exterior mottled by fine, light brown dust. I could hear the high whine of what I discovered was a water pump. This sound would become very familiar over the coming months but I didn't know that then. My uncle's wife came out and hugged us, one after the other, and led us into the living room. Again my mother cried making me feel awkward. I looked around at the sparse uncarpeted space, lit again by fluorescent lights, a cooled with an overhead fan - the first I had ever seen. Behind me the adults chatted rapid fire in Arabic, which I was somewhat familiar with but not fluent in. I was tired, and disoriented and wondering how long we were going to be here. My brother and I were bundled away into a room with three beds and a large but flimsy looking armoire lined against the walls. As we lay there all the lights in the house went out and the whining of the pump stopped, outside in the living room the adults laughed, and I fell asleep fitfully. I was home, but I didn't know it yet.