Over two weeks have passed since my parents picked me up from the bus station on a surprisingly chilly Wisconsin evening. Every time I leave the country and come back almost a year later, things seems more novel when I return, such as plentiful grass and credit card usage being typical. My friends on Facebook are my only link to the Arabic language now; I’ve had only a few dreams in Arabic now since returning, as opposed to every couple nights as I often did in Jordan, usually after a day with a lot of social interactions.

“Haneen lil-Wattun” means nostalgia for the nation. Besides a fitting turn of phrase for my feelings towards my homeland and my second, “adopted” country of Jordan, it’s also a famous song by the Egyptian opera singer, Um Kulthoum. Everyone over the age of 40 in the Arab world knows it instinctively and after I learned to use the phrase to describe my feeling towards both countries, I received many appreciative smiles, chuckles, and embraces.

I’m pleased to report that the usage of the Latvian airline “Air Baltic” was a success. For $530, I felt like a thief in the night compared to the typical one-way price of 900-1100 dollars. Although I had to jump flights between Amman, to Latvia, to Denmark, to Chicago over the course of 24 hours of traveling, it was worth it. The long leg was with SAS – Scandinavian Airlines, and they were anything but a budget airline. I’m still not entirely sure how my ridiculously cheap ticket translated to to flying with them.

After being dropped off at the airport by a colleague near ten at night, I had an uneventful wait in the terminal before being queried by a worried looking young Arab man with unusually brown-colored hair. He didn’t speak any English, but he had heard me talking to the Egyptians in the airport’s McDonalds and knew that I could speak passable Arabic. He asked me about how to find out about connecting flights from Latvia; would there be signs telling him where to go? Surprised, I explained to him that airports all had screens with flight times and gates. He revealed that he’d never flown before, or left Jordan – but he was on his way to Munich to meet his German mother, who had divorced his Jordanian father soon after birth (Jordanian and typical Arab laws always give the father control of the children, if he wants it. Apparently he did). He flipped through a crisp, brand-new EU German passport with some reverent awe as he spoke. The kid had never even seen his mother before, or been out-of-country, and didn’t speak either English or German. I gave him advice for the security checkpoints, before and after our flight together to Latvia, and held him back when he attempted to peel off into the “Milan” flight security gate. He could recognize the letter “M” at least. I told him to stick to searching for his gate number, instead of for words! As I left him to search for my own gate, he pulled me into a heartfelt hug and thanked me repeatedly while invoking typical Islamic blessings, and of course several last cheek kisses, which I realized even then would probably be the last Arabic cheek kisses I’d be receiving for a long time.

In the gate for my flight to Copenhagen, I waited patiently for the last four hours with my book. I had already printed out a guide to speaking Latvian (and after hearing it spoken by the flight attendants, I discovered that it sounded like a Beatles record played backwards and at a higher pitch) but as it had been six in the morning when I arrived, I figured that many of Riga city’s famous “beer gardens” wouldn’t be open yet, and anyway, I was leery about attempting to navigate an unknown bus system in Eastern Europe.

I had no seatmate on the first flight from Amman, which was almost empty, but the flight from Riga to Copenhagen was packed, and I was squeezed into a corner next to a tall and unsmiling Russian man, who didn’t chuckle when I joked with him that I thought I’d be the tallest one on the flight. It was only an hour, and I slept for most of it. I could see fjords under me when the cloud cover briefly burst, and sparkling seas with maybe even some ice floating in it.

On the 10 hour flight with SAS to Chicago, I chatted with my seatmates, a Swedish mother and daughter who were visiting the daughter’s brother in law in California. The two of them were a pair, bantering away with me in flutey, musical English, and then in lilting Swedish tones (which, come to think of it, also sounded like a backwards record). The mother had never been to the USA before, and was excitedly gesturing at the map when we passed from Canada to the Michigan yoo-pee. The daughter was a businesswoman who had spent a lot of time in the States and spoke perfect English. She smiled at her mother’s glee, and the older woman turned to me and said proudly, “We will go to Napa Valley. Yes. Vino!”

I made it through Chicago’s security checks in record time and my single bag was the first one off the baggage carousel. No one cared that I had brought a bag of cardamom seeds with me (although I had checked it on my immigration form) so I was able to get Wamidh and Hanan’s gift through customs without a problem. They’ve tasted great with American coffee, and I think about Jordan every time I grind up the bitter little black seeds into a cup.

Grass everywhere, as I left the terminal to the bus depot. A kindly Latino couple loaned me their cell phone so I could call my family to let them know I’d arrived, but then I went and sat in the well-manicured grass near the door for the half an hour before the bus arrived. If I hadn’t seen so much of it in Germany back in May, I probably would have suffered Vegetation Overload and gone into shock. When I think about it, I realize it’s been over two years since I’ve seen America’s greenery – I’ve only come back in the late fall or winter before when the Midwest’s green season is already over. I’m smart enough to know my body’s capabilities and not attempt such foolishness, but I wanted to turn cartwheels in the lawn.

The weeks have rushed by. My father’s birthday, assisting with my mother’s class reunion, bike riding along the lake, seeing friends again, my old high school’s Homecoming game, eating at a pig roast (!!) and even trying a bit of casino gambling – I can’t believe that September’s almost over now. Colleagues and friends in Jordan email me and Skype-me, asking how things are and of course to finalize last transitional work details over. My body gets cold easily in weather I’ve never been cold in before; I thought my hands were going to freeze off at the football game. It will take some time for me to readjust back to Midwestern temperatures – although the Celsius scale, like the rest of the Metric system, I refuse to give up; I drive at 100 km/h and I like it that way!

Life returns to old patterns and sadly, the human brain forgets the nuances of life in a foreign culture. I wish I could freeze my years in Jordan in time that I could revisit them perfectly whenever I wished, from the smell of Wusam’s Turkish coffee at the EGT, the sight from my roof of the ghostly glowing green minarets on the horizon of the Amman skyline, flickering in florescent song, and the feel of Wadi Rum’s sands between my feet as I’m running down a dune, ready to leap out and take brief flight. I could walk up the street past the alley cats and olive trees up to Abu Jbara and get a falafel sandwich, with the extra spice on the top, for a few coins, and a hot mint tea or an ice cold ‘bebsi.’ The unique tastes of the sauces of falafel, schwarma or even mensaf make my stomach growl with remembered pleasure.

But I think it will be the sounds that stick in my mind the longest – like of my coworkers laughing and talking in the Iraqi dialect at EGT, or Dozan wa Awtar singing in Jordan’s churches. From the tiny old transistor radios down in the Belad playing old Um Kulthoum songs like “Haneen lil-Wattun” to the massive megaphones on the mosques calling out every day, “Allahu Akbar“…God is Great. The hills of Amman echo the joyous call, over and over, imprinting it on my consciousness, the flickering green mosque lights on the hills each a unified beacon in this common prayer.

Allahu Akbar. God is Great. In sha’Allah raah yerjia’ li-beladi muta-binna al-Urdan. God willing I will return to my adopted country of Jordan.

In sha’Allah. God willing.