When my sister and I arrived at the airport in Toronto, my mother was already waiting for us. She is a nervous traveller and one who strictly abides by the “be here 3 hours before your departure time” suggestion. She called three times that morning to make sure my sister and I remembered that. That’s on top of the 5 other times she mentioned it during the week leading up to our trip. She gets nervous. My sister gets annoyed. I’m the buffer in the middle with the sense of humour and a “who cares….CUBA!” attitude.
My mother never has a reason to be nervous, but there is something about the border that really rattles her.
I remember our road trips to the USA when we were kids. That was back when both my parents were still heavy cigarette smokers. My sister and I would sit in the backseat, dodging the wind blown ashes from their nervous chain smoking. I hated crossing the border with them, especially as I got older. They had nothing to hide but their nerves would get us pulled over anyway.
My mother was always in the passenger seat and would do one of two things:
1. Nervously lean across my father to loudly answer the border patrol officer’s questions…that were directed AT my father.
2. Nervously avoid ALL eye contact with the border patrol officer, even if he was talking to her.
Both of those options raise red flags at the border. 30 years later, she’s as nervous as ever.
At the airport now, I’m happy to learn that my mother has already checked in. This means my sister and I can check in without her. That excitement is short lived as she insists on standing in line with us. The line is very short and in my head I’m chanting “told you so, na na na na na!” I wouldn’t say that out loud though, there is no point in fueling my mother’s nervous fire.
My sister will be 36 this year, I’m 34 years old. Still, no matter how old we get, my mother feels like she has to give us step by step directions for life. Today is no different…take out your passports, get in this line, after you check in, we go to the gate, etc. We laugh it off, she knows how ridiculous it is, but she will always be our mommy. She laughs too.
At the counter, we learn that my mother called ahead and paid for us to have the seats with extra leg room up front. The ones that offer extra leg space. I secretly hope she doesn’t expect me to pay her back for that, I would have been just fine with the regular seat. I’m already preparing my “I didn’t need that” speech in my head in case she asks, but I know she won’t.
Our seats are in the second row of the airplane, last ones to board, first to depart. I like this already. My speech is already changing to “maybe I could pay half of the extra cost.”
When we finally get seated, my tiny legs are grateful for all that extra space. Ahhhhhh. This is lovely!!! Totally worth my mother spending the money. Muahahaha. I’m still not paying her back though.
As the first ones off the airplane, I get to immigration before the line up even begins. My sister gets in line behind me and my mother goes into the booth of another immigration officer.
He looks at me, smiles and say hello. He is speaking half English, half Spanish with a strong Cuban accent…a combination I have absolutely no problem understanding. (I can’t write in Spanish so I’ll write in English and you can use your imagination for what the conversation sounded like in Spanglish).
Before he looks at my passport, he asks a very robotic, “Have you been to Africa?” He doesn’t even flinch, fully expecting me to say no. I say “yes.” He repeats the question to make sure I’m understanding his broken English properly, “Have you been to Africa?”
“Yes!”
“Are you Spanish?”
“No, I’m Portuguese.”
At this point he realizes that I completely understand Spanish and he repeats the question again, this time ALL in Spanish. Maybe he thinks my Spanish is stronger than my English but the answer is still the same.
“Yes, I was in Africa”.
Ohhhhhhh.
He picks up the phone and calls for someone to come over. As we wait, he starts to ask questions about where I’ve been. “Sierra Leone?” he repeats to make sure he heard me correctly. I look back at my sister and tell her that she’s probably better in another line up. He picks up the phone again for a rush order. I tell him I’ve been back since April, but I’m avoiding telling him the reason I was there. He’s not asking, and I’m certainly not volunteering that minor detail.
I can see that my mother has cleared customs and she’s watching me from the other side of the glass. Nervous mommy is back. I can’t hear her but I can read her lips asking me “what happened?” I smile to say that everything is fine, she’s still nervous. She hasn’t smoked in 13 years but there are times I can still picture her lighting up. This is one of those moments. I’m grateful that she’s not in the booth with me.
A few minutes later, a woman walks into our booth. He tells her I speak Spanish and she starts the same line of questioning. This time she adds, “were you in Sierra Leone for pleasure?”
“No, I was there for work.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
Damn!!!!! ” I was working at the Ebola treatment centre with the Red Cross”
” For Ebola?”
“Yes.”
She uses her fingers to calculate how long it’s been since I returned and after a couple minutes, decides that 4 months is long enough to declare me Ebola-free.
“That must have been very difficult work.”
“Yes, it was sometimes.”
“Ok, enjoy your vacation, you probably need it.”
“Gracias.”
We all smile at each other and she leaves. He finishes stamping my passport and I join my mother on the other side.
I’m taken back to Sierra Leone for a brief moment before I shake it off. This is my escape; reality will still be waiting for me next week.
I join my mother and we wait for my sister. Let the vacation begin!!!!