Flags

Being in America was relaxing, and coming back was refreshing. I was surprised by how easy it was to jump back into Americanism and again how easy it was to come back to T-stan. I was expecting the feeling of not-fitting-in in either place, but I felt like myself in the states and I feel like myself here.

I came back, luckily, to a lot of work. Every school had to be visited and every person had to be seen for fear of offending someone. Maintenance here is key. So I did my rounds with a few pictures to show and some little gifts for people and was warmly welcomed. Truly, there is a reason we’re here for two years. That’s how long it takes not for you to get accustomed to your site, but for THEM to get used to you. Finally people know what language to speak to me in, and that I won’t criticize or assess their English. And that I’m not going to pressure them to do lots of extra work. The relationships are now at a comfortable level. Just in time to leave.

The gifts all went over wildly well. Especially, ironically enough, the two American flags I gave to Jeren and Zohre. These two girls are my best students and also awaiting the results of the only exchange program to America, the FLEX program. We’ll find out next week. They are model students and good friends.

Americans have a hard time understanding why people here would want flags so badly, but living in the midst of nothing good and nothing that actually works while having American friends and seeing American TV and pop music—there really is no other paradise than America for them.

Americans can’t see how much focus there is on them. Everyone knows America. Everyone knows our pop stars and our movies and our cars and our computer software and our songs and our conflicts and our allies and our wars. Everyone knows the president of our country and everyone knows who we are planning to attack next—since they are our next-door neighbors.

But for these girls, they’ve spent most of their time thinking about our clubs and classes. They’ve heard that we have no passport-checks in America, and that we have 12 years of school and not 9, and that you can find a job, and that they don’t read our mail. So to them, this was a representation of something they want but are both incredibly far from, yet reminded of on a daily basis. Amazing to think that so far from America, our flag can mean almost the opposite of allegiance, but can represent the longing for something better.