Friday, February 17, 2012
Living in America town?
"You've always been a tourist here, you just didn't know it". (Hosseini 232) In chapter 19 of The Kite Runner, Amir returns to the home he never truly knew, Afghanistan. As a child, he had lived a sheltered life away from the merciless grip of the violent streets in Afghanistan. He had never known life outside of his gated home or even the community. Amir had lived an americanized lifestyle. When the cab driver very bluntly described this to him, Amir felt irritated but knew it was the truth. He found his home unrecognizable because he had never truly lived in what Afghanistan was; a country torn up by the constant bickering between old religious clans. Despite being born in the country, Amir felt like a stranger. A person who had no right to claim Afghanistan as his home. Have you guys ever been somewhere you thought you knew but realized it wasn't at all what you remembered?
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I experienced that feeling of detachment from a once familiar place when I had visited my hometown in Illinois. Living there, I had felt like I belonged; like Amir it was all I knew. It was all I thought I'd ever know. It wasn't until we had visited just the year after moving to Arizona, that I recognized how different Aurora was from the way I had left it. There was apparent change in everything. From the people I had grew up with to the trees that surrounded the areas I would stroll around. Everything seemed more developed then before. From that moment on, I had truly felt that sense of being a tourist. Even though I had only beeen gone for a year. Alot can evolve in a short time span.
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