Multicultural Misfits

Prologue

If I were to describe this period of my life, it would be a catastrophe.

My dad's contract ending, my plans for university cancelled, and my grandfather's death.

My life is currently falling apart.

We are moving back to Indonesia after spending exactly a decade in the Middle East.

Indonesia is a country that makes up half of me, but a country I have no memory nor feel a connection to.

Memories of my dad's face the day we got the news about my Kakek replay in my mind as I attempt to take a final nap before we land at Soekarno Hata International Airport. 

Just a week earlier, my dad's work had informed him that they were no longer extending his contract, and so my parents had already been in disarray. I thought my grandfather's death would break my dad, but as I peek a glance across the aisle to where he sits, he looks oddly calm, staring blankly at the flight path on his screen.

I feel my eyes go glassy. Not a single time did I see him cry, not whilst we were packing our lives up and not when we said goodbye to the many friends we had in Doha. Not even now. Mum and I knew he was holding his emotions back and we were afraid of when it would come gushing out.

I wipe my eyes, turning away. They were still stinging from the rivers that had cascaded earlier. 

Truth be told, I had shed more tears about leaving Doha than about my grandfather's death. That day, when we got the call from Aunt Cinta, Dad's older sister, he went still whilst Mum wept onto his shoulder. 

My grandfather was a distant memory, buried with most of my childhood that was spent in Indonesia. I only cried because Mum was, but I didn't tell anyone that.

Mum and Yusuf are still asleep, their heads leaning against each other. We have less than two hours till we hit the asphalt, the thought making my stomach churn even more than it already has from the turbulence. I had left Indonesia as a child and now, I was returning as an adult with not an ounce of eloquence in my father tongue.

Why did I need to learn it when all we needed was Arabic and English in Qatar?

Yusuf, like my Dad, did not cry. 

Like me, he had neither recollection of my grandfather, nor any recent memories, and I didn't blame him. We had moved to Doha when he was two and I, eight years old. Qatar feels more like home than Indonesia ever did. We visited Sweden, my mum's homeland, most summers but still, it felt more like a holiday destination than home.

Nowhere was home, not for multicultural misfits like me and my brother. But then mum would always say home is a feeling, not a place.

I am yet to learn what that means.

Glossary:

Kakek - Grandfather