The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2010

I am a girl, a girl named Al. I like cream cheese, but I am not carved from it. I was born in Copenhagen but lived the longest part of my life in Peshawar, sometimes traveling through tribal areas in Afghanistan. I remember Pak- istan through brief images. When I arrived, I was covered in flower garlands. Layers of pink and white flowers surrounded my face, burying me so that all I could see was a patch of blue sky. I was awakened each day by the loud speaker of a mosque announcing the call to prayer, and rode to school in a bulletproof car next to men driving horsecarts while dust motes danced around me. I continued my travels, moving to Sri Lanka and Jamaica, visiting sur- rounding countries, changing airplanes like I changed my clothes. I’ve walked the clean streets of Singapore, the out- back of Australia, the wet canal path- ways of rural England and the bustling avenues of Paris. I’ve seen wild elephants and ele- phant orphans, hog deer and rhinos, and walked through the territory of a tiger at night withmy sister to get to my hotel room with nothing but a flash- light. I’ve watched Caribbean sunsets andWelsh sunrises, the colors blending like an artist’s palette. I have been in the palace of the Liv- ing Goddess in Nepal and in the Tem- ple of the Buddha’s Tooth in Sri Lanka, and experienced the grandeur of the Taj Mahal in India. I’ve seen countless temples and forts amid the aroma of dust and heat, watching mischievous monkeys steal cameras from unsus- pecting tourists. I’ve seen multiple distant mountain ranges that seemed familiar to me, and tasted sweet oranges on the mountain passes of Pakistan along the Grand Trunk Road. I’ve swerved to miss goats and cowherding donkeys on the roads of Jamaica. I’ve held turtle hatchlings and set them free in the Indian Ocean under a banner of stars. I learned to scuba-dive in an Aus- trian duchess’s pool at Blue Lagoon in Jamaica, and to ride a horse on a tiny farm in a rainforest. I have trekked across the Himalayas on paths that are now unsafe for Americans to traverse, swimming in a pool at the summit of one on Christmas Eve. I’ve ridden elephants in Sri Lanka, through jungles teaming with life unor- dinary. I have stayed at the residences of royalty, enjoying tea and spending nights under the roof of a princess in the snowcapped mountains of Swat. I have touched the coarse fur of a camel as I rode it, and swayed upon the undulating back of a water buffalo. I played upon the real Little Mermaid at age 2, and knew the Khyber Pass at age 4. I’ve snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef, seen the Eiffel Tower by moon- light and witnessed the changing of the guard at BuckinghamPalace. I met the Jamaican bobsled team, and had an Olympic swim coach. I swam at a beach where there were signs posted warning of the possibility of land mines and once had a bomb explode a block from my house. As a mentor for my school, I have been trained to recognize that diversity is not just skin color or a person’s her- itage, but also the sum of one’s activi- ties and experiences. I don’t know how many Swedish-Irish-Scottish-Austrian- Native Americans there are, but I do know that no one grocery store sells all my favorite foods. I am a Third Culture Kid. ■ Theresa Alison Smyth, 21, daughter of Foreign Service parents Richard H. Smyth and Janice S. Smyth (retired), died on Feb. 28 after a long illness. This essay, which she wrote in 2005, was read at her memorial service. Layers of pink and white flowers surrounded my face, burying me so that all I could see was a patch of blue sky. 88 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 R EFLECTIONS I Am a Girl B Y T HERESA A LISON S MYTH