welcome to America

The 12-hour flight from London and Los Angeles felt like nothing at all. I watched 4 movies, took a nap, had 2 meals.

The fun started after we landed at LAX. For 30 minutes, we sat and waited for a small vehicle to tow the plane to the gate, in some apparent homage to dinghy towing a large ship to harbor. Then the plane door connecting to the gate jammed. More waiting, but by this time, all of the passengers in the full flight were standing in the aisles.

When the door finally opened, people poured out in a scene from the evacuation of Saigon, dashing madly for the visa check-points. As I made my way to the substantially shorter queues for American citizens, an employee of the U.S. government moved towards me.

"Visitors to line 6," he said as he extended his arms, blocking my progress and pointing toward the very long lines for people holding foreign passports. "VISITORS TO LINE 6!"

I held up my passport. "American citizen."

"Oh," he lowered his arms. "This way, please."

I went to the first open counter and greeted the uniformed official.

"How long were you in China?" He asked, before he even opened my passport. He jerked slightly and caught himself, a split second too late. He shifted in his chair and sat up straight. "Uh... I mean, did you... were you in China? Where did you go?"

"Africa."

"Africa? What were you doing in Africa?" He riffled through the pages of my passport, bearing stamps for Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, England, Greece and Turkey (but none for any Asian countries).

"Volunteering."

"Oh. Ok. Go ahead."

"Thanks."

"Welcome back."