Present and future nostalgia

Things I miss about home (aside from the obvious--family and friends):

1. Taking walks
2. Mexican food
3. Speaking and hearing Spanish
4. The ocean
5. Congregational prayer
6. Waking up to Scott Simon's Saturday morning broadcast on NPR
7. Being able to get in a car and drive myself wherever I want

Things I will one day miss about Pakistan (aside from the obvious-- my students, and friends I've made here):

1. The fact that my living room smells like amroud and tangerines
2. The azzan
3. Food, especially kulfi, fresh rogni naan, fruit chaat, and Lahore Chatkara's behari beef kebab
4. Qawwali music on the radio
5. Herds of water buffalo swimming in the canal
6. The colors
7. Grafitti in Arabic script
8. Cheap dry-cleaning from home
9. Grammatical transliterations from Urdu, espcially being referred to as "you people."

Yes, I know that every culture exists in the U.S., and I can probably find South Asian radio and Pakistani food at home, but it's never quite the same. One day I'll miss being surrounded by Pakistan, all the noises, sights and smells. I'll go to a restaurant or a store and think fondly of when it was so easy to buy a plastic baggie of fruit chaat for a quarter on the way home from school, or of tugging my dopatta over my hair as the azzan starts to sound for maghreb, reminding me to look up and notice the pink sunset.