When I heard the thick accented Arabic pronunciation of “Ali” instead of the very Pakistanized pronunciation of “Ali”, I knew I was home. The corners of my smile almost touched my ear lobes, meaning I was smiling from ear to ear. As I boarded my flight SV 733 from Lahore to Riyadh, I literally felt like holding the Saudi Airline crew in a hearty embrace to express my happiness and gratitude towards returning back to the land of the Saudis…or more precisely the land where my heart dwelled.
Now it has just been three days since I arrived here, the country where I opened my eyes, cried for the first time, learned how to walk, went to school and graduated from. Each grain of sand in this arid zone of the Middle East held a memory to it. The warm sun, the golden sands, the unbreakable silence, the lazing camels, the flock of random sheep in the dunes, the palm trees… all seemed to be welcoming me with open arms. The blue and green sign boards with Arabic directions and labels all seemed to be glowing a little too much. The policemen in their earthen-toned uniforms were familiar faces. The dry and rusky leaves of palm trees seemed to bow down and sweep the sand off the road to make way for me. Each gust of wind blew sand grains here and there, rearranged the dunes and shaped the desert into another memory from my past. As I watched caravans of camels being led by a Bedouin, I felt as if this were a pictorial model of how my memories from Saudi Arabia followed me around the world for the past two months… as I wait over here to start another phase of my life, I’m forced to scrutinize my surroundings and learn from them. Currently, I’m the only one in the kingdom; none of my friends is here yet. This gives me more free time to ponder over stuff that I would so conveniently dismiss as crap otherwise. College starts in December and I leave this kingdom again in November to settle into Islamabad, my future home. So many premonitions, apprehensions, fears, excitement, and expectations make me giddy. I’m sure that other than that massive luggage I will be hurling from King Fahd International Airport to Islamabad International Airport, I will be carrying a baggage full of the fondest memories that I had related to this place I called home for eighteen years of my existence. I was born here, in Jubail, on February 17, 1990…I learned how to talk and walk, I grew and lost all my baby teeth here…I learnt the alphabet, memorized nursery rhymes and perfected my hand writing amidst this heat and sands. From a baby, I became a girl and from a girl, a woman. Everything took place here. I made friends, enemies, acquaintances of all kinds. I enjoyed the best part of my life, my school life, in this very country. Each time I think about my life, I can’t do without thinking about this wonderful country I was part of since the very beginning. The pettiest things bug me… Will I find Al-Marai yoghurts and laban in superstores in Pakistan? Will I ever see camels walking with such pride on roads? Will I ever make the same kind of friends like I had in school in here? Will I have the same kind of friendly teachers like I did back in school? Questions attack me from all sides. Seriously, thinking has no bounds…
The other day I just glanced at my calendar and noticed all the scrawny criss-crosses and circles indicating important dates. Although all the marked dates had passed by one by one, I saw them as a vivid reminder of how fast things were moving forward around me. I felt like one of the grains of sand that a simple gust wind could displace wherever it pleased. A grain, which shone under the sun, but seldom, was visible to anyone else. A grain that sometimes settled on a Bedouin’s brow, sometimes on a camel’s hump, or sometimes on a metal flask of pure boiling Saudi coffee...
Now it has just been three days since I arrived here, the country where I opened my eyes, cried for the first time, learned how to walk, went to school and graduated from. Each grain of sand in this arid zone of the Middle East held a memory to it. The warm sun, the golden sands, the unbreakable silence, the lazing camels, the flock of random sheep in the dunes, the palm trees… all seemed to be welcoming me with open arms. The blue and green sign boards with Arabic directions and labels all seemed to be glowing a little too much. The policemen in their earthen-toned uniforms were familiar faces. The dry and rusky leaves of palm trees seemed to bow down and sweep the sand off the road to make way for me. Each gust of wind blew sand grains here and there, rearranged the dunes and shaped the desert into another memory from my past. As I watched caravans of camels being led by a Bedouin, I felt as if this were a pictorial model of how my memories from Saudi Arabia followed me around the world for the past two months… as I wait over here to start another phase of my life, I’m forced to scrutinize my surroundings and learn from them. Currently, I’m the only one in the kingdom; none of my friends is here yet. This gives me more free time to ponder over stuff that I would so conveniently dismiss as crap otherwise. College starts in December and I leave this kingdom again in November to settle into Islamabad, my future home. So many premonitions, apprehensions, fears, excitement, and expectations make me giddy. I’m sure that other than that massive luggage I will be hurling from King Fahd International Airport to Islamabad International Airport, I will be carrying a baggage full of the fondest memories that I had related to this place I called home for eighteen years of my existence. I was born here, in Jubail, on February 17, 1990…I learned how to talk and walk, I grew and lost all my baby teeth here…I learnt the alphabet, memorized nursery rhymes and perfected my hand writing amidst this heat and sands. From a baby, I became a girl and from a girl, a woman. Everything took place here. I made friends, enemies, acquaintances of all kinds. I enjoyed the best part of my life, my school life, in this very country. Each time I think about my life, I can’t do without thinking about this wonderful country I was part of since the very beginning. The pettiest things bug me… Will I find Al-Marai yoghurts and laban in superstores in Pakistan? Will I ever see camels walking with such pride on roads? Will I ever make the same kind of friends like I had in school in here? Will I have the same kind of friendly teachers like I did back in school? Questions attack me from all sides. Seriously, thinking has no bounds…
The other day I just glanced at my calendar and noticed all the scrawny criss-crosses and circles indicating important dates. Although all the marked dates had passed by one by one, I saw them as a vivid reminder of how fast things were moving forward around me. I felt like one of the grains of sand that a simple gust wind could displace wherever it pleased. A grain, which shone under the sun, but seldom, was visible to anyone else. A grain that sometimes settled on a Bedouin’s brow, sometimes on a camel’s hump, or sometimes on a metal flask of pure boiling Saudi coffee...
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