When you're an ARA you'll most likely go back and forth throughout the years between your home and host. It's always the same ritual it seems. Towards the start of a western holiday season, there's an influx of ARAs visiting their homeland, filling up the airport and pushing up ticket prices. Towards the end, that same group of kids go back, back to school. It wasn't until the international airport put all North American flights in the same terminal did I really notice that I was part of the collective.
I was in my first year of university. That night, as usual, I said goodbye to my relatives before I reluctantly walked out of the door. My dad had already rolled my luggages out to the streets. On the car, I tried ambitiously to catch a glimpse at every part of the city as if it was my last. Within that 45 minute short ride, I'd already developed feelings for the stray dog, the street vendor, the diesel bus and the cafe. No matter how long you've been away from that place, you'd have already fallen right back in love by the time you leave. I guess that's what home means.
As usual, we arrived a good two and a half hours before I had to board, this is so we can slowly digest our last moment together before seeing each other in another year. We picked a table in the small cafeteria, ordered some snacks and tea from the cafes. That was when I noticed that every table around us were made up the same way with the same people - a quiet and seemingly depressed teenage kid, a dad who kept on reminding the kid about subjects that went unappreciated, and also, a mum who quietly fed slices of oranges to the kid. The kid would reluctantly swallow the seemingly tasteless snacks. I smirked sarcastically, "what is this, has this become an annual tradition for ARAs?" We should have a day in early January called "Sending off ARAs Day" and every parent of an ARA can get a day off the next in lieu of their late night driving to the airport.
The same thing happened before we enter the customs. You'd see trios forming around you, with all them parents hugging and kissing their kid goodbye and seeing them into the gate. I'm always one of the few emotional kid who'd shed a few tears. I've done this show so many times prior to that day. But perhaps due to childhood memory, it's as if I'm programmed to weep whenever I have part with mum and dad at the airport.
As usual, I finally picked up my satchel and went in, pockets full of used tissue paper, head held low to avoid public embarrassment. I slowly walked towards my boarding gate, trying to absorb as much of my surroundings as possible to take back with me. After relieving myself in the washroom, I'd then find a pay phone to call my grandmother, then my parents, before boarding. And then, the set down of the handset marks the first step of disconnection with my loved ones.
