America, among others

So all my lobes are finally in the same timezone, give or take a few hours. I apologize for the hiatus. This is going to be long, and possibly confusing post. To aid things a little, the sections below follow a chronological order, from the neverending airport transits to my first official weekend since I start my au pair work in the States.

***

35, 000 feet up in the air is a great place for putting things into perspective. For example, I was struck with how incredibly lonely I was, never mind that I was sandwiched among many other Chinese (as in, they’re really from China), who managed to remain a bustling population even in a crammed United airplane.

It was one big “oh shit” moment, with the added disadvantage of having an echo.

The flight was 11 hours too long. My behinds may have evolved due to sheer environmental pressure, and the lobes of my brains feel like they’re operating from different time zones as my mind refuses to believe it is subjected to pests like jet lags. I tried readjusting my anatomy to fit the chair (which, surprisingly, is more comfortable than the MAS seats) so that I can get some snooze, but this proves to be an uphill battle as sleeping horizontally turns out to be a habit too hard to break. I sampled the infamous United Airlines food, and well, all I have to say is I’ve never tasted rice this crunchy.

On the whole, I was calmer than I expected. The panic is pacified by a mad fascination for all things strange and new around me, and I cannot risk the anxiety exploding now, lest I break down beyond repair.

Time and again, though, the thought floated in my mind – I’m all alone. I find it hard to believe that my parents, my sister, my boyfriend and my friends are half the globe away, living different lives in different time zones. I looked at the passengers around me, mostly families, some friends and at least one PDA-prone couple (right in front of me, like it doesn’t hurt enough already), and wondered what the hell I was doing there.

But then again, I can’t imagine myself back home typing either.

As I touched down and saw the airport sign “Welcome to San Francisco”, I smiled and patted my 17-year-old self in the back. Welcome, indeed. We’ve come a long way, and we are finally here, in the USA.
(Actually, what I really said to my 17-year-old self was “ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG THIS IS, LIKE, SUPER AWESOME! We made it! *squeals, hyperventilates, faints*”)

And then it sank in. I felt like crying. I’m in the USA, alone, out of my comfort zone. Now what?
I suppose I’ll just use my tried and tested formula – figure it out as I go along. Right now, I do not dare to think ahead. Everything is just so raw – the accent around me, the American flags, the foreign brands, the price tags that start with “$”, and the difficult goodbyes back at KLIA.

To be frank, I don’t even feel like myself. I looked at the foreigners around me and had to remind myself that now, I’m the foreigner. Only I don’t feel that foreign. I just feel like I walked right into a Hollywood movie, albeit one that does not have drop dead gorgeous Americans at every turn. Sometimes, I suspect that the one typing this now is just a figment of my imagination, born out of my bored mind in my real body playing Sims in the stuffy, messy room back home.

But I’m here. Really here. In San Francisco - a place I have always dreamed to be at but never really believed that it would come true. The funny thing is, on our way to KLIA, my dad told me that my great granddad had also embarked on the same journey to San Francisco as a slave, though he never quite made it (he got cheated and landed in London instead).

I’m here, great-grand dad. I never knew you, but it’s cool how a dream can resonate through several generations.

Well, here’s a little weather report: San Francisco is actually 17 degree Celcius now, despite being right smack in the middle of summer. Cool eh? Okay, even the lame me have to admit that that was a desperate pun.

Next up: Au Pair orientation programme, where I meet au pairs from all over the world. *dies*

***

Au Pair orientation was last week. It was fascinating to meet so many people from so many parts of the world. All of a sudden I have friends aplenty with names I can’t pronounce. The whole orientation was like a walking dream, its surreal-ness facilitated by the jetlag, and the fact that I was surrounded by gorgeous German and Brazillian supermodels with legs that go on forever (what do their mommies feed them?).

I also had never been in a room where so many different languages were being spoken. Scratch that – I have never been in a room where so many different languages that I don’t understand were being spoken.

The three days in New Jersey went by in a swoosh, while my lethargic body struggled to keep up. Powered by sheer momentum, I lurched through a hectic mix of classes and getting to know new pals and TRIPS TO NEW YORK CITY *hyperventilates*. It was really tiring, but really fun. Everyone was friendly and open, which was awesome and a huge relief to the lone Malaysian – me.

And then orientation came to an end. I found myself waiting by the shuttle to Newark Airport again with two luggages, a couple of postcards bearing the glories of NYC, and three notebook pages worth of contact details from new friends.

I taste panic. I’m only two domestic flights away from the place I will be living for the year. No time for emotions though. We were ushered onto the shuttle, and we’re off.

Closing my eyes, I chanted the most important thing I learnt from the orientation – This year is what you make out of it.

***

My first week in California was filled with warmth, kindness, excitement, kids screaming, cultural differences, irritation, driving on the wrong side (or, if you must, the right side) of the road, kids saying hilarious things, more kids screaming, au pair friends to the rescue and, lo and behold, kids screaming – in that order. Slot a few secret tears shed in the bedroom, and you have basically gotten a pretty accurate summary.

I will, in all probability, survive.

On a sunnier note, the weather here is awesome. Sure, the summer sun is piercing to the skin, but the air remains cool. It’s like walking around with an air-conditioner attached to your waist. They don’t even use fans here! Come night, the air is so chilly that I usually jump straight into my comforter.

So if you see a freak wearing a jacket (usually with a pair of twins in tow) walking under the blinding afternoon sun, do wave. It would most likely be me.

***

I escaped from a household full of screams into another house full of screams.

The second one was punctuated by laughter, though, which was a nice change.

It was the much awaited weekend and I followed an au pair friend to a Guatemala birthday party in Oakland. The baby daughter of her friend is celebrating her first birthday.

Before we started our journey, the au pair warned me, “Oakland is not a very good neighbourhood. Not like the place we live.”

Gulp.

But we went anyway, because just staying at home (where peace is pretty much volatile too) day after day would be a little like a death sentence in itself. I didn’t travel this far to be a chicken.
And boy, I’m glad I went.

True, Oakland seems more run-down than the “rich” neighbourhood we au pairs live and work in. The houses are modest and more tightly packed, and the streets unkempt and narrow. We reached the home where the birthday party was held, and I noticed the bare backyard, save for a Dora the Explorer bouncing house that was rented for the afternoon celebration. Back in the city we are in, the backyards of the houses have lush trees and plants, humongous flowers and at times, a fountain gushing away like nobody’s business (except the gardener, of course. And the fountain dealer.).

The party was simple and homely. While everyone spoke Spanish around me, the family warmth and camaraderie around me touched my heart deeper than comprehension can. We had home cooked rice and salsa meat, which was awesome stuff. Gosh, I miss simple rice-and-vege meals.

You would not believe my agony of seeing this picture now. I crave rice with gravy!
(and yes, in the States you eat rice with a fork. Go figure.)

I also sampled Guatemalan’s equivalent of bread. It was sticky (like our kuih back home) and made of corn – there wasn’t much taste to it (which is a relief to my tongue, considering that American food is either too sweet or too salty or too cheesy). My au pair friend told me that this is the typical food the Guatemalans eat for breakfast, and other meals too. Thanks to my ailing memory, I cannot remember its name -.-“

One thing that really amazed me and the other au pairs is how wonderful the kids were at the party. No one threw a tantrum. And they seem quite capable of having fun for an hour without running to mummy about a boo-boo (a wound, or a bump, or a tiny scratch, or at times, nothing at all) every five minutes. Sure, they made a lot of noise in the bouncing house, but those are playful, healthy noises. There were little whines, no fights, and no adults chasing a kid around.

The mood was light with the warmth of friendship and family. Contagious laughter rang all around, punctuated by staccatos of Spanish. Some of them tried to speak to me with the little English they know, while I struggled to reciprocate with the limited amount of Spanish vocabulary that I know (like two – hola and gracias).

An ear-to-ear grin, however, bridged all cultural gaps.

So there I was, a lone Chinese in the midst of Guatemalans and Mexicans who speaks in a strange tongue, in a possibly “dangerous” neighbourhood. The funny thing is, I felt more at home there than in the modern, “safe”, English-speaking city that I currently live in.

Bare in luxuries, bountiful in love – gracias, my Guatemalan host, for reminding me the simple happiness of being in a family.