Kite Runner

My Journey

Moving to a different country at the age of ten was as much of an adventure for me as it was pure torture for my mother. On a voyage that took more than twenty-four hours, the eager, wide eyes of my sister and I had not shut once, and neither had my mother's. At one o'clock in the morning, we squealed and fought for a glimpse out the plane's tiny window, as my exhausted mother apologized continuously to the sleep-deprived passengers. After seven years, I still can remember peeping out and gasping, gazing upon the bright lights of Cairo. A million specks of color, each one brilliant and full of possibilities lay beneath my feet. I was coming upon a country full of stars, and according to my mother, it was to be my new country; I could not tear my eyes away.

The first year of my new life in America was a year of firsts. It was the first time I had ever run under a sky so stunningly clear and blue, and so impossibly huge; it was the first time I had played with my sister in our own yard (with grass in it!), and not seen one skyscraper, it was the very first year I held in my chubby hands, the cold, white, amazing substance that is snow; and it was the first year that I fell in love with America.

However hard I worked, however much my body was drained from exhaustion, my mind weary from lack of sleep, I could not seem to gain ground in my race to be accepted. How can I, when I am labeled an "alien"; when I peer into the mirror and see a strange boy, with big eyes, brown skin, and a black hair starring back?

I