Call Me American

by Abdi Nor Iftin

  After a stop in Ethiopia we landed in Frankfurt, where I had to change planes. That airport was so huge I freaked out for a moment trying to connect with my flight to Boston. We had to take a bus to the departure gate on the other side. Again I boarded Lufthansa, the biggest airplane I ever saw. Again I had a window seat. An American lady with her teenage daughter sat next to me. After takeoff they shut their eyes and acted like the flight was boring. I was awake; I could not take my eyes off the window and the screen in front of me that showed where we were. At some point we were flying over the United Kingdom; I looked down, and I could see water and what seemed like a city. Then all was blue for hours and hours.

  * * *

  —

  My heart was beating fast as the plane banked over downtown Boston and descended to Logan Airport. My face was glued to the window as I looked at the skyscrapers of America, then the blue waters of the Atlantic. Even though we were going down, I felt like I was going up to heaven. When the wheels bumped on the runway, I couldn’t control myself. “I am in America!” I shouted.

  Even the bored lady next to me found a way to smile. “Welcome!” she said.

  As we taxied to the gate, I thought of my brother in Kenya, my mom on the dusty streets of Mogadishu waiting for the good news, my friends in the tea shop in Little Mogadishu who applied for the visa lottery when I forced them, all the while assuring me it was hogwash. But I had no thought of saying “I told you so.” I was overwhelmed with joy, with tears melting down my cheeks.

  Exiting the plane felt like a historic moment, like when the first man walked on the moon. I wondered if gravity felt different in America, but it seemed about the same as in Africa. People poured out of the flight; they were in some sort of a hurry. It seemed like everyone knew what to do and they knew where they were going. I just felt like standing there and watching everything. I looked around the immigration hall. So far no Hollywood, no Disney World, no Statue of Liberty or Harvard University, not even Walmart or KFC. I saw people who looked a little like Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Eddie Murphy, Oprah, or Tom Cruise, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. But I was not the only stranger there. A group of Asians speaking a strange language were lined up in front of me. People of other colors were everywhere. A black man right behind me in the line was glued to his phone.

  “Hi!” I said.

  “Hello.” To my surprise he had a thick African accent.

  “I’m from Somalia. Where are you from?”

  “Nigeria,” he replied, barely looking up from his phone.

  It was the first time in my entire life I saw a Nigerian. He told me he had lived in America for ten years.

  So many different kinds of people in America! I expected big, muscly white guys to be in charge at the airport, like the marines I knew from Mogadishu. But lots of the airport staff were Asian, short with round faces. As the line moved on slowly, I gazed up at the huge television screens flashing the news:

  …actor Robin Williams has committed suicide…

  …violent protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, after the killing of a black man…

  It was a police officer who shot the man, but people were protesting, taking to the streets. Although many Americans might not be happy with things in the United States, to me the protests were just a sign of freedom that people can get out onto the streets and show their unhappiness. Kenyan police would have killed Somalis who dared to protest in Little Mogadishu.

  When it was my turn, an officer asked me some questions and handed me a form to fill out. I had to choose between being African, African American, Hispanic, or Caucasian. This threw me at first because I had never thought of myself as African. In Somalia we identify ourselves by our tribes.

  An officer led me into a room where a nice American lady took my fingerprints and photo. She had blue eyes and blond hair, and she said my official green card would arrive at my address in Maine. “Welcome to the United States!” she said warmly. Everything was very quiet, official, and businesslike in the airport, not like all the chaos and shouting in African airports, and I wondered if all of America was this serious. But when I finally walked through the doors from the immigration hall into the terminal, I flinched from the sudden rush of activity. People were everywhere, holding signs, wheeling suitcases, hugging relatives. Now I was really in America! Somewhere out there in the crowd were Sharon McDonnell and her daughter, Natalya, both trying to catch sight of me. Then I saw them; they were holding a sign that said “Abdi Iftin.” Sharon had straight shoulder-length blond hair, and Natalya a dark ponytail. We met and I stooped to hug them. Both were so much shorter than I imagined, not like Americans in the movies or the marines in Mogadishu. They looked up at me with huge smiles. “Welcome!” said Sharon. “Let’s take you to your new home.”

  We left through a huge revolving door to the curbside. My first moment breathing the fresh air of America! Except it smelled like diesel fumes right there, not much different from Africa. I ducked down and kept my eyes fixed on Sharon, this small person who had changed my life forever. I was looking at her like she was superhuman—not superhuman like the comic-book heroes I saw in movies but in some other way that was maybe even stronger. We took some pictures; I bounced from place to place asking for shots.

  In truth I was also a little scared. A Somali living with a white family could be known as a converted person, someone who left the culture and Islam. What would my family and friends think? What if Sharon had a dog? What if the dog licks and sniffs me? How would I behave?

  We got into the car. I sat in the backseat, still curious about the gleaming city of Boston, when Sharon said, “You need to put on your seat belt.”

  I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Sharon and Natalya laughed and showed me how to buckle up. “You need to do this every time you get in a car,” said Sharon. “It’s the law.” I couldn’t believe I was in a place where people actually obey laws. Also I had never seen a female driver in my life, except in movies.

  We left the airport on a busy divided road out of Boston heading up to Maine. I saw lots of big stores and restaurants. I saw a restaurant called Kowloon shaped like some kind of South Pacific island hut, but it was like no hut in Somalia; it looked larger than the huge Isbaheysiga mosque in Mogadishu. Next came some kind of cowboy place with a neon cactus sign as tall as buildings in Nairobi. I kept thinking, “Here I am in a car in America with friends who helped me and my family even though we are not in their tribe or even the same religion.” This was an aspect of humanity very new to me. I sat quietly as we drove and tried to make sense of it.

  Night fell slowly and late, it was past eight o’clock and still some light. We kept driving through the twilight, zooming by more huge shops and parking lots, now blazing under blue lights. Soon there were fewer lights and buildings, more trees. I rolled down my window to get a better flavor of America, the cool late-summer wind slapping my face. When we pulled off the highway for gas and some food, I ordered a cheeseburger for my first American dinner. With a full tank we were off on the road again, this time Natalya driving. Sharon talked about the weather, how the trees will change colors, how snow will fall, Thanksgiving, Christmas. They already had plans for all these events.

  Finally we pulled up in their driveway. Sure enough, at the door we were greeted by their dog, named Lacy. She jumped all over me, licking. Dog saliva is considered impure to Muslims, so now I was definitely getting butterflies in my stomach. I froze with fear.

  “She’s friendly,” said Natalya. “She’s just excited.”

  The two cats, Tigger and Jasmin, did not even bother waking up from their naps. But the dog followed me upstairs to my room and jumped on the bed. When Sharon and Natalya said good night, I wondered if the dog would leave me. She stayed there. I couldn’t sleep with a dog in my room, it was too scary, so finally I got her out and shut the door.

  I was too excited t
o sleep, but fortunately the morning came soon: five o’clock and it was already light. America seemed quiet, not like the streets of Mogadishu or Little Mogadishu. I watched the morning light filter into my room from the large window overlooking the driveway and then got up to look outside. A herd of deer grazed like camels just beyond the cars. As they moved on across the lawn and vanished into the tall trees, the sun appeared between the branches where squirrels were playing. So the window faced east; now I knew which way to pray. The walls of my room were painted white and blue, strange colors for walls, which are always the color of mud in Africa. The ceiling was so flat and perfect; how do they do that? The house was built in the nineteenth century, but to me it looked brand new. There was a dial on the wall to adjust the heat. The room was obsessively neat: somebody’s clothes hung perfectly in the closet, not draped over a frayed clothesline like in an African hut, and pictures of birds and flowers in gold frames hung on the wall. A sculpture of Buddha sat quietly on the floor. I didn’t know who Buddha was, but I soon learned Sharon and her family believed in Buddhism.

  Outside, tiny fast hummingbirds dove from a tree to a bird feeder for a quick drink of nectar. They were no bigger than African bugs, and I watched them for a while, wondering if they were ever killed by cats. The only sound coming from outside was a chime softly ringing in the gentle wind. This room seemed way too big for just me, probably double the size of the room my brother and I shared in Nairobi.

  I got dressed and went down to see the family.

  “Let’s help you fix your first American breakfast,” said Sharon. The breakfast would be milk, eggs, and toast. They had lots of eggs from their chickens. “And also there’s lots of leftovers in the refrigerator,” she said. I did not know Americans ate leftovers. The refrigerator was packed with leftover soup, rice, eggs, pasta, juice, sauce, everything. Drawers were full of food. There were crackers, granola, dog food, and cat food. There was food everywhere in the kitchen. The living room was full of books and magazines. There was a big red couch to sit on and read. A nice porch and a big Apple computer. I went on and updated my Facebook posts. This time I didn’t need Photoshopped pictures of me in America; I used actual pictures we took at Logan the night before. My friends commented with questions like “Are u living with a Christian family?” “Are you going to convert?”

  * * *

  —

  My orientation started with using the oven and the toaster. I had seen kitchens in movies, but I never thought I would use such things. I learned how to warm things from the “fridge” using the microwave. Soon I learned about the dishwasher, the clothes washer, the dryer, which food goes where in the refrigerator. I learned how to measure things in inches and pounds, not meters and kilograms. I learned to leave tips at restaurants. And I was learning new English words every day, starting with “closet,” “vacuum,” “the vet,” “chicken coop,” “the barn,” “mowing,” and all different types of food.

  I met Gib, Sharon’s husband, the most easygoing person I have ever come across. He is short and thin, and his deep blue eyes miss nothing. He seems to think very carefully before he says anything, and he likes things to be in order. Gib teaches postgraduate epidemiology at the University of New Hampshire in Manchester. Before he went out to “run errands,” he asked me, “Is there anything you want me to get you from the grocery store?” He spent his leisure time doing things around the house. He would disappear into the basement and work on electric wires, or out to the yard putting up a fence.

  In Africa it is unusual for a man to know how to cook, but Gib cooked great meals—fried rice, guacamole, and the most delicious cakes. When we went together to buy groceries, we stopped at a drive-up window for coffee takeout. Gib explained how the speaker box worked. “There is a real person talking, even though we can’t see them,” he explained. It seemed like ordering food on a mobile phone, which I learned you could also do.

  I could not get a job in the United States until my Social Security card and green card arrived. While I waited, the McDonnell-Parrish family offered me a job in their house. I would cut and stack firewood for the winter. I fed the horse, cleaned the stall and the chicken coop, watered plants, cleared fallen branches from the driveway. I spent all day working outside and came in only for a quick break for lunch of a sandwich and some orange juice. They paid me ten dollars an hour. I worked every day of the week and earned over six hundred dollars, but it went fast. After buying a bike, some new clothes, work gloves, and goggles for splitting firewood, I had enough left for my daily treat of doughnuts and coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts. At night I would relax by browsing on Netflix and watching movies.

  I woke up every day enjoying work, and there was always something to do; even clearing spiderwebs from the barn was a job the family had long wanted to do. Natalya was scared of spiders, but years earlier I had cleared spiderwebs for Falis in her video shack, so I was prepared.

  Natalya was a senior at Yarmouth High School, but this was still summer break, so she and I walked miles every day through town. As we walked, I waved to drivers passing by, and they waved back or smiled. Natalya told me some people in America are racists. I was not sure what racism was; all I knew was hatred and bigotry from Kenya, and that was not about skin color. She took me around to meet the neighbors so everyone would know me and not dial 911 when I walked around. We played soccer and video games and went on shopping trips to L.L.Bean in Freeport. Natalya described me as her adopted brother to everyone. She had not had someone at home to hang out with since her older brother, Morgan, moved to California; now she again enjoyed doing things with a brother. One day she posted a photo of me on social media holding my favorite chocolate chip vanilla ice cream, describing me as her older brother. My Somali friends started calling me on the phone, in shock. One said, “Have you lost your mind? You can’t make her a sister unless she is Muslim.”

  * * *

  —

  Weeks passed. Fall came. The sun was setting and rising more like in Somalia around six, but it was getting much colder than it ever does in Somalia. The leaves on the trees were turning golden and red; I had never seen such colors on trees. In the house people talked about the weather, food, vacations, books, and movies. There was always something going on. But today we were talking about Halloween, which was in two days, and the huge pumpkin was at the doorstep. I got oriented about tricks and treats and wearing costumes. Sharon gave me a list of funny characters I could choose to be. I picked Spider-Man because I knew him from the DVDs I had watched in Africa, but other characters on the list were strange to me. Me in my Spider-Man costume and Natalya in her Victorian ghost costume, we visited neighbors’ houses for trick-or-treating. It felt a little weird because not many adults were dressed in costumes, but the neighbors filled my small bag with sweets.

  I never heard of changing the time on clocks—I thought the time is what it is—but one Sunday morning everybody went around the house setting the clocks an hour back, and suddenly it was getting dark really early. Soon Thanksgiving was coming. When the day finally arrived, we had ten people around the table, mostly relatives. Everyone wanted to meet me, the new member of the McDonnell-Parrish family. We had turkey, sweet potato soufflé, apple pie, ice cream—so much food. I almost forget what it was like to be so hungry you are in physical agony. Almost. I couldn’t believe I was sitting at a large table surrounded by white people with glasses of beer in their hands, and I was like one of them. They talked about American football, TV shows they had seen, and hiking and other trips they did. They talked about their animals, their families. I watched and learned. I talked about my life, my story, and my new life in Maine.

  * * *

  —

  I watched from across the street as the mailman dropped envelopes into the box every day. The idea of mail was so strange; even stranger was that it would be delivered to your house instead of your waiting in a line somewhere and paying a bribe, but I was getting
used to it. I ran to grab the mail as soon as the mailman came, checking to see if my name was on anything. Mostly it was shopping catalogs, funny to look through and see all the things you could buy without even going to a store. I didn’t want to shop. I was waiting for my green card.

  When it finally arrived, I wanted to just tear open the envelope, but I was careful not to rip the card inside. It turned out the card was hard plastic and not so easy to rip. The card had a computer image of me, the picture they took at Logan Airport, next to a picture of the Statue of Liberty. It said “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” and “PERMANENT RESIDENT.” Me and the Statue of Liberty, permanent residents.

  My Social Security card came soon after, which meant I could work and buy a car. Most important, it was the first step to my goal of becoming a citizen of the United States of America.

  * * *

  —

  Meanwhile, back in Somalia, neighbors poured into my mom’s shack in the Eelasha camp to congratulate her on my arrival in the United States. They treated her like she’d hit the jackpot. Distant relatives who had always avoided Mom were practically moving in, waiting for her to promise them something. But she had not received a penny from me. She expected money the day after I arrived, but weeks passed and I had not sent a dollar, because I could not find a job, and I had already spent the money I earned from housework. Sharon and Gib were so generous in giving me a place to stay and free meals, but once I had cleaned everything around their property, there wasn’t much more work I could do for them. I had my green card, but I was short on “greenbacks,” another new word.