Welcome ! Hearty Welcome !
No other country in the world has mesmerized me so much
as the United States of America! Wow a super power, country which was made and
nurtured by immigrants. A land of
opportunity and what not!
Ever since childhood I had nurtured a hope that on e fine
day I will step on the soil of America! I was always longing for the same. With
the advent Information Technology and related IT enabled fields, in India
virtually every household has a couple of family members staying in the US. Youngsters
in professional roles and elders in the role of “unpaid baby sitters”!!
Well I got to a chance to land in Washington, for the first
time in America from Madagascar on 3rd May’2017.
We were all scared to death by stories of strict
immigration laws, visa issues, unfriendly customs and immigration people etc.
Even the airline people were doubly careful as they chose to ensure that the
customs forms were all filled properly.
On landing in Washington DC, we were quickly ushered into
the immigration counters. The person ensuring proper line up was very jovial
and asked us how were doing that morning and how as the flight etc. The
immigration officer was also quite cool. When I complimented him that he was the first foreigner
to pronounce my name correctly he was very happy and started eating out of my
hand.
He could not pronounce the ANTANANARIVO name of the
capital city of Madagascar where we are living. He said he had never heard about that city !!
On clearing and collecting the baggage we moved arrival
hall No. 1 to meet our daughter which is near Sarrinen Circle. We reached
arrival hall 1 and looking here and there and no trace of our daughter.
The place was crowded and there were plenty of unknown
faces, all eagerly awaiting someone on
the other known !
As a baker, I
could smell the aroma of freshly baked cookies emanating from somewhere . The
crowded hall had three ways to move. On directing my neck to the direction of
aroma of cookies I could see a counter with brightly lit sign proclaiming “ MAY
I HELP YOU !” in smoothing blue color. There were two volunteers a gentleman
and a lady ..both in their late fifties.
We chose to move there and seek help. We were welcomed
and we wanted to know the direction for Sarrinen circle. We were advised to use
their phone and call our daughter. Then on learning that our daughter was on
the way and would take up to twenty minutes we were made to sit comfortably and
offered to taste cookies !
We shared the biscuits we were carrying from Madagascar!
Then when our daughter called we were guided to the pick up point as there was no
parking facility nearby.
We were given tourist maps, brochures for sightseeing and
wishes a very happy stay in the United States of America !! We were told that
there are four hundred volunteers under TOURISTS & TRAVELERS program to
help visitors to America all our the country at important places like this !!
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