The Foreign Service Journal, December 2005

92 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 5 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT lor make it for you for next to noth- ing? Even down to covering 50 tiny buttons with the same white silk to go down the slit that went up one of your legs? Where else could you walk home at five in the morning through the city with your friends, listening to the exotic squawking and calling of the birds waking up for the day? “Where else could you hop on a train wearing a cashmere throw and sandals on a cold, fog-enshrouded December morning with your pals and head for a hill station where at night there was no electricity, so you saw every single star in the heavens, and then some? Where else could you go on a tiger safari at a game preserve and feel the large elephant you are riding trembling under you as the beaters corner a tiger in the bushes? “Where else do you and your best friend discover that the gardener has secretly been growing marijuana plants among the tomatoes in the family garden plot in the back yard? Where else do you observe a solar eclipse one day that has the entire nation paralyzed with fear ... yet you are out gallivanting and climbing water towers in your neighborhood with your best pals? Where else could you jump off the second-story balcony of a luxury hotel into its swimming pool with all your clothes on and not get arrested?” Although she knew, intellectually, that India had changed in 14 years just as she had, in her heart she wanted to find “home” in a place that had once been just that. After landing, it did seem like the old India with “the same burnt cooking- fire smell in the air … The airport was the same, teeming with human- kind, noisy and crowded and dingy. The cab ride from the airport to town was the same ... same smells, same trees, same thick acrid air, same ambling cows.” But once she got to her hotel, reality set in and she was saddened to find herself a stranger. Determined to enjoy her- self, she changed hotels and joined the other reunion attendees. The rest of the trip was filled with sight- seeing, visiting the old school, lunch- ing with former teachers and attend- ing Diwali festivities in the tented VIP section. But she felt a “discon- nect ... between being back in Delhi as a tourist versus how it had felt to live there. I could never really get over this feeling and I have to say, this was the hardest part ... because I truly realized the old cliché, you can never go back, and the magic would be impossible to recapture.” Many see that the communities that they once were part of are actu- ally still alive and thriving today, through reunions, alumni clubs and cyberspace. Returning to the country of one’s memories can allow for clo- sure. It allows you to say your final goodbyes as you see that you and the place have moved on. You realize that you are now only a tourist and no longer a “native,” and the country is no longer your home. Some reunions happen sponta- neously for joyous occasions. When Jenny and Richard got married in August 2005, it was the culmination of a truly international tale of romance. In the late 1970s, Jenny’s mother worked for State in what was then Zaire and her father was a Scot with the British High Commission. When Jenny was born, her family traveled as a British diplomatic family. Later, her parents divorced and her mother rejoined State. Jenny’s father was killed in 1996 after an attempted car- jacking in Kenya. In 1991, Jenny was in the 7th grade at the International School of Islamabad. There she became friends with a sophomore named Peggy. Peggy was also friends with a senior named Richard, whose father worked for USAID. By the end of 1992, they were all friends (Richard came back every summer from college). In 1994, Richard took both Peggy and Jenny to the prom. There was no romance between Richard and Jenny yet. Jenny and Richard’s paths contin- ued to intertwine as Jenny attended Syracuse University, as had Richard. Then in 2001, Jenny moved to Seattle and she and Richard became god- parents to Peggy’s first-born. Richard couldn’t make it to the baby’s birth, but as they are all part of a group that Jenny describes as “faux family” he made it out for a visit in December 2003. And then, “we stayed up late one night talking, after everyone else had gone to bed, and he suddenly kissed me. … He returned to New Hampshire a week later … and then a month later drove across country and moved in. “In March he informally asked for my hand, and then in July he got down and proposed on a camping trip to Rainier. We were together until August; then, he went to Ohio to get his master’s degree in geography. After years of knowing each other and being apart, it’s easier to live with a couple of months between visits. … Our wedding is in August and it will end up being mostly a reunion of oversea-ers, of whom most will be friends from Islamabad.” How to Organize a Reunion Some reunions are organized in conjunction with the school. One such school is the International School of Manila, which has held Continued from page 91 She knew that India had changed in 14 years, just as she had. But in her heart, she wanted to find “home” in a place that had once been just that.