The Travel System

I recently had an unexpected and undesired trip to Sudan. On Saturday, I had just told people I wasn’t going when Sunday morning I was told that I had to go anyway. So I went on Monday. I was not super-excited about the trip, and I was uncharacteristically cranky. I got over it a few days later with the help of some Flaming Hot Cheetos and gummy dinosaurs.  I’m easily placated.

What you get when you order off the menu--
za3tar and cheese fatayer.

I really do like Sudan, actually. It was fun to hang with the IAS Sudan ladies and to go out to eat Syrian food with Leif. Of course, I was accused of being a princess when I ordered off the menu, but the Syrian owner was very happy to oblige. He then told me I looked like Hillary Clinton, which probably means that I need to stay out of the sun. When I mentioned that she is a few decades older than me, he then decided I look like Amber Heard, which just goes to show how important entertainment news is to people all over the world. Anyway, he makes good fatayer.

I also got to go to the movies with Selma. We were supposed to go to the theatre the previous day, and she hadn’t been able to take me with her, and so she decided to make up for it by bringing me with her to watch the new Egyptian comedy with Ahmed Helmy—the classic tale of a man whose meddling female relatives decide that he shouldn’t marry that hot young Italian girl and jet off to Rome, leaving them without a man to drive them to the beach and eat all of their excellent cooking. Instead he should marry the cute and sassy Egyptian girl.  It was actually pretty funny, and when Selma answered her phone twice during the movie and had several slightly whispered conversations with someone, no one yelled at her. The other girl in our group did get annoyed by the three girls in front of us who took a selfie in the middle of the movie and blinded us with their flash. But all in all, it was a very relaxing movie experience and air-conditioned! And with a possibly unintentional intermission in the middle of one of Sassy Girl’s speeches when the movie stopped for about 5 minutes.

Feeding potato chips to the cat.
He also LOVES peanuts.
He's weird. It's not my fault.

So I do love Sudan, but I am happy to be done with it for the moment. The rest of the year promises to be a whirlwind of travel in other countries and finishing 2016 work in Chad and moving to a new house, which I have yet to find and probably furnish. The bat-eating cat will miss me, and I will occasionally miss him too, but the cat-sitting experience has proven to me that I should not have any pets until I find a way to stabilize my life. If you have any advice on how to do that, please share. I will probably ignore your advice and continue to live my crazy life, but I really want a puppy so there is a possibility that I might pay attention to any sage wisdom you send my way.

Anyway, since this trip involved travel, it comes with a story because I have also not learned how to travel uneventfully. I’m pretty sure it’s mostly impossible.

The stress of knowing all the work I needed to do in Chad made me push for the departure date closest to receiving my final exit visa. Leif, my favorite travel agent who never worries about buying last minute tickets, found me a relatively cheap ticket via Egypt Air, leaving the next morning at 4am. At 4pm, he bought the ticket and received payment confirmation but no booking information. “It will probably come later,” he said, “Airlines work 24-7.” Which proves that he is a wonderful optimist with a positive view of humanity. I am an optimist with a negative view of humanity. My optimism allowed me to pack up all my stuff, my negative view of humanity and chronic insomnia gave me a short intermittent 3 hour sleep. At 1:45am we received the ticket, and I left behind the dusty sand of Khartoum for Cairo.  Last minute travels like this one are always a good bonding time for Leif and me. He was the one who convinced me that my last minute life is OK. Since I am surrounded by Type A planners in Neverthirst and my own family, people who worry deeply about my laissez faire attitude towards planning in advance, it is so refreshing to be with Leif. For his part, he told me, “Amanda, I’m glad to work with you who can handle last minute stuff. A normal Swede would have been so stressed going to bed not knowing he/she would have a ticket for a flight at 4am.” So we can see that Leif has it worse than me being from a nation of Type A planners who give him a hard time about his last minute life.  Since my goal is to BE Leif when I grow up, it’s nice to know that I’m half-way there. Now I just need to learn how to fix a drilling rig and hot wire a car and go moose hunting and answer all the emails that come into my inbox instead of accidentally deleting them in an attempt to purge possibly incriminating emails before traveling to certain countries.

Gurasa with the ladies.

The optimism of Leif and Amanda got me on the plane. Then Amanda travel systems took over. (See—I can do systems too!)

Amanda travel systems:

1)   Check everything you can because lugging crap around the airport is not fun.

Exception to this rule: if you have to pay money to check your bags, then Amanda Rules of Not Unnecessarily Spending Money trump this rule. Carry everything with you.

2)   No roller bags unless you are in a Rules of Not Spending Money situation. Roller bags are for lazy people. Pick up your bag and carry it. Don’t drag it over the feet of fellow travelers or trip them up when you wander across the path over to the screen to find your gate.

3)   Always take the stairs and never go on moving sidewalks unless you are looking for entertainment. You’ve been sitting for hours—move when you can.

4)   If you want to buy candy in the airport, do it. Travel is for comfort food. But if you are going to be in Addis, they have crap candy. Save the bread and cheese from the airplane food and eat that—this meets the Rules of Not Spending Money standards as well.

5)   Watch the dumbest movies on the plane that you secretly wanted to watch but were embarrassed to admit. Because then if you ever have to own up that you watched that really dumb movie about the ballet dancer and the somehow Irish street violinist just trying to make it in NYC, you can say, “Oh yeah, I saw it on a plane. There wasn’t anything else to do.” Don’t mention that you could have watched an incredibly depressing Oscar-contender instead.

6)   Don’t watch incredibly depressing movies on planes. I sat next to a girl who cried through the entire flight watching one of those, and it was awkward.

7)   Avoid eye contact with seat-mates to avoid unnecessary travel-talking. Travel-talking interferes with watching the horrible movies and/or playing mindless games on your phone. You will never see these people again (probably) and if there is a large man next to you, he will probably get drunk and eye contact only makes him think you love him. And then you have to spend the rest of the flight pretending to sleep, unless you can really sleep, which I can’t do even lying in a bed in a dark, quiet room.

8)   Aisle seat. Always. Is it annoying when the person in the middle wants to get out? No. It’s not. Get up and let them out. Moving is good for you. See Rule #3.

Because I follow these rules, I’ve become adept at getting out of the plane quickly. If there were an official Olympic race to get off an airplane before almost everyone else, I would medal for sure. I would then feel bad about it because there are some sports that traditionally are won by nations that don’t win all the other events like swimming, running, shooting things. Getting off an airplane first should be won by an Asian nation like India or Indonesia. Or China, but China, like America, has enough medals—let someone else win some! But it does not seem fair that an American would win an Olympic Event with skills she picked up from years of living in Asia’s (and the world’s) most populous nations.  But my insatiable need to win everything is all my own—well, it’s genetic anyway, thanks Grandmom.

Movie selfie.

Usually, the plane’s wheels hit the ground, and I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn on my phone. I grab the bag from under the seat. When we have mostly come to a complete stop, I gauge the power-hungry level of the flight attendants. American ones will yell at you for jumping up before the seat belt light is off, but usually in Asia and Africa, they are more relaxed. If anyone else jumps up first, I have to pop up right behind them because—competitiveness. Then I inevitably get annoyed at all the people who pop up and push back and forth in the crowds to get their millions of bags they have stashed all over the plane (another reason to respect Rule # 1).

When I arrived in Cairo, a lovely elderly Syrian woman jumped up behind me with an urgency to get off that plane. She pushed at my knees and told me to hurry up, just push around everyone else, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! In the manner, we reached the front of the plane before the first class passengers disembarked. We were unceremoniously required to move back to our seats and wait. Unfortunately for the good intentions of the Egypt Air crew, everyone else had followed us and it was mostly impossible to do that. We moved a few steps back to make them feel good about themselves, but that was it. We all got off right after the two first class passengers pushed their way through the crowd of plebeians in their aisle.

That wasn’t the story. That was just the first part, leading up to me abandoning the system and then being caught up in the ensuing chaos. Let this be a warning to you all!

Boarding the plane in Cairo, everything seemed normal. My seatmates came on almost the very last. That is always hard on me because there is that brief moment when you think that everyone has boarded and you might have free seats next to you, but that hope was dashed. Then I saw it was a woman in a lifai/thobe carrying a baby with a little girl in tow as well. They shoved into the seats, stuffing an awkward baby carrier in by the little girl. I called the flight attendant over and asked her to take the baby carrier and put it in the bin. She graciously complied and the little girl smiled tentatively at me.  Then I went back to making no eye contact.

Around the time when the meal was served, I broke the rule again. I started passing things over to the mom who was nursing the baby while the girl slept on her arm. The mom was also grimacing with pain. So we began to talk.

“Are you ok?” I asked in Arabic.

“Yes, just my leg is hurting.”

“Let me take the baby for a bit to help you,” I said. (Generous and cunning. That baby was cute and I really wanted him.)

“Well, you can take him, but he isn’t the reason why my leg is hurting. I fell in the airport and my foot bent over my ankle, and I think it might be broken. It hurts so much.”

“Do you have any pain medicine?” I asked, helpfully taking the baby out of her hands.

“No. I don’t have anything.”

From past experience, I know that flight attendants have some kind of basic pain killer on hand, so I called over our nice lady and asked if she could bring some panadol or something to my new friend. (Sometimes I like to pretend like I’m a doctor.) She did, and a few minutes later the lady thanked me and said she was feeling a bit better.

Arby's Restaurant and Cafeteria in Khartoum

We started talking more, and I found out that her name is Zaynab, her daughter is Aisha, and her baby son is called Issa. Zaynab had left with Aisha to Sudan about 7 months ago, looking for treatment for Aisha’s eye, which had a tumor in it. In Sudan, she found out it was cancer (leukemia? I don’t really know—blood cancer, she called it) and an organization there sent her to Egypt for chemotherapy. They were in Egypt for months, staying at the hospital. There she gave birth to Issa, her ninth child. She whipped out her phone and scrolled through all the photos she had taken there—multiple selfies, photos of food (classics no matter where you are), and photos of Aisha and her treatment. There were some pretty gruesome photos, as well as dozens of photos of various IV bag treatments that had gone into that tiny girl (about 8 or 9 years old).

The hospital room where Aisha was staying had a few balloons taped up on the wall, and I kept thinking about this documentary I’d watched where the Make a Wish foundation helped this kid with cancer who had wanted to be Batman take over San Francisco (I think it was) in a little batman suit to fulfill his biggest dream.  It was an interesting contrast in levels of comfort provided to suffering children.  Zaynab probably didn’t know about cancer hospitals in America or the Make a Wish Foundation, but like any other loving mom, she did whatever it took to get the treatment her daughter needed, even moving to another country and having a baby in an unfamiliar setting where she knew no one. The love of a mother is powerful. It makes for strong and brave women.

Apparently, the chemotherapy worked, so Aisha can go back to Chad, but she has to have follow up visits at local hospitals here. She is blind in one eye, but Zaynab was told that she can’t get her an operation on that until she is 15. Zaynab says they have used all their money getting this treatment, but she has a card from the organization that helped her and if the cancer comes back, she might be sent to a hospital in the US. She was a bit excited about that, but not hoping for the cancer to return. If she does go, I gave her my card and told her to call me first so I can make sure that there is a friendly face around to help her.  I know people in places.

When it was about time to land, the pain medicine had worn off, and Zaynab was moaning again, I decided that I would abdicate my throne as “fastest off the plane” in order to help this little family. It was just like when that one girl fell on the track and the other one went back with her to help her cross the finish line. So noble. But to be honest, several times I considered just handing over the baby and rushing out. It is so hard for me not to jump up and rush off with the other athletes. Be proud, mother, that I kept it together. Credit to that adorable chubby baby.

Why yes I will hold this perfect
baby as long as possible.

We were the last ones off the plane because Zaynab could barely walk. We got into the second bus with the other stragglers (I’ve never been on the second bus!), and we headed towards the airport, about 5 meters away from us. At the airport, a security guard noticed me standing by the bus trying to help Zaynab get out while holding her baby and watching her daughter. I asked him to bring a wheelchair, but instead, he took Zaynab around directly to baggage claim and left me, Aisha, and Issa to walk upstairs to immigration. We waited up there until he came back with their passports to fill out the entry forms. Then we went to the immigration window, waiting patiently for the other passengers who had already been there.

While we were standing there, making a scene by being a white woman with two Chadian kids, I noticed three Chinese men who were struggling to communicate with an immigration officer. I watched for a while to see if they were going to figure it out—I mean, on average any given day, there are about 15 people who can make it through their lives without my help. I wanted to make sure that these guys weren’t among that 15. And then I decided to offer my unsolicited help anyway. Can I say that going between French, Arabic, and Chinese is not easy? Also, my Chinese has gotten really bad. But we mostly figured it out when one of the men started speaking in mostly comprehensible English. We found a solution to their problem, and we wished each other well. They were grateful, I was happy (and embarrassed) to speak Chinese again, and really—I love Africa but I also miss Asia. It is nice to have some fellow Asians wandering this great continent with me.

We finally made it downstairs to Zaynab, who must have been really worried that maybe the nasara she trusted was a Madonna-type who would snatch up her babies to raise them in the luxurious lifestyle of a pop queen’s offspring. But if I can’t have a puppy, I’m definitely not ready for a baby.

At any rate, Zaynab called her sister from my phone, and she was on her way to pick her up.  I reluctantly handed over the chubby baby, waved goodbye and stumbled out into the hot sun to find the wonderful Urbain, who had been waiting for me since 10:45, the time I told him to be at the airport to pick me up. It was 12:15. Being a nice person takes a lot of extra time in the airport.  And that’s why you always follow the System. Unless you need to make an exception for a cute baby and his sweet mother and sister.

 And let me leave you with a photo of a cat disturbing our dukkan guy's prayers. They really are sacrilegious animals. (I was respectfully waiting outside the gate for him to finish before going to buy phone credit.)

There's No Place Like Homes

A while ago in Juba, I noticed a new store in the area near the IAS office—Chinese Supermarket! When I stopped by I was gratified to note the authentic long strips of plastic hanging in the doorway, a staple of Chinese business establishments, especially stores and small street restaurants and cafeterias. Once inside I was greeted by the old familiar smell of Chinese shops—herbs, soy sauce, garlic, dried fish, plastic stuff. I say “old” because it’s been a while since I’ve been back in China (2009). My Chinese friends in Mundri once asked me when was the first time I’d been to China. I said 2003 (though I think it was 2004, actually), and he said, “Oh, when you were 15?” I said, “Nope. I was 20.” (Which would have been true if I’d gotten the date right.) “Never!” he said. “You cannot be more than 24.” Which shows that not ALL Asians are good at math (because if I had been 15 in 2003, then I should be 25 or 26 in 2014, both of which are more than 24, the age that I cannot be more than, according to my friend Li). But when flattering a girl, it’s more important to keep the numbers low than to pay attention to Math.

Inside the Chinese Supermarket, two chubby middle-aged Chinese ladies screamed instructions at the South Sudanese men carrying in large heavy bags of various types of rice.  I know that they were not really angry or saying anything rude—that’s just how it sounds to people who don’t speak Chinese. Though I didn’t find candied, dried sweet potato strips  or meat-hair frosted red bean bread (crushing my vague hope of satisfying one or more of these cravings that China gave me), I did take note of the various sauces and vegetables that I could possibly buy there in the future when traveling back to Mundri where I have a kitchen to cook. And I decided to buy “fragrant fragile walnut meat biscuit” because, of course I did. When I asked, “多小钱?” The lady jumped back in surprise and we had a nice chat in between her yelling more instructions at various people.

As I walked out of the door of the Chinese Supermarket, I thought to myself, “Everyone needs to go to China and fall in love with it because then, wherever you are in the world, you will always get excited to find a Chinese shop in the middle of someplace you never expected it to be—you are guaranteed moments of excitement and nostalgia in your life forever after!”

A couple days later I was invited over to a new friend’s house. She’s from the Netherlands and she invited two other Dutch people and a Swedish guy to join us. We talked about ice-skating and European royal families. My role in the conversation was to talk about how I get a special thrill from leaving cups of water outside overnight during the winter (if I’m ever in the US over the wintertime), and finding it out there the next morning all frozen—nature’s magic trick! I’m always impressed. I also showed off my knowledge of Dutch words gleaned from  Indonesian “westafel” (sink) and “rok” (skirt). They were awed by the depth of my ability to speak their language. Definitely awed.  And then at the end of the meal, my friend brought out “speculaaaaaaaaaas”! (I added some extra vowels to show my excitement and also because, since it’s Dutch, there are definitely going to be extra vowels in there, and this is as good as I can guess for accurate spelling.) Speculaaaas (or Speculoos) are ginger-flavored cookies, often shaped like windmills. The sisters and I always loved these ubiquitous (in ex-Dutch colony Indonesia) packaged biscuits. I thought to myself, “And also, everyone needs to fall in love with Dutch ginger cookies because you get that same thrill that you get from finding a Chinese store on a random street in South Sudan when your friend busts them out for dessert.” And then I realized that I could keep going like this with countries and places and languages and foods that I love and get excited about seeing in unexpected places.

As a most-of-my-life long expat and TCK and general wandering traveler, I’ve nodded my head solemnly over articles that talk about how you can never go back to the place you loved because that place will always be different from how you remembered it. Really, it’s not the place that you want to return to, it’s the place and the time and the people who were with you and the life stage you were in, etc. That’s true of course—it is sometimes sad, but always true. And it’s really just a fact of Life in this World. BUT! It is also true that the more places you let yourself love, the more you will find pieces of moments and memories in places and times far from where you were.  And the speculaas will taste sweeter because one bite reminds you of buying them in the market nearby your house when you were in junior high and your older sister was back from boarding school craving them.  The smell of spices in a market in Khartoum will throw your brain back to the time you wandered through Souq Hammadiyeh in Damascus, looking for adventure. And the feel of walking through plastic flaps to get into a store will transport you back in time (for real it was 10 years ago, I am old) to walking through the cafeteria doors to 首都师范大学 (Capital Normal University) where you spent a summer studying Chinese and living with a Chinese family.

Kibbeh Labaniyeh

What I'm trying to say is that yes, traveling and living overseas means that you will learn to love things that you might never get/have/see/taste again. I remember this one guy who came out to Indonesia for a visit who insisted on eating nothing but bread and maybe some fried chicken at the hotel buffet. When we tried to get him to try other food he said, "What if I like it and then I can never get it again after I go back to America?" At first, this seems almost logical. And then you realize that he was just a really picky eater trying to find a good excuse not to try anything new. But the truth is that I might never again get to taste Um Mohamed's perfect kibbeh with the pomegranate seeds inside that gave it just the right touch of tang and sweetness to complement the seasoned meat and pine nuts in their crunchy bulgar shell. The first time I had them at her house was after my friends and I had forgotten which apartment building was hers and went around knocking on doors asking for Um Mohamed. This is hilarious if you know that "Um Mohamed" is what you call a woman whose first son's name is "Mohamed." Since many (or most) people in Muslim countries around the world name their first son "Mohamed," we found an "Um Mohamed" at almost every door we knocked on. Eventually we made it to the one we were looking for, and for our trouble, we were stuffed full of the best kibbeh in the world, which I'll probably never eat again. Then other day I got to eat some kibbeh labaniyeh (not from Um Mohamed, but still good) from a Syrian restaurant near my house in Khartoum served to me by a waiter who used to live in Rukkn Ed-din, Damascus (one of the places I lived while I was there) and is related to the owner of the shwaerma shop next door to my apartment. This was a bittersweet moment for us as we excitedly shared memories of a place we loved, knowing that he at least would still be there if not for the deteriorating situation in his homeland.

This store is actually in Khartoum

I wrote that whole paragraph and I still didn't get to point of what I was trying to say, which is that you will miss things from places where you travel. And not just the food--though, mostly the food, because you can make new friends, but you can't make your own kibbeh labaniyeh (unless you are Joanna because she is a great cook, and I am…….not). But the depressing articles and snotty tourist boys who visit Indonesia and tell you that you can never get those moments/places/tastes back are only partially right. You can't get those moments back, but because you had those moments, you are going to have many more moments that you wouldn't have had if you hadn't had those moments in the first place. (That last sentence totally makes sense, I just read it again to make sure.) 

So live your wandering life and cry your buckets-of-tears goodbyes but keep your eyes open for the world-crossing moments when you can be in China and South Sudan and Damascus and Khartoum at the exact same natsukashi moment. 

And now I will make my bonus point: 'natsukashi' is a Japanese word meaning 'the feeling you have when something brings back fond memories' that I learned from my parents who lived in Japan in the 70's. I've never even been there. But they shared their moment with me. Because when you have moments, you can share them with others so that they can benefit from a broader vocabulary because of you. And someday they might thank you for it. Or maybe they will just mention you briefly in a blog post. But that totally counts.

And now I will leave you with some photos of places and people I might never see again from life-changing moments before I go off to Zanzibar with an American friend that I met when I lived in Lebanon who now lives in Yemen before I go back to South Sudan because--international life.

The kid I wanted to adopt from the orphanage I volunteered
at while I was living in China in 2006.

My adopted mother in Shenzhen

My favorite Shenzhen friend's daughter.

My Jordanian mother who let me live with her
while I was learning Arabic

My BFF in Jordan who is also a mumtaztik Arabic teacher

I'm feeling especially nostalgic about Syria right now for some reason…

A scary photo of me carving a pumpkin in the apartment
where I lived in Syria--not knowing that several years later
I would meet a relative of the owner of the shwaerma shop
next door who is now living in Khartoum.

With some of my favorite students--
I don't know where any of them are now.

With my Palestinian/Kurdish roommate in Syria
and her cousin at a wedding in Damascus.
(I am not on drugs here, just anticipating a late night of dancing)

With another friend in a grocery store in Damascus.
I also don't know anything about where she or her family are now.

The ruins of Palmyra in Tadmor, Syria

The ruins of Tyre

My life is so hard.
Let this be a lesson to you.

Brain Gaps

I am TO Sudanese

The other day I was wearing a thobe and enjoying the smell of my bakhour (Sudanese incense that melts over coals and fills the room with fragrant smoke—don’t try this in places with fire alarms), and I was congratulating myself for my Sudanese-ness. My friends had been joking with me about how I’m not a khawaja anymore, I’m now Sudanese, and it went to my head. I know because I was hanging out with our West Darfur team, telling them that if wouldn’t matter if I broke curfew if I were wearing my thobe, because if I were, no one would know that I wasn’t Sudanese. I was helpfully informed by one of our staff, “Amanda, even if you are wearing a thobe, you are still white. And people will see your white hands.” This was really surprising and disappointing to me.  I mean, just the other day I took one of those online quizzes called “How White are You?” and I got 8 out of 100, which classified me as ‘not white at all.’ This is the same website whose informative quizzes helped to determine that I am Harry Potter (something I’ve suspected for some time now) and that I should be a red-head (which is going to be less possible since I’ve run out of henna I brought from India). Now it seems like these quizzes may not be entirely reflective of reality, and it has shaken the very foundations of my world. But the good news is, my wrists are no longer white because I got sunburnt in the car-ride on the way to Sirba, and even though we did break curfew (it’s the curfew for people who are obviously foreigners--7:00pm, i.e. the time that fun is just starting for all non-foreigner Sudanese), I was not abducted by any angry tribesmen, nor did I crash the car into a donkey or get stuck in the sand.

I had to leave when these
guys were just coming 

So I’m not white, if the characteristics of being white are directly related to being a 6^th grade girl in the 90’s (dancing to the Macarena and debating which boy-band is better, according to the quiz), but I am white if we are trying to hide from local police who enforce curfew and/or hostage-takers.  Wearing a thobe and knowing how to light coals for bakhour doesn’t make me Sudanese anymore than eating rice for breakfast makes me Indonesian or always bringing presents to people who invite me over for dinner makes me Syrian.

What I am is an American who has spent a cumulative two-thirds of her life in Asia and now lives in Africa, and with that comes many strange idiosyncrasies.

Eighth Grade at Deaf School graduation. Hey--Where's Waldo? 

I get annoyed when people tell me the weight of something in kilos and then remember that I’m American and try to translate that into pounds—like I didn’t have Canadian teachers all throughout my elementary school career, EY. But I do measure my morning running distances in miles, though I can tell people the distance I covered in kilometers, just in case they don’t understand. And I’m not the only one who mixes the English and the metric systems—in India everything is in kilos in the stores, but you measure well depth in feet.  So there, World.

Our rainy season family vacations were great!

But the truth is that there is a lot of American common knowledge out there that I’m not aware of (much of it having to do with ways of measuring), just as there is other international common knowledge that I missed out on, probably while I was flying over the international date line losing brain cells or something like that. I’ve been sorting through my brain, trying to find things that I don’t think are normal (which is hard since they ARE normal for me), and I’m pretty sure other third culture kids will relate to this, but even in our little group of identity-confused kids of multi-cultural upbringings, we have different brain gaps, which my bro-in-law likes to call affectionately the “third culture delay.”

Here are some of my brain gaps:

If we’re talking about the weather, I’ll give you the temperature in Fahrenheit if it’s hot and Celsius if it’s cold. (But I did just have to spell check ‘Fahrenheit’ because not only it is less practical when trying to remember the boiling or freezing points, it’s also harder to spell.)

I’ll tell you the length of something in centimeters and use the word ‘gallons’ with misguided confidence. I will admit to having no idea what a ‘quart’ is, but it is a fun word to say. Quart. Quart. Quart.

Wearing the right clothes is the best way to fit in--you can't tell I'm not Yemeni!

I can never remember if I’m supposed to put the day or the month first when writing dates numerically, so I usually just write the whole thing out: 19 February 1984 or February 19^th, 1984 (it’s my birthday—you should also remember this important date. And Hackers: take note that I never use it as my password anywhere because of my confusion with numerical dates. Also, I don’t have that much money, so it wouldn’t be worth your while anyway.).

When riding in cars, I prefer just to go sit in the back so I don’t have to worry about which side of the car the steering wheel is on.  I CAN drive—automatic and manual, but I sometimes forget which side of the road to be on and whether or not traffic rules are enforced. So it’s better just not to let me…

First camel ride a long time ago-my skills were acquired young

I could tell you almost as much about the Danish royal family as I could about the Obamas.

I find cricket and baseball equally boring.

Age 29, wearing a sari I bought at age 15 in Little India in Singapore.
My life came full circle once I finally fulfilled my destiny of living in India.

I can tell you as much about Premier League Football as I can about American Pro Football, which is to say, I know enough not to sound like an idiot in a brief conversation about favorite teams, but that’s about it.  Definitely do not ask me about names of any players who are not married to famous beautiful women.

The longer I stay out of the US, the less I know about famous musicians or the names of anyone who won a Grammy, and if you scroll through my iTunes account you will find that a significant portion of my music has been designated as “Unknown Artist” or “002 ÇáÍÇáÉ Çíå” because my taste in music is broader than my computer's ability to guess what the name of the singer is.

Crashing an Ethiopian wedding in Somaliland
with Kenyan and Sudanese friends.
This is my normal.

I can tell you the capital city of Burkina Faso, but I really don’t know what part of the US Iowa is in, much less if it even has any cities, one of which may have been designated as a capital. I'm only about 80% sure that it is a state. Iowa is a thing, right? It's not just a mispronunciation of Ohio, is it? (I know that the way to pronounce 'Ohio' varies from country to country. In India I heard it called "OH-HEE-Oh.")

A Somali friend in Yemen with more patriotism for my country
than I'll ever be able to muster. She deserves my passport more than I do.

I could fill in these gaps in my knowledge, and sometimes I’ve even tried to do that, but usually I just embrace the imbalance in my life or I try to balance out the imbalance by taking on as many characteristics as possible from countries where I’ve had the privilege to live. It’s OK. Make fun of me at will—people all over the world have been doing it for years. But don’t expect me to listen to boy-bands or dance to the Macarena or join your fantasy football league—whether it’s American-style football or The Rest of the World-style football.

High-school me demonstrating how to balance on the imbalance in one's life
OR
just climbing on a weird totem pole at Pangadaran because climbing things is fun.
(I always climb in flip-flops.)