JUNE 2019
AW AMONG WORLDS
HOME
noun, adjective, adverb, verb
Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
FROM THE EDITOR | Where is Home? Welcome back to Among Worlds! After a two-year hiatus, the magazine is back, and we are ready for you. From a new layout to new writers, we are excitedly anticipating your reading and submissions to the magazine.
Changes
If there is one thing that third culture kids and global nomads know, it is that change is integral to life and growth. At Interaction International we are seeing many exciting changes as we move into 2019. You will hear of some of them through the letter from our new director, Michael Pollock, and you will see some of them through the magazine. Still others will be introduced through the year. For now, we hope you enjoy our new look and an introduction to some new writers that you will see regularly in future editions.
Theme: HOME
As early as I can remember, I, like many of you, had a complicated relationship with the word home. I didn’t realize how complicated it was until I left my adopted country at 18 years old and found myself in college in the United States. On the soil where I legally belonged, I faced a profound crisis and absence of home and belonging. While many find their college years to be years of exciting growth and opportunity, I found myself paralyzed in the absence of what those surrounding me found so easy, namely, where and what to call home. By definition, home is a noun and is “the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.” To the traveler, the refugee, the immigrant, the nomad, and the third culture kid the definition can bring on a lonely crisis, for the words permanent and member are ones that don’t honor the impermanence of our homes and the way we have forged belonging in ways that go beyond permanence and geography. Through the years I have thought, read, studied, and written about home and place. And it is through writing that I have found my greatest peace in relationship to this
word. That is why I’m excited about this issue and the essays that we have compiled for you. From rituals of separation to personal essays to instructive articles on home, you will have your pick of essays to enjoy about home. As you read them, think about this word and your relationship with it. Think about how you might change the definition, crafting your own that you can identify with and hold on to. Even as I write this, I am looking out my window at a scene that five months ago was completely unfamiliar. My husband and I moved to the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq in September, taking on jobs at a public university. We moved from the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to a small city called Rania, a move that has forced us to remake and redefine home. We are slowly learning to live and love well in this city, and our apartment, just a five minute walk from the university, is becoming home. So home has changed for me and will change again when I leave here. It was a couple of years ago that I wrote the following words, and I leave them here with you as you begin reading this issue: “Our homes are not defined by geography or one particular location, but by memories, events, people and places that span the globe.” Here’s to Home and all it means and doesn’t mean to our tribe!
Marilyn Gardner Editor
JUNE 2019 • VOLUME 19 • NUMBER 1 • AMONG WORLDS
HOME
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A PLACE OR A STATE OF MIND?
WHEN YOUR HEART FINDS A HOME Marilyn Gardner
5 I’M FROM… Adelaide Bliss
6 2 DOES THE AIRPORT COUNT? Cat Foster
4 FROM OUR DIRECTOR Michael Pollock Editor: Marilyn R. Gardner Copy Editors: Michael and Kristen Pollock Graphic Designer: Laurel Fleming Digital Publishing: Bret Taylor
RITUALS OF SEPARATION Elizabeth Rice
11 WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Mary Bassey
12 ADDRESS UNKNOWN Lois Bushong
16 OFF THE SHELF BOOK REVIEW Cheryl Skupa
18 THE OMNIPRESENT ISSUES OF HOME & IDENTITY Anne Konig
22 DEMYSTIFYING THE WHERE’S HOME QUESTION Taylor Murray
24 NO GOING BACK Miriam Ottimofiore
THE MISSION OF AMONG WORLDS IS TO ENCOURAGE ADULT TCKs AND OTHER GLOBAL NOMADS TO FILL A NEED THAT IS REAL AMONG TCKs BY ADDRESSING ISSUES THAT ARE RELEVANT TO THEM.
AMONG WORLDS ©2019 (ISSN# 1538-75180) IS PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY INTERACTION INTERNATIONAL, 1516 PECK ST, MUSKEGON, MI 49442 USA. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE PRIOR PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER. WE LOVE WORKING WITH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS AND NGOS AND WILL NEGOTIATE A RATE THAT WORKS WITHIN YOUR BUDGET. CONTACT US AT AMONGWORLDS@ INTERACTIONINTL.ORG OR CALL +1-630-653-8780 AMONG WORLDS IS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE ON THE ISTORE AND GOOGLE PLAY STORE. PRINTED VERSIONS OF SOME ISSUES MAY BE PURCHASED AT WWW.INTERACTIONINTL.ORG FOR $6 USD PLUS SHIPPING AND HANDLING. CONTACT US REGARDING INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING OR DISCOUNTS WHEN PURCHASING FIVE OR MORE ISSUES. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN AMONG WORLDS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFELCT THE VIEW OF AMONG WORLDS OR INTERACTION INTERNATIONAL.
Does the Airport Count? By Cat Foster
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At the check in counter of the Penang International Airport, I watched four years of my life, packed in suitcases, roll away on the conveyor belts into the mass hysteria of baggage hidden behind the wall. I had graduated from high school three days before, and now I was leaving Malaysia. While standing in line for immigration, clutching my boarding pass and tattered passport, I glanced behind me for a final wave at my friend who had dropped me off. I didn’t know when I would see him again, if ever. I tried to stop the flood of apprehension that swept over me by looking down at the floor. What is it about airports and ugly carpets? Security was a breeze. I absentmindedly pulled out my computer and cell phone and put them in separate plastic containers. Then casually tossed my backpack on the X-Ray belt and emptied my pockets. It took me all of 10 seconds. I tried to not tap my foot or sigh in impatience as the man in front of me struggled to get himself organized. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that going through security isn’t routine for everyone. I like to sit by the windows at the gate to see the plane that’s going to take me on my next adventure. And I like sitting by the windows on a plane so I can get one final look at the place I’m leaving. I’m 20 now, and I’ve lived overseas for 15 of those years. I’ve lived in five different countries, and lost count of how many times I moved. As a TCK, it’s hard to find anything that’s “constant” in life. Usually the constants aren’t fun—people constantly coming and going, constantly having to settle into a new routine, constantly learning a new language. It’s tiresome. Throughout it all, airports have been a constant for me. I’ve been on so many planes that I can recite word for word the safety presentation on about eight airlines in three languages. I don’t say that to brag. If anything, it means that I’ve been on the move far too long. Not that I’m complaining, but in the chaotic series of events that is my life, airports and their routines are the only thing I can really rely on to be somewhat predictable. Unlike language, social custom, food, which side of the road to drive on, and weather, airports are consistent throughout the world. The Changi Airport in Singapore is by far my favorite one. Where else are you going to find an airport that has a 24-hour movie theater? Or a sunflower garden? Or museums?
Often, I wish I had a longer layover there. I’ve never lived somewhere longer than 4 years, but I’ve been going through Changi Airport for over 15 years. That’s got to count for something. I spend a lot of time on the moving walkways observing the things going on around me. There goes a family running toward their next gate. People look funny when they run with backpacks on. Even though I can feel the tension of transition in the air, I’m relaxed. I think about where I’ve been, and where I’m going. This time, I’m on my way to the U.S. I instantly feel a pang in my gut. I’ve usually disliked the month I spend there every summer. I hate the culture shock. I hate the feeling of foreignness. Wait. Do I feel like I fit in more in an Asian country? I look at myself in the reflection of the glass window in front of me. Yup, tall, white, curvy, and long red hair. I totally blend in Asia. I wish my reflection showed what color my heart looked like. I would not call it meditating, but I definitely seem to do my most deep reflecting in airports. When everyone around me is stressed and scrambling to make their connection, or excited because they’re going to a new, exotic place, I am calm. Maybe airports aren’t my home away from home. Maybe they are my home.
Cat Foster is a TCK who has lived in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, and the United States.
Home’s where you go when you run out of homes. ~ John le Carré,
The Honourable Schoolboy
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DIRECTOR
MICHAEL POLLOCK
Dear Among Worlds Readers, As I step into the lead role of Interaction International, I’m amazed at the circle of events that have brought me to this place, like a boomerang with a homing beacon. I’ve been a fan of Among Worlds for a long time. I’ve published two articles between its covers along the way, while my father, David, was executive director. Now I’m deeply pleased to welcome Marilyn Gardner to be the editor of a truly fine magazine reaching out to cross-cultural and mobile people everywhere. Some of the hopes and dreams that we have for Interaction as a whole will be reflected in Marilyn’s work on the magazine. We desire to leverage what technology can offer in reaching and connecting people in common themes of humanity. We want to represent the deep and vast diversity of globally mobile individuals and families even as we celebrate what we have in common. We want to create platforms for research, discussion, resource sharing, and developing new ideas into products and programs that will aid in a flow of care as people move between cultures, between and among worlds. So we invite you into that community, that discussion, that great conversation about who we are, where we come from, where we are going, and how to be more kind, more compassionate and empathetic to one another along the way. We desire to see our work at Interaction and what appears on the pages and in the pixels of the magazine to be a spark and a catalyst for organizations, companies, and foreign service corps to increase care, support, and equipping for those who cross cultures to serve and achieve. We hope that by joining us as readers, thinkers, poets, artists of all stripes, writers, and dialogue makers that we and you will create a place to feel understood, welcomed, and at home. As they say in my childhood home of Kenya, “KARIBU!” Come in, be welcome. Michael Pollock Executive Director Interaction International 4
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I’M FROM… I’m from the wide airplane wings Swooping me up and setting me down. I’m from the navy blue passport Filled with endless destinations. I’m from the suitcases not always full Yet always tucked away in the corner. I’m from the experiences, the people, the places From North America to Europe to Asia. I’m from never knowing where I’m from But always feeling at home.
Third Culture Kid, Adelaide Bliss, grew up in India and the United States. She currently lives in Canada. This poem was first published in Worlds Apart: A Third Culture Kid’s Journey.
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Rituals of Separation By Elizabeth Rice
There are many people in this world who have felt the deep loneliness of non-belonging, who understand that nostalgia for home doesn’t always manifest itself in a quaint feeling of longing but can instead feel like an affliction from which one might never recover.
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My family lived in Korea for 16 years, at a pivotal juncture in the country’s history. My parents were social activist missionaries with the Presbyterian Church. In the 1960s and 70s South Korea was a poor country recovering from a horrific war that divided the nation into two, industrializing at a rapid pace, and seeing the burgeoning of a democracy movement that would eventually lead to the toppling of a long line of dictators. I wrote Rituals of Separation as a love song to my childhood and as an exploration of issues of belonging and cultural identity. South Korean artist Minouk Lim once said in reference to her art, Today, under the changes caused by globalization, places are counted only as space; individuals are merely a resource or networking. Nietzsche was said to have wept as he embraced a downtrodden horse, but I want to weep, embracing places. Nevertheless, I also want to fight against the sense of powerlessness caused by melancholy, whether it is the feeling that overwhelmed Nietzsche, or any other kind. So I am inventing rituals for, and keeping records of, moments of separation. As I thought about the long period of grief I went through after my family left South Korea, I was struck by this idea of the “powerlessness caused by melancholy.” For many years I was stuck in deep homesickness. Writing the book was in a way a “ritual of separation” for me, not to separate from Korea, but to make a record of and acknowledge the lasting impact of that childhood, and to understand why that moment of separation, the day we left Korea, became such a pivotal before and after moment, like the day of a life-changing car accident. Through each story in the book, from our life in the city of Seoul, to learning Korean as I learned English, to my parents’ involvement in the Korean democracy movement, to my mother’s work with young single mothers, to growing up within Korea’s highly structured and homogeneous culture, I explore the impact of Korea on my cultural and national identity. I ask and try the answer the question, “Why could I never let Korea go?” JUNE 2019
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Sitting by the Trail An Excerpt from Rituals of Separation: A South Korean Memoir of Identity and Belonging
Maybe I carry some measure of han, the collective ache and unresolved resentment Koreans are said to carry from enduring centuries of hardship. Or maybe I’m just longing to go home, to talk to Ajumoni, to pluck a persimmon from our tree.
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My childhood house is gone. It was bulldozed and replaced with a nondescript apartment building. Two of our other Seoul homes will fall to the wrecking ball this year. This is the way of life when you come from a city that changes so fast people say it has “liquid architecture.” Sometimes it feels like I had a liquid childhood. So how did it feel so steadfast and rooted, so unwavering? I feel a lump settle in my throat as I read Myongju’s email. I picture the warm floor of my parents’ bedroom. I remember the comfort of slipping under Mom’s thick ibul blanket after school, the way the fabric of the rainbow-colored silk of the yo mattress moved easily against the rice-paper covered surface. I see the long view of western Seoul from our yard above the valley road and the tangle of one-story homes and businesses that stretched out for miles into the horizon. As if it was just yesterday, I see the single persimmon tree outside the living room window and the two tall gingkos that stood like sentinels guarding our Nissan station wagon. And now it’s all gone. What did they do with the gingko trees when they took down our house? Is the persimmon tree that gave us such soft, orange fruit year after year now in a heap of concrete and dust somewhere outside the city? Is the thick rice paper of our floors crumpled there, too? And where is Ajumoni today? But there is too much loss in this image. Too much heartbreak. I don’t want to dwell on what is gone. But sometimes it seems to be all I can do. Maybe I carry some measure of han, the collective ache and unresolved resentment Koreans are said to carry from enduring centuries of hardship. Or maybe I’m just longing to go home, to talk to Ajumoni, to pluck a persimmon from our tree. Myong-ju’s mother was in her thirties when she came to work for us. Recently widowed, she desperately needed employment so she could keep her three young children. One day Ajumoni told me the story of her husband’s death. She used her shirtsleeves to wipe away falling tears, as if in wiping them away she could reverse his death. Maum is the Korean word for heart. But the word, like so much about Korea, is
untranslatable into English. Maum is the deepest place of the soul, part mind, part spirit center. “Maumi apayo.” Ajumoni said as she patted her hand to her chest. My heart hurts. She didn’t hide her sorrow from me in the same way she didn’t suppress her infectious laughter when it came. By the age of six, when she came into my life, I had lived five of my six years in South Korea. I was accustomed to Ajumoni’s open lament and easy amusement. I was familiar with her way of expressing pain and loss and I knew it was different from the way my grandparents expressed theirs. They kept their sorrows private. Their conflicts were hidden behind closed doors. I held and balanced each way inside of me. I was a little American girl with a Korean heart, at home in a country of open tears. I never imagined that years would pass when I wouldn’t see Ajumoni. I never imagined a day would come I wouldn’t walk the hillsides of Yonhi-dong or pass the centuries old city gates that defined the limits of my universe. For sixteen years the air of Korea filled my lungs and the ways of that land settled into my heart. When my family left Korea, I carried my love for Ajumoni with me. I carried the morning mist that materialized in the pine forests of Saddleback Mountain, and the chatter of the blue and white kkachi, the magpie who called to me each morning from the tree outside my bedroom window. I carried the expat community who helped raise me, aunts, uncles, and cousins by circumstance, so-called “foreigners” who called Korea home. I carried my international school friends, the only people in the world who shared my particular identity. I carried the story of my parents, humble people of humor and great life spirit who not only chose to leave behind lives of privilege, but ended up walking arm in arm with Koreans fighting for human rights and democracy. People who answered a
calling to be missionaries and then challenged the idea of what being a missionary was all about. I carried the story of eight men hung for no reason and the tragedy of one country split in two. In my twenties, I began to dream about Korea. I walked through open markets of knockoff Nikes, nylon backpacks, and stacks of dried fish. Men pulled carts of nappa cabbages and thick taffy along city roads. Middle-aged ladies in starched yellow uniforms peddled yogurt carts through my old neighborhood like carry-on luggage. The night was beginning to feel more real than the day. I was five again, skipping past mounds of spent yontan charcoal briquettes. Our house appeared around the corner as if my family never left Korea. Mom was there, and Ajumoni too, laughing as she added sesame oil to a simmering stew. I was carrying my longing for Korea like a chigae, a frame of heavy stones. Instead of sticks of firewood, I carried a childhood. Each stone was a memory I couldn’t put down. Maumi apayo. I began to count up the number of years I had lived in the U.S. and measure them against the number of years I had lived in Korea. I felt reassured when I calculated the greater balance was spent in Korea. But the balance was shifting. Could I keep or lose the Korean part of me through simple mathematics? Could the most fundamental part of me slip away over time? Was all of me still there if a part of me was hidden behind light hair, green-blue eyes, and native English ability? I knew identity wasn’t like this. I knew that deep inside of me was a person, anchored and fixed, formed by family, genetics, learned rituals, and environment. I also knew that when people looked at me they saw the obvious, because this is what we all do. We categorize others by their appearance to make sense of the world. We categorize others to make sense of ourselves. “Where are you from?”
Even as I felt my salty tears fall at the sound of a Korean harvest dance. I was sitting by the trail. And the trail was growing over.
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people ask again and again. I’m a miguksaram in Korea. An American. In Costa Rica, I learned to say “soy gringa.” When I lived in Zambia I was a muzungu, the general term used for white person, which literally means, maybe too fittingly in my case, “someone who roams around aimlessly.” But I carry a person inside of me. My outside doesn’t tell my full story of belonging. My face and passport only tell a part of my internal truth. They misrepresent the story. My grief dug in stubbornly as I moved from state to state, trying to get my life back. When ten years passed without going to Korea, I wept into a plate of chapchae noodles when I heard the clanging, percussive beat of the age-old Farmer’s Dance begin in a St. Paul, Minnesota music hall. Ten years felt like a lifetime. It almost felt like I never lived in Korea, that Korea didn’t exist, even when every fiber of my being was telling me otherwise. Even as I felt my salty tears fall at the sound of a Korean harvest dance. I was sitting by the trail. And the trail was growing over. My childhood that felt so rooted and permanent was a house of cards. When my family left Korea, the complex world that formed me into the person I was dropped to the floor, card by card. In the U.S. I was a hidden immigrant living in a country to which I didn’t belong. I was a foreigner living in a land that was supposed to be mine. And I missed Korea so much I ached inside. I was nine months old when my parents moved to South Korea. They were a social-action oriented couple eager to do something to help a country recovering from a devastating century. Their decision to move across the seas was made with hearts as big and as good as I would ever know. They knew very little about Korea. They didn’t speak the language. The only foreign country they had visited was Canada, just over the Rainbow Bridge from their New York hometown. They knew to expect culture shock. The Presbyterian Mission prepared them, during a six month orientation, to expect the difficult process called acculturation and the lonely condition called homesickness. They hoped and prayed their four young children would adjust. They were especially worried about their oldest boy, who they anticipated might bear this life change more than any of us. What they didn’t know is that their decision to move across the world would turn our sense of cultural and national identity on its head. More than our family story changed the day we landed in Seoul. The needle of my internal cultural compass swung into a new position. When we left Korea, it would not budge back. All that I carried with me from my childhood, all that Korea had instilled in me, was held closely in my heart. I was silently grieving for a country and a life left behind. And how could I explain the depth of this loss to people who did not know that place? I was longing for so many things at once. For the grime of a frenetic ancient city. For a lady who knew the unbearable loss of permanent separation. For a people of grace and coarseness who hoped when hope was all they had. I come from New York lawyers and Vermont gentlemen 10
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farmers. My ancestors are Hosbachs and Beldens, Rices and Ransoms. These people are a fundamental part of me, too. But my heart belongs to a nation of rising and falling dynasties, industrial factories, and army general dictators. I am from a thin place, where the boundary between heaven and earth, light and dark, and good and evil, was always like a fine thread of silk. In the densely-packed hills of Seoul, time-worn tile roofs lifted elegantly towards the sky, cracking against the concrete walls of industrialization. The black shingles were formed from clay. The mud was pulled through the muck of a harvested rice paddy. I still know their shape. I can still picture the pattern of lines they formed when laid from peak to eave. I remember the vivid colors of the painted halls of Kyung Bok Palace and the feel of thick white rubber komusin shoes on my feet. I know these things like I know the lines on my own hand. Human beings have rituals of separation for a reason. We play bagpipes. We carry shrouded bodies through the streets of our towns and cities. We burn flesh and sinew into pyres flicking spirits into ashen air. Rituals of separation tell us we must begin to let go. They help us heal. They tell us who we are and from where we come. Rituals of separation show us how our people mourn and how our people begin to move on. Rituals of separation are rituals of thanksgiving. After we left Korea, I balanced precariously between two lives, unsure how to go back and unable to move forward. I had to come to terms with all I had seen in those years. I had to look into the ways of the people and places that formed me and find myself, like a pebble sorted from rice. And I learned to pick up the pieces of an unrooted adulthood time and time again. For what is lost can’t always be recovered. Sometimes the only way to move on is to learn to let go, to be deeply grateful for what we had, to know we will never be the same for what we have seen. To learn that maybe, just maybe, our fractured parts do, after all, make a whole.
Elizabeth Rice is the daughter of social activist missionary parents in Seoul, South Korea. After working for a number of years in the NGO sector in the U.S. and in Zambia, she began writing about the difficulty of returning to her passport country as a young adult, to a country that was not home, and about the influence of spending her childhood in the developing and industrializing city of Seoul, South Korea. The result, Rituals of Separation, is her first book. She is currently living between Costa Rica and Vermont.
WRITER IN RESIDENCE
MARY BASSEY
Among Worlds has long been a voice for writers and artists to use their craft in telling their third culture kid stories. Whether through writing, art, or book reviews, these stories that are unique to each individual, invite others into our shared third culture kid perspective and heritage. As we are again publishing the magazine, we wish to invite younger third culture kids and writers to hone their craft and share their perspectives. It is with this in mind that we began a Writer-in-Residence program at Among Worlds. In this issue we are delighted to introduce Mary Bassey to the Among Worlds readership as our 2019-2020 Writer-in-Residence. Mary is a Nigerian-born, third culture kid who moved initially to Canada, then to the United States. She is a passionate educator, writer, and storyteller who uses all these tools to communicate across cultures and boundaries. Countries Abroad: Nigeria, Canada, America Reason for mobile childhood: Mary’s father received opportunities to work in various universities, and the immediate family travelled along with him. Occupation: Science Educator in Los Angeles for students with mild to moderate disabilities (autism, Asperger’s syndrome, learning disabilities, and those who have faced substantial emotional trauma) and students who have been adopted, including transracial adoptees. Hobbies: writing, reading, dancing, creating, spending time with cute critters Accolades:
»»Ms. Efik USA 2015
»»Contributor to The Worlds Within - An anthology of TCK art and writing: young, global and between cultures »»Writer for The Black Expat
»» Ignite session speaker at the Families in Global Transition 2016 conference: presented “Stories that Cloud Our Nomadic Realities: A Closer Look at the Stereotypes that Dominate the Globalization Narra- tive and How We Unknowingly Reinforce Them” »»Families in Global Transition Pollock Scholar 2016 »»Former #TCKchat co-host on Twitter
Current obsessions: philosophy, cats, and healthy, delicious recipes. By writing for Among Worlds magazine, I hope to engage in a conversation with the global community. While I am the writer, I hope that the audience does not hesitate to share their thoughts, too. I also hope to affirm the stories of those with a nomadic background while also expressing my thoughts and experiences that may not be as pronounced in the globally nomadic community. ~ Mary Bassey Contact Mary by emailing her at marybasseyonline@gmail.com. JUNE 2019
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ADDRESS: UNKNOWN By Lois Bushong There it was again. It came in a crazy, ice breaker game at a conference I was attending. The question seemed innocent enough to the rest of the participants, but to me it was another reminder that I did not fit into the U.S. culture. “Describe the type of heating system you had in your childhood home.” How was I going to answer this question without coming off looking strange or different? The question assumes many things, among them that you have a concrete, specific idea of home. But for me, my childhood home was Central America and no one has furnaces of any type there! How do I define home? From this one question, so many others arise! »» Is it where I have spent the most years?
»» Is it the place I love the most? And if so, how do I figure that out? If I define it as a place, I could answer that question at least twenty different ways. »» Is it a people?
»» If it is a people, whom do I choose: family, boarding school parents, or friends? Psychologists say that we must have roots to be secure. If I can’t define home, does this mean I am insecure? As I have listened to other third culture kids attempt to describe home, I have heard many varied descriptions. Home has been described as an international airport, on an airplane going anywhere, my backpack, my family, the car or jeep, an adobe home, the dorm at boarding school, within my heart, a country, and many more ways. I tend to use the response I’ve heard most recently, until another great response comes along and then my 12
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description of home changes once again. What an emotional question. Recently, I visited the abandoned house where my grandparents once lived. As a child, I had stayed with them for several months recuperating from an extended illness. At times, I had described that home in Raymond, Ohio, as my home. But as I walked through the empty rooms, I knew this also was not my true home. I had a counseling supervisor once ask me, “Where is home?” As I stumbled around for the answer, he came quickly to the conclusion that I needed to see a therapist instead of being a therapist. What I knew, that he didn’t, was that I was a normal TCK trying to figure out an honest question that is asked throughout life—Where is home? As I’ve been challenged over and over again with this question, I have come to some conclusions of my own. 1. This is one of my long list of dreaded and emotional questions: “Where is home”? 2. Because I cannot answer this question, I always feel homesick for somewhere else, even though I may not have even traveled to that “somewhere else” yet.
3.
I will not be able to stick to one place and call it home. There are just too many possible answers to the question. It is a multiple choice question with about fifteen choices and all could be right. I would have to circle the response, “All of the above.”
4. Home is when I am with people who understand me and accept me without my needing to explain myself. This can be with family, old friends, and new friends. Home is a group of special people. On a sunny afternoon several years ago, my final conclusion was validated as I arrived home. It was on a college campus at a World Reunion conference. Several of us had come to the conference from Las Americas Academy, my old boarding school from grade school years in Central America. Even though most of us did not know each other before the conference, we quickly bonded as a group. One afternoon several of us lay out under an old tree and watched the clouds drift by the tall buildings and reminisced about those days at Las. For a
couple of hours that afternoon on a strange campus, in a large, concrete city with new friends, I felt I had finally come home. So then, what is home? For me, home is a heart connection that you have with someone else. When this takes place, then I can truly say, “Home, Sweet, Home,” or “Mí casa es su casa,” and my heart smiles with the words, “Welcome home.” I can now answer the question, “Describe the type of heating system you had in your childhood home.” It was heated with a lot of love and memories from many sources.
Lois Bushong is an ATCK who has lived in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, and the United States.
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Journeying Back to the Future
Commemorating 25 Years of Missionary Kids Confronting Abuse in Mission Settings
Save the Date: May 1-3, 2020 Drury Plaza Hotel
Check our our website or Facebook page for more registration details. In May ofinformationand 1995, six adult missionary kids (MKs) went public in Pittsburgh to expose the abuse they had suffered at their boarding mksafetynet.org FB: MK Safety Net mksafetynet@gmail.com school in Guinea, West Africa. Their historic stand was the first public protest of abuse in a Protestant denomination. That effort led to the documentary All God’s Children and to the creation of MK Safety Net.
Advertise your business in Among Worlds!
Come stand with them a quarter of century later and to celebrate Email AWadvertising@interactionintl.org fora information current rates positive changes that have occurred and to learn about the challenges that lie ahead.
Check our website or Facebook page for registration details: mksafetynet.org
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
~ Gary Snyder
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FB: MK Safety Net
mksafetynet@gmail.com
We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there. ~ Pascal Mercier Night Train to Lisbon
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When your Heart Finds a Home By Marilyn Gardner
JONNY AND YASMIN WERE MARRIED ON A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN NEW PLYMOUTH, NEW ZEALAND. WHILE HINTS OF RAIN THREATENED IN THE MORNING, THE AFTERNOON WAS CLEAR AND SUNNY. IT WAS PERFECT.
Home eludes us and place betrays us until we exhaust ourselves and others with our quest.
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Yasmin is a kindred spirit and daughter of my dear friend, Jenny. She is years younger than I am, but through background and personality we have a definite and unique connection. Yasmin was first raised in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, an area known primarily because of Malala Yousafzai. Swat Valley is a ruggedly beautiful place with deep gorges and mountain streams that grow into rivers running over rocks. Swaying rope bridges connect mountains together high above these rivers. This is the same Swat Valley where the Taliban shot a 14-year-old girl because she was a threat, and the United States droned innocent civilians with one click because, surely among the many innocent, there would be one who was guilty. At the time, much of Swat was stunning, untouched terrain, and Yasmin’s family, the McGrane’s, were the only foreigners most people had ever met. While growing up, our family would vacation in Swat Valley, staying in a sturdy family tent or a rest house. When my husband and I lived in Pakistan with our first child, we, too, vacationed there, recording the trip through pictures taken of the two of us holding a baby and a toddler, steady as only the young can be on a rope bridge swaying high above a scenic river. I didn’t meet Yasmin in Pakistan. I met her when she was ten years old, and the family had moved to Egypt. Our families connected and developed a lasting friendship, challenged by miles of continents and oceans once we both left Cairo. I will never forget the night we left Egypt—a night when our hearts broke. The McGrane’s helped to pick up the pieces through a meal, talking, and a blessing through a hymn and a prayer. Yasmin and I have both had the experience of learning to live well in places where we don’t always feel we belong. Though years and continents apart, her adjustment back to New Zealand in her teen years parallels that of mine in America during my college years. Both of us alternate
between feeling at home and alien in our passport countries. After high school in Cairo and New Zealand, Yasmin went on to choose medicine as a profession and has already used her skills in resource-poor settings, largely because of her background. With this as our history, it was a gift to be a part of Yasmin’s wedding day. After a ceremony at a church, we went to an old barn that was beautifully decorated with lights, brass, and white linen. We ate curry and naan served out of large, brass dishes and danced until our legs ached. Speeches were given by those closest to the couple, and one minute we teared up while the next minute we were laughing. Because that is what life is—the poignant and the hilarious, the sacred and the ordinary all mixed up in a speech. It was when Yasmin spoke that I knew she had truly found her partner in life. As she looked at Jonny with the eyes of a bride on her wedding day, she said this: “In you, my heart has found a home.” For the third culture kid, global nomad, refugee, or immigrant, home takes on a life of its own. We search for it, we get angry about it, we try to find answers that will satisfy the questions we inevitably get, and we write about it. We talk about going home, but when we get there we
find that it is no longer the home that we knew, and we are disappointed once again. Home eludes us and place betrays us until we exhaust ourselves and others with our quest. “In you, my heart has found a home.” Yasmin has known many homes. Swat Valley, Peshawar, different places throughout New Zealand—but her words echoed what I know in my soul, even as I try to pretend that this is not true: Homes are not places, they are the people, places, memories, and events that span the globe. I said goodbye to Yasmin at the airport, honored that she wanted me to come with the family to see her off on her honeymoon. We waved goodbye from the terminal window, and my eyes were misty as she walked away with the man who has given her heart a home. I write this as I journey home from New Zealand. It has been a time of rest and warmth, and I am so grateful. I said goodbye to Jenny outside security and felt the familiar choking in my throat as I said goodbye, both of us tearful. I know that I will arrive in Boston and feel alien. Alien until I am greeted by the man who has made his home with me for the last 31 plus years—and in him, my heart will be at home.
Marilyn Gardner is the editor of Among Worlds magazine and has recently made her home in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. Marilyn is an ATCK who grew up in Pakistan and has lived in Egypt, Kurdistan, and the United States.
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Rituals of Separation: A South Korean Memoir of Identity and Belonging by Elizabeth Rice Reviewed By Cheryl Skupa The words of the poet, Minouk Kim, begin the book. “I am weeping, hugging a place as the protagonist of a tragedy. I am inventing rituals for, and keeping records of, moments of separation.” “Weeping, hugging a place” is an apt description of what Elizabeth Rice does in this book, both mourning and holding sacred all that she has experienced. “Keeping records of moments of separation” is the essence of this book, too—a beautifully written account of a third culture kid’s experience, including Elizabeth’s arrival in Korea as a nine month old, her first steps on Korean soil, her first words in Korean, to the day when she finds herself living in her passport culture feeling the simmering conflict of being raised and absorbed into a country and culture she is destined to leave.
With each year away from Korea it began to feel like my childhood was a setup. Mom and Dad took me to Korea as a baby. They told me it was our home. They worked to turn them into we. They sent me and Mark to Korean nursery school and kindergarten. They moved into a Korean Neighborhood. They gave their hearts to Korea. We stayed for sixteen years. And then we left. And I was supposed to just move on? I no longer had a home in South Korea, and I didn’t have a home in the U.S. I felt dropped into a country I didn’t understand, and I was living an adulthood I didn’t want to live (pp. 215-216).
Photo by Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash 18
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Elizabeth gracefully and lovingly narrates the details of her parents’ call. In September of 1966, the family packed up with their four kids, the youngest in diapers, and journeyed to a distant country still ravaged by a war which had split the peninsula, leaving scores of widows, orphans, amputees, rag pickers, tent dwellers, prostitutes, and black marketeers. Poverty was rampant, but Elizabeth’s parents instinctively believed that God was on the side of the poor and oppressed. The years to come would see them learn the language, work among prostitutes and poor women, and organize a group of dissidents who objected to the right-wing totalitarian regime of President Park, the de facto dictator. Elizabeth’s parents would come to understand their faith in terms of social justice, and their house would become the meeting center for like-minded foreigners and nationals. During these meetings, Elizabeth and her brothers often sat in the basement doing homework or watching Gunsmoke on Armed Forces TV, yet the activism of her family would seep into her psyche and affect her life. Not surprisingly, she would end up working towards social equality and justice both in the United States as well as Costa Rica and Zambia. Elizabeth also narrates the shifting identities and sympathies in her young life. As with many of us, Elizabeth experienced the paradoxical blessings of a third culture life—the acculturation which began in a Korean nursery school and kindergarten and continued through the growing friendship of a widow who worked for the family, the Seoul Foreign School that included an American curriculum, and the confluence of an ecumenical church and retreat grounds which catered to missionaries of all denominations. All these influences were grounded by Rice’s family who showed deep respect for their adopted culture. The book also moves between tragedy and comedy as she relates incidents of “coming home,” and the misconceptions and stereotypes she encounters in those she meets in the U.S. When I told people why I grew up in Korea I could see the stereotypes pop into the thought bubbles above their heads as soon as the words “missionary kid” left my mouth. They were creating scenes about my life based on The Poisonwood Bible. In fact, many people suggested I should read that book. Why would I want to read that book? I started to add information right away, scrambling to try and tell a more complex story. ‘Well, my parents were good missionaries,’ I would say to try and win points. “They were into social justice and worked for democracy’ ” (pp. 228-229). Elizabeth, like many of us, not only bore up under misguided attitudes and perceptions of her peers, but also experienced a mixed bag of responses from therapists. “One therapist looked at me with a quaint little frown face and said, ‘Awwww’” (p. 234)! Elizabeth works through her conflicting emotions and the ensuing depression the same way many of us have. She had that same watershed moment many third culture kids recognize when listening to David C. Pollock define the TCK experience that so accurately described her. Elizabeth also returns to her adopted culture and the places of her heart’s deepest longings, and becomes active in causes
that address injustice around the world. In one of the last chapters of the book, entitled Who Am I? she writes, Perhaps there is no way to ever settle this question. It’s impossible to take all the influences of my childhood and bend them towards one single line” (p. 250). In the end, she finds strength in the memories and in the wisdom of people, such as the theologian named Moon Tong-hwan, who explains his family’s journey through difficulty as Joy on the Way (p. 251).
TITLE RITUALS OF SEPARATION: A SOUTH KOREAN MEMOIR OF IDENTITY AND BELONGING AUTHOR ELIZABETH RICE EDITION ILLUSTRATED PUBLISHER TOJANG PRESS, 2016 ISBN 0692815899, 9780692815892 LENGTH 272 PAGES
Cheryl Scupa is an ATKC who has lived in Brazil, China, and the United States.
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By
Anne
Konig
The Omnipresent Issues o Home is associated with a geographical location. What does home mean to someone who has home everywhere?
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of Home and Identity
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It is 5 a.m., and I am sitting in a cafÊ at Frankfurt International Airport waiting for a flight that will bring me to the United States in a matter of hours. Eight hours! That is how long a healthy person sleeps at night, how long the train ride from Luxembourg to Hamburg takes, how long a typical day at school is. Eight hours and you can be on a different continent with a completely different culture. It’s nothing new: globalization is bringing people closer together, creating more intercultural relationships and complicating the meaning of home. Conventionally, home is associated with a geographical location. But what shapes home in a world that is more and more connected? What does home mean to someone who has home everywhere? How does a TCK define home? The more I thought about this question, the more it drove me nuts. I had touched upon an issue that is omnipresent in the lives of most TCKs the question about our roots, about what defines us, about where to go next. Identifying the mechanisms that create home is a challenging task, and answers vary greatly, depending on the interpretation of each individual. Many people define themselves by their culture, their country, their citizenship—it gives them a frame in which to work, something that supports and guides them. Many people who have this frame are not even aware of its presence. But TCKs are highly aware because it is not there. 22
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Talking to my TCK friends about their homes, it became obvious that what they called home was dependent on the perceptions of their up-bringing. Positive impressions led to connections while disappointing ones led to detachment.
Some TCKs are able to carry their homes and roots in their hearts; these people are true nomads, completely unattached to a certain country or culture or set of values and ideas. To them, the world is their home. Then there are other TCKs who, in spite of having the TCK lifestyle, can name one or two specific places that they are more attached to than to other places. These are places they try to visit as often as possible and will hope to return to someday. For some it might be a specific city, culture, language, or continent. For me it is Europe, in particular the French and German culture. Talking to my TCK friends about their homes, it became obvious that what they called home was dependent on the perceptions of their cultures. Positive impressions led to connections, while disappointing ones led to detachment. Many of my friends who experienced disappointments chose a place as home where they did not have these negative experiences. On the other hand, those who made positive connections to a place during a formative
part of their childhood often called those places home long after they had left. Academic institutions such as schools can also be important in shaping these impressions. People who went to certain types of school, such as international schools, are heavily influenced by the culture of these schools. I went to a school founded and organized by the European Union, and so I was exposed to a multicultural European community since I was young. Every day I went to a school where people were at least bilingual, where I took most of my classes in French or German, and where everyone was the European version of a TCK. The school helped me build an identity—a European identity. These experiences have made a bigger impression on me than I would have ever thought. Even TCKs who move regularly make a connection to something or somewhere. It can be the mix of culture fostered by their parents and family. Little things such as languages spoken within the family, or the presence
of books, magazines, or family traditions and history can help a TCK create an identity. With all of these factors contributing to home and identity, my conversations and experience tell me that it is the “home atmosphere” that represents comfort and support as well as a link to the culture of origin of the family—a constant in the ever-changing world of a TCK. While the foreign environments TCKs live in will have an impact on their identity, the culture lived by their family often forms the strongest building blocks.
Anne Konig is a German born in Brussels. She has lived in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, and the United States.
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Demystifying the “Where’s Home?” Question for Third Culture Kids By Taylor Murray
When Third Culture Kids and expats are asked the question, “Where’s home?,” a similar answer, or lack of answer, typically follows: Silence. A noticeable gulp. A panicked sequence of “Umm…” A weak laugh. An apologetic smile followed by an answer that could too easily be punctuated with a question mark. “Where’s home?” is probably the most-dreaded question asked of the globally-mobile. For TCKs who have moved countless times, the question is avoided with fear and trepidation. Here is a sneak peek behind the thought-process of most TCKs when asked “where’s home?” Our harried response is the result of what I describe as our “home-filter.”
with warm, sudsy water. She soon left to seat other customers. Sleepily, I struggled to keep my eyes open. “Hello.” A nonchalant welcome of an almost-imperceptible accent grabbed my attention. A Vietnamese nail-salon worker sat down in front of me. Wearing a fitted t-shirt and a pair of dark-wash jeans, he grinned as he grabbed a bottle of white nail polish and began shaking it vigorously. “You want a French?” he asked. I stared at him, his question refusing to register. “Umm… yes please,” I finally answered, face heating. He laughed and stared at me, a strange expression flitting across his face. Laughing again, he shrugged and grabbed a pair of nail clippers. A moment of awkward silence followed. He glanced up from his work, attempting small talk. “So where’s home?” My heavy eyelids snapped open. His strange expression now mirrored my own. Thoughts immediately began racing through my mind. How much time do I have?
TCKs’ Thought-Process Behind the Question “Where’s Home?”
What country am I in?
I recently visited the U.S. from Japan for seven weeks this spring. The day after I arrived, my aunt, sister, and I stopped in a small salon with the intention of a foot massage and French pedicure. Jetlag dragged my eyelids downward as a petite Vietnamese woman guided me to a cushioned spa chair and began filling the basin
Does he really want to know?
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Who’s asking?
Does he want me to tell him where I was born or my nationality?
Is he asking where I live now, used to live, or where I feel most at home?
Do I go with the easy answer or the complicated answer? How much energy do I have to explain?
Frustrated, part of me wanted to stomp my foot and scream, “I don’t know where my home is!” But instead, my eyes widened, I gulped, and my thought-process continued. Why can’t I have a normal, less-than-ten-second-answer to this question? Am I crazy? I flipped through my carefully-practiced, perfectly-neat, and unrealistically-short responses to “where’s home?” tucked in the back of my mind for moments like these. Japan? No. Ohio? No. Thailand? No. My home-filter ticked off answers. None seemed right. Tongue-tied, I smiled, mumbled an apology, and eventually responded, “That’s a really hard question to answer.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Why?” I cocked my head to the side, something in his gaze urging me to explain. I hesitated and took a deep breath, “I was born in the US, but my family and I moved to Hiroshima, Japan, when I was nine-years old…” Conversation exploded. He began describing his childhood in Vietnam, recounting his transition to the US. We shared similar emotions, experiences, and stories of returning to our home country. I explained the term ‘Third Culture Kid’ with enthusiasm. We connected over our struggle to define “home.” Like every other TCK I know, we possess a home-filter. Whenever we are asked the question “where’s home?” or “where are you from?” we immediately, and many times unknowingly, begin listing and eliminating possible responses to the question. We begin filtering our answer to home based on the interest of the person we are speaking with, the country in which we are currently, or the amount of time and energy we have. Navigating the Home-Filter as TCKs I have four sisters, and we each answer the question “where’s home?” completely differently. Our answers continually change. When my eight-year-old sister is confronted with the question, she blinks. She grins. And then she simply says, “Everywhere!” When I was asked “Where are you from?” a few years ago, I quickly answered “Japan” without thinking. The questioner’s eyes widened in surprise. “Your English is amazing!” she slowly complimented, confusing me as Asian despite my blonde hair and blue eyes. I stared at her, dumbfounded and utterly confused. TCKs’ answers to “Where is home?” are incredibly, and many times confusingly, unique. Instead of a concrete location we can easily define as home, we are connected and grounded in many cultures and countries. We must decide on an answer to the often-dreaded, yet commonly-asked, question. Time and time again, this highlights our difference and our ambiguous relationship to home.
Is answering the question “Where is home?” a factor in our struggle to define home as TCKs? And how does our automatic home-filter impact our identity? How the Home-Filter Impacts TCKs’ Identity In his book Arrivals, Departures, and the Adventures in Between, Chris O’Shaughnessy highlights his own struggle of determining the answers to where home is and where he is from. He writes, What does define us? What describes us? Is it our beliefs, customs, and the way we think and behave? Is it our language, likes, tastes, passions, and talents? Is it our history, nationality, worldview, and surroundings? Probably. That’s what makes identity such an endeavor to figure out. It’s messy, complicated, and ultimately quite beautiful. As TCKs, we must recognize that although our answer to ‘Where is home’ constantly changes, this does not make us homeless or rootless. It does not change who we are, our identity, or our background. Home-filters are not necessarily negative, but rather a coping mechanism. The fact that home continues to change is beyond our control. Despite its confusion and difficulty to explain, it is a defining factor of the globally-mobile. For most TCKs, home is a difficult word to answer because its meaning continues to evolve and change over time. And that’s okay. Accepting this ambivalence is key in order to use our difference as TCKs. Having a secure sense of who we are gives us inner peace when we are asked the question ‘Where’s home?’ It gives us confidence even when our home-filter begins racing. And it creates a sense of belonging when our answer to home keeps changing.
Taylor Joy Murray is a TCK who has lived in Germany, Japan, and the United States.
It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald JUNE 2019
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He looks away so that I don’t see the tears or the longing in his eyes. After a few seconds, he turns to look at me and says with a forced smile, “It would have been tough to go back, but I think not going back has proved to be even harder. Somehow, I lost all my family history overnight. We gave up our lands, our house, and just walked away from our lives there. But the pain of moving has never quite gone away.” At this point, my 70-year-old father brushes away his wistful look and says, “Now Pakistan is our home. I have come to terms with it a long time ago.” Daddy was born in 1947 in New Delhi, India. His parents hailed from the small Indian village of Sehaswan, about 150 miles north east from Delhi. The year of his birth was a turbulent one in the Indian sub-continent; one which witnessed the largest human migration in the world as 14 million people crossed the newly created international borders in search of a new home. The Partition of the Indian Sub-Continent
No Going Back By Mariam Ottimofiore
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After more than 200 years of British rule, the colonial power had decided to grant India its independence. But independence came at a cost—the partition of India into two countries: Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan. Like many families, my father’s family was forced to choose which country they wanted to live in and then make the tough migration amidst mass violence, communal rioting, and religious tensions leading to mass rape and murder, while the country they had known and loved split apart. Like a pomegranate being ripped open, only to find some seeds land in one half and the rest land in the other half, many families were torn apart and could never visit one another while living on the other side of the border. Diplomatic ties were severed as the two countries fought and waged three wars against each other in the years following independence. And Then My Grandparents Moved Too All four of my grandparents were born and raised in India. They spent their childhoods in Indian cities from Aligarh to Delhi to Panipat. My paternal grandparents went on honeymoon to the Indian hillside resort of Simla high up in the Himalayan mountains and gave birth to the first of their children on Indian soil. But after partition, they worked hard to build their lives in newly created Pakistan. And they worked even harder to forget their old lives. Moving countries, knowing you can never go back, not even for a visit, must be a strange feeling indeed. Growing up in Pakistan, I was painfully aware that all four of my grandparents had said goodbye to their home country and moved to a new country created for the likes of them. They
gave up their citizenships and they gave up their ancestral homes, all for the promise of a better and safer future. Each time they sat and reminisced about their previous lives, there was pain, nostalgia, and longing mixed in with their tales of sacrifice and adventures into the unknown. For the longest time, I only saw India through their eyes: a mythical land full of mango trees, huge havelis (private mansions), joint family systems, village bazaars, and a rural life full of delectable Mughal food, religious festivals, and ancestral fields. Perhaps because they had chosen their own destinies, they never stopped me from choosing mine. I will never forget the words my paternal grandmother, Ammi, said to me the day I left Pakistan as a 19-year-old teenager to pursue my dreams in the United States. “We came to this country to build a better future for our children and grandchildren. Now you’re leaving to create your own destiny. I hope you will be more successful than we were.” I often recall her words to this day. Her death in 2005 was one of the most painful moments of my life. I was stuck in Houston, Texas working a 70-hour week at an investment bank and could not get the approved time off to fly back to Pakistan for her funeral. The next few years saw the death of my maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather and each time I was living in a foreign country and not able to say that final goodbye. It was expat life truly at its worst and most cruel. I often wonder if my grandparents would have understood the life that I lead today—the one of a global nomad. The difference between them and me is that I am always able to go back to my previous homes in various cities and countries around the world. A recent trip to the Kingdom of Bahrain where I spent my initial childhood was one of my favorite travel experiences, because it felt meaningful to connect to a place that had been a part of my story. A trip back to Copenhagen or Berlin feels emotional and like a nostalgic trip down memory lane, but it also helps me to appreciate my journey and how far I’ve come. Expat, Migrant, Refugee: Tales of Displacement Any expat will tell you that it’s always a strange sensation to go back to a country in which you once lived, but just the mere act of going back releases a catharsis that those of us living a globally mobile lifestyle desperately need. Going back to a city in which we once lived is like revisiting a previous part of our own identity and who we were back then. It helps us appreciate our current journey. Going back often provides closure. Sometimes going back for a visit opens old wounds, too, and sometimes we view our previous experience through rose-tinted glasses, the privilege that hindsight affords us. And sometimes we yearn to go back in time, knowing fully well that returning to the same place again will be too complicated. This is the reason I recently said no to a second expat
assignment to Denmark. I loved living there, but if I go back, I know it won’t be the same, and somehow I just want to preserve my memories of the place as they are. So, What Happens When Moving Means No Going Back? Moving as a refugee, moving as an economic migrant or moving, for political asylum are very different experiences than moving as an expat, a diplomat, or a missionary. These journeys are full of danger and fear. These international experiences do not come with a paid airline ticket and four seats in economy class. These relocations are not helped by a relocation agency ready to provide support on the ground. There is no promised job waiting for you on the other side. No one is there to help you fill out applications for schools or residence permits. One of my closest friends in Denmark was the daughter of Afghan refugees who sought asylum in Copenhagen. When I mentioned I was from Pakistan, she commented, “Oh I lived for some time in Pakistan too—in a refugee camp.” I was stunned into silence. Her experience of my country was so different to the lavish style in which I had grown up surrounded by family, food, and countless luxuries. She fled her Afghani hometown of Jalalabad on a donkey across the Khyber Pass to Peshawar, Pakistan, and spent many years living in a makeshift refugee camp. She told me there was barely any clean drinking water there for days on end. I found I had suddenly no words to compare her experience of moving to mine. But the desire to understand her experience has only gotten stronger over the years. It is this desire that has led me to both write my own story, and also document the stories of others through writing and filming. Moving as refugees, asylum seekers, and economic migrants is the kind of moving that often does not get discussed in expat or third culture kid circles. Because how can anyone compare the two? How can the difficulties of making new friends or learning a new language compare to risking your life to flee in the search for safety and a better future? And yet, if we stop and listen for a while, the gaps can be bridged, and, just as with my friend in Denmark, friendships can be forged.
Mariam Ottimofiore is an ATCK who has lived in Denmark, Germany, Ghana, Pakistan, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
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Where Will Among Worlds Take You! Among Worlds magazine is open to submissions for the following themes! Email your nonfiction stories, poetry, photos, and graphics to Among Worlds at AWsubmissions@interactionintl.org. We can’t wait to see what you have for us. Upcoming submission windows: Communication: Our Languages & Our Lexicons Submission Deadline July 15, 2019
Journeys: From Here to There & Back Again Submission Deadline September 15, 2019
Celebrations: What, How, & Where We Celebrate Submission Deadline December 15, 2019
Kintsugi: The Art of Repairing the Broken Submission Deadline March 15, 2019
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